


Fringe & the Dead

by cotillion66 (C0tilli0n)



Category: Fringe
Genre: Complete, Drama, F/M, Gen, Horror, Post-Apocalyptic, Romance, Suspense, Thriller, Zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-18
Updated: 2017-07-22
Packaged: 2018-01-20 16:09:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 38
Words: 732,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1516805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/C0tilli0n/pseuds/cotillion66
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Fringe team struggles to survive and find answers in the aftermath of a zombie apocalypse. Set very early in season 1. AU</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Bridge Too Far

**October 2008**

Ruins.

Ruins and smoking hulks were all that remained of most of the city.

That was all Olivia Dunham could see for miles. In every direction it was the same, columns of thick black smoke, curling upward lazily and choking out the blue sky. The columns coagulated overhead, taking the form of dark thunderclouds that twisted and roiled above the desolated landscape. The smell of soot was strong in the air, its acrid odor burned at her nose as particles of ash drifted down around her, coating everything in a thin layer of gray snowflakes that mocked her in their resemblance to the real thing.

Olivia brushed the ash off one arm of her jacket, and then brought the sleeve up to her mouth. She wished she had thought to bring a bandanna, or something, anything, she could have used to filter the air. Cambridge was an old town, full of old structures built before the advent of current building standards. The thought of breathing in asbestos, or some other toxic material was not at all pleasant. Walter had warned her. She should have listened.

She shifted on her perch, and lifted the binoculars to her eyes again, looking around the huge iron bell toward the south, toward the Charles, and at Allston, beyond its banks. Her apartment in Brighton lay further to the southwest. The skeletons of shattered buildings filled her vision, crumbled brick walls and piles of rubble in the streets, cars left abandoned in long lines. The street directly below the bell tower was clear, but it was the exception, not the rule. The haze in the air was too thick to make out much of anything of her neighborhood, but there was no reason to think it had been spared from the same fate Cambridge had suffered. Before the power had failed for good, television reports had said the outbreak was spreading citywide, and she had heard as much from her superiors at the Federal Building, before cell service had gone silent also.

Not that they had been in contact lately, or would ever be again, judging from the destruction before her. The fires had been raging unchecked for days, fueled by an unlucky wind from the east that had blown unabated, consuming large portions of the city. The army had done their best, as much good as it had done them in the end.

Thinking idly, she wondered if Broyles had died well. He had been right in the middle of it all when everything had gone wrong. The reports had said the downtown area was the worst. So many people crammed into a small area.

Across the river, a figure shambled into view, moving with a lurching gait that was instantly recognizable. Sucking in a sharp breath, she centered the creature in the binoculars, and watched as it moved slowly across a street. She judged the distance to be about a mile away, maybe a little less.

It was one of _them_.

The figure—a man she thought it must be from its clothes—stumbled into the side of a red hatchback, stopped diagonally against a slanted telephone pole. The front of the car was crumpled, wrapped around the pole's wooden base. The driver's window was down or broken from the crash. A body hung out the open window, draped over the door like a wet rag where he or she had attempted to climb out, or someone had tried and been unable to pull them out. It didn't matter, either way they had failed. If they weren't dead already, they soon would be. The figure pushed up against the car for a moment, then moved along its length until it came across the body obstructing its path. It seemed to sniff the air for an instant before bending down toward the body, and clutching at it with claw-like fingers.

Olivia let the binoculars drop as the body in the car began to struggle weakly. So they weren't dead…yet. Still, there was nothing she could do, for any of them.

Peter had proven that, and quite convincingly.

_How can this be happening?_ she thought, not for the first time since it all started, nor the hundredth. She closed her eyes, wishing she could purge the image she had seen just before dropping the binoculars from her memory.

"Anything?"

Charlie Francis's whisper carried up the shaft to her ears over the blowing wind. She opened her eyes and glanced down at her friend and former partner, crouched up against the ladder which gave access to the Church of St. Paul's bell tower.

Before she could reply, a gunshot cracked in the distance, breaking the eerie silence that had become the new norm for Boston since the event, as she had come to refer to it as. Below her, Charlie ducked down, drawing his pistol from its holster under his arm. He kept his flashlight focused in the stairwell.

Olivia lifted the binoculars to her eyes again, and stared back toward the single figure she had been watching before.

There was man moving toward the red hatchback. A live human, dressed in tan camouflage, complete with full body armor and helmet, and carrying what looked like an M4 Carbine, the stock pressed up against his shoulder as he cautiously approached the unmoving figure lying next to the vehicle.

A soldier. She figured the man must have been separated from his squad, or was the last one left alive.

_Get out of there!_ Olivia tried to push the thought toward the soldier across the distance between them. Loud noises always drew others, something they had learned very quickly early on. _Another pearl of wisdom from Peter Bishop_ , she thought, gritting her teeth. The irritating man had positively gloated when he'd been proven right, nevermind that civilization was on its knees.

"Liv!" Charlie hissed from the bottom of the ladder. "What do you see?"

"Military. Just one," Olivia called down him without looking away.

The man had been lucky so far. Walter thought they might have difficulty pinpointing the location of a single, isolated sound. Something about how the infected brain parsed information. It had been pure gibberish to her, even after Peter had tried to translate.

The soldier toed with his boot at the body on the ground, as if reassuring himself that it would not rise again. It was a pointless gesture, in her opinion. He would know already if the thing was still…alive, or whatever its status was. The technical term Walter had used wasn't readily accessible. She refused to consider using the name Peter had taken to calling them.

Apparently satisfied with his kill, the soldier turned toward the body in the hatchback. He lifted the head, then jerked his hand back. He stepped back quickly away from the car as the arms reached out toward him, clawing at the space between them futilely.

_No!_ Olivia shouted in her head as the soldier raised his weapon again. Did the fool not have a knife?

The man fired a single a shot. There was a flash from the muzzle, and then the sound of it reached her ears a moment later.

Sensing movement, she glanced down at John. He was crouched against a manicured hedgerow that lined the sidewalk in front of an unrecognizable burned out structure, diagonally across the street from the church, watching their tail. He was sporting an M4 of his own, recovered from a camouflaged corpse lying forgotten on the sidewalk they had come across south of the Harvard campus. That had been two days ago. She didn't think he had let the weapon out of his sight since then, especially when in the presence of one Peter Bishop. The two men did not get along well. Or rather, John didn't get along with Peter. He had claimed it wasn't jealousy when she'd confronted him about it, and she had assured him—and reminded herself—that there was nothing to be jealous about. She thought Peter might be indifferent to the situation, though certainly not unaware of John's enmity.

Peter was a difficult man to read at best, though she was starting to pick up on some of his tells. He had strange sort of honor though, and she sensed there was a good man somewhere beneath his layers of sarcasm and dry humor.

As the gunshot from across the river faded away, John hoisted the rifle up to his shoulder, and then looked up at her. She could read the question on his face at a glance, just from the tilt of his head.

She shook her head in response. No, there were no threats close to them that she could detect.

John nodded, and let the barrel of his rifle dip toward the sidewalk. He tossed her a little salute with two fingers from his free hand.

Olivia grinned fondly, and then lifted the binoculars again. Her smile faded as she returned her gaze to the soldier, using the crashed red hatchback as a view finder. Where he'd been standing was now pile of writhing bodies, which grew larger with every moment as more and more of the…infected, which was the word she preferred to call them by, joined the fray. She could almost make out a red mist in the air above the scrum, but surely that was her imagination at work.

Dropping the binoculars to her lap, she mopped a hand across her brow and sighed, feeling a momentary queasiness in her gut. It was all so useless.

Guns were a last resort. How the fellow had survived as long as he had without knowing that, was a mystery in itself. Unfortunately for him, he had learned that particular lesson too late.

Realizing that she was stalling the inevitable, she placed the binoculars back in her backpack and cinched it tight, and then slipped her arms through the straps, hefting the heavy pack onto her shoulders. She descended the ladder quickly, back to an anxious Charlie who was staring intently down the narrow stairwell to the church proper, illuminated by his flashlight.

He looked up as she dropped to the landing, skipping the last few ladder rungs. "What happened?" he asked. "I heard another shot."

Olivia moved past him, pulling out her own flashlight and taking the first steps downward. "It was a soldier. National Guard, I think," she said over her shoulder. "He killed two of them, those…things."

"And?" Charlie queried, following after her.

"And he stuck around." Her voice sounded false and emotionless to her ears. A man, no two people, had just been killed right before her eyes, and all she felt was a deepening sense of resignation. She was becoming desensitized to all the tragedies they were encountering daily, and sometimes hourly…minutely.

"Shit…"

Olivia nodded in the darkness. There was nothing more to say.

#

When they emerged on the street outside the church, they split up, with Charlie leaving to retrieve John from his hiding place where he'd been watching their flank around the corner. Olivia shielded her eyes from the daylight as she waited for their return, and gazed down the empty street that led to the Weeks Bridge, and ultimately, her apartment in Brighton.

They had to be there still. Before contact with them was lost, she had left strict instructions with Greg to let no one inside the apartment, and had even gone so far as to give him the location of her spare pistols and ammo. Rachel said he was familiar with guns, and she hoped to god her sister was right. She hadn't told him to aim for the head though, hadn't known it was the only way to stop them short of fire, at the time. He had to have figured it out. He had to.

Greg would protect them until she could get there. It had become her mantra over the last few weeks, what woke her up each morning.

"Olivia!" Charlie's harsh cry was low but urgent, imperative. He never called her by her full name unless it was important.

_John. Oh god, no…no…no…_

Olivia turned and sprinted toward his voice. She grabbed the at church's brick exterior as she rounded the corner, trying to keep her balance on the gravelly sidewalk against her inertia. Her backpack had grown heavy from the supplies that they had scavenged, and its additional weight threw her balance out of whack as she skidded to a stop at the scene before her.

Charlie was standing at the other end of the block, near the spot she had seen John from up in the bell tower. Dismay was written across his features, and at his feet lay the assault rifle John had been so proud of. The nicely manicured evergreen bushes he had been crouched in front of were disturbed as if something had pushed through them, forcing the branches outward.

Numbness seeped into her limbs, and Olivia forced herself to take a step closer, then another step, followed by another as she encountered a wall of dread that overloaded her senses. Pushing through it was like striding through deep water. The world seemed to come to a stop as she noticed a large stain on the ground next to the rifle. The stain was wet, and crimson in color. She didn't need her training to know it for what it was.

She felt a pain in her chest that forced her mouth open, and realized it was her heart breaking. Her breath was loud in her ears, obscuring all other sounds, reducing them to background noise.

There were scuff marks leading away from the stain, streaks of dark red that disappeared around the corner, the view blocked by the row of tall bushes.

Olivia lifted her eyes to Charlie, who shook his head slowly. His lips were thin and curled into a deep frown of regret.

She continued moving closer, and reached the spot where the bushes were disturbed. In a narrow gap between two of them, a body was sprawled on its back in the grass on the other side of the hedgerow. It was one of them, an old woman from the flowery patterns on her dirt and blood encrusted dress. A black knife hilt protruded from its mangled cheek. From the angle of entry, her agent persona informed her dispassionately that the blow had been struck from below, with an upward thrust.

It was John's knife.

Charlie tried to stop her as she moved past him, putting one arm up in front of her, blocking her path. "Liv…" he said, holding her back. "Don't…you don't need to see-"

"Get out of my way, Charlie." she said through clenched teeth, pushing up against him.

After a moment he sighed, and dropped his arm. His chin dropped on his chest as she moved past, following the scuff marks around the corner. A pair of familiar boots came into view, and she stopped, wanting nothing more than to turn back, to start the day over, to wake up from the twisted nightmare her life…all their lives had become. A small part of her wished she taken Peter up on his offer to come with her, instead of John, as horrible as it sounded.

Olivia took another step, and there he was. Her John.

He was facedown on the sidewalk, his arms outstretched before him, clawing at the sidewalk where he had attempted to pull himself before his strength had given out. His head was turned to the side, eyes closed, the familiar lines of his face which she knew so well, outlined in red with his blood.

Her vision blurred with the sting of salt in her eyes.

Where she had been reluctant to move forward before, she was suddenly at his side without seeming to pass through the intervening space, so fast had she rushed forward and thrown herself down at his side. Her knees banged hard on the rough concrete, sending spiky jolts of pain up through her thighs that she would only feel afterward, on the long sprint back to the lab. She pulled him over onto his back, and her hand flew to her mouth, pinching at her nose as the full extent his injury was revealed.

There was gash on the side of his neck, from which blood still flowed freely. The edges were jagged and torn, and distinctly mouth-shaped, as if someone had taken a bite out of him. A choking sob escaped her lips as it came to her that that was exactly what had happened.

"Oh god, John…" Olivia whispered behind her hand. Her throat constricted painfully, making it difficult to draw breath. Tears fell from her her cheeks onto his jacket, mingling with blood already staining it red, leaving clear circles which repelled the blood for an instant before giving way to its greater volume.

She reached out with an unsteady hand and touched his cheek, running her thumb over the ridge under his eye. His skin was warm to the touch. He was always warm, no matter how chilly it got in her apartment. Once upon a time she had called him her personal furnace. He had laughed at that. They had both laughed.

His eyes opened as she pulled her hand away.

"John!" she said, leaning close to his face. "John?"

John blinked, his blue eyes focusing and unfocusing on the sky above, before finally locating her. He tried to smile as their eyes met, his face twisting into a rictus, showing off rows of red teeth. "Liv…" His voice was bubbly and wet-sounding, barely audible. Blood leaked from the corner of his mouth, leaving a red streak behind as it dripped to the sidewalk off his cheek.

"What is it, baby?" She leaned close as he tried to speak again, putting her hands on either of his cheeks. "I'm here."

"They said…couldn't tell..." John gurgled for a moment, a reddish bubble forming across his open lips. The bubble popped as he found his voice. "They said…the pattern…not…this side…ughh…" He let out a low gasp, and the muscles of his chest tightened under her forearms, as if he were about to seize. His eyes opened all the way, showing the whites all around. "Liv…" he gasped again, staring at her intently. "I…I…sorr-" He exhaled a long, gurgling breath, and then went still. His eyes glazed over, their focus fixed and unmoving.

"John…" Olivia choked, staring down at his still form.

_Don't go…_

She gave his head a little shake. "John!" The blood had stopped flowing from the wound in his neck, its work finally done. He was dead.

He was dead. John was dead.

Olivia brushed his hair back, feeling dazed as the words kept repeating in her head. She couldn't seem to process the finality of their meaning. John couldn't be dead. He just…couldn't be. Her gaze lingered on his face, re-memorizing his features. His forehead was hot under her palms, hotter than normal, as if he were suffering from a fever. She could almost feel him growing hotter by the second. _A fever!_ Her hope flared to life again, clinging to that possibility.

_He isn't dead, he's just sick!_ She had to get him back to the lab, back to Walter.

Gravel crunched behind her as her partner approached. "Charlie, help me with him. We need to get him to Walter!" she said, looking back at him. "He's sick."

Charlie's face was grim as he moved closer. The grimace deepened as he bent down and took a closer look John's face. "Liv…we can't help him." His voice was gentle, but firm.

"What do you mean, we can't help him?" Olivia said angrily. "It's John. He's your friend!"

"Was he bitten?"

"Bitten?" Olivia repeated the word stupidly. It sounded strange on her tongue, like she was speaking another language. "Yeah…but he's…he's…" Her thoughts ground to a halt as what Charlie was getting at finally penetrated, piercing the deluded, grief-stricken fog she'd been under. "Oh god…" she murmured, and turned back to John.

His face was still slack, but his eyes drew her gaze like a magnet. The whites were almost entirely bloodshot, as if every blood vessel had burst in them at once. Where they had been an intense blue before, an ugly yellow-gold stared back at her.

"Charlie…" she uttered softly, leaning closer John' face, despite a dry voice telling that it might be a bad idea. "His eyes, I…I think he's turning…" Olivia stopped as awareness suddenly bloomed in the golden orbs.

They rotated around in their sockets for a moment, before finally latching on to her face. It wasn't John staring back at her. The gaze was… _empty_ , devoid of anything but pure instinct, animal-like and unblinking. The eyes of a predator. A raspy breath issued forth from between blood-stained teeth.

"Liv, get away from him!" Charlie said sharply.

Olivia started pull away from it, but was yanked back as the thing that had been her lover only moments ago, grabbed her with an iron grip. Fingertips dug into her shoulder blades painfully as she was pulled down toward the thing's bared teeth. They snapped audibly as she stopped her downward progress just short of being bitten herself, turning her face away and pressing back on its shoulders with both hands.

"Charlie!" Olivia gasped, straining against the pressure that was forcing her inexorably downward again, despite her best effort to resist. The thing seemed to have John's strength.

"Hold on!"

She sensed her partner kneeling down next to to her, and then his knife flashed, sliding smoothly into John's…no the thing's temple. The pressure on her back relaxed at once, and Olivia rolled away from the corpse, breathing hard. She stared up at the clouds above, and then covered her face with her hands, trying hard to hold in a fresh bout of tears.

"Did it bite you?" Charlie asked, standing over her. His voice was loud in the silence, and there was a panicky edge to it. When she didn't answer right away, he bent down and ripped her hands away from her face. "Did it bite you!"

His sudden shout startled her out of her stupor. "No!" Olivia shook her head emphatically, and then sat up. "I'm fine…" she panted, catching her breath. "It didn't…it didn't bite me."

Charlie dropped his head. He folded at the waist, resting his hands on his knees and sucking in a deep breath. "Fuck…that was way too close, kiddo." He straightened, then retrieved his knife from the body, wiping the blade clean before depositing it back in its sheath. "You scared the shit out of me, Liv."

"I'm sorry…" she said. "I…kinda lost it there for a moment. I wasn't thinking." She swiveled her head slowly. "It…it won't happen again."

It wouldn't happen again. She thought she had been prepared for something like what had happened. A bite was death, a bite was becoming one of them. She knew that. But she hadn't really _known_ it, through and through, until seeing the transformation take place before her eyes. Until seeing the man she thought she loved die, and then come back, not as himself.

It wouldn't happen again.

"Don't worry about it," Charlie told her. "Here." He extended a hand and pulled her to her feet, and then looked down at John. "What do you want to do with him?"

"Leave it," Olivia said. "That isn't John." She knew it sounded callous, but that thing…she could no longer think of it as her John. It had tried to tear her face off. It wasn't John. A single tear forced its way through her defenses, and rolled down her cheek. She didn't wipe it away.

"Okay…" Charlie said regretfully, taking one last look at his former friend. "We should get out of here, then. We weren't exactly being quiet."

Indeed they hadn't, and Olivia could already see that they had drawn company. "I agree," she said, grabbing her pack off the sidewalk where it had fallen. She nodded over Charlie's shoulder, where several of the infected were moving toward them with their crooked gaits.

"Fucking zombies…" Charlie muttered, watching their approach. "Where to?"

"Not you too, Charlie." She shook her head, thinking of Peter. "Zombies?"

"Hey, if the shoe fits…" He grinned for an instant, then glanced back at the body on the sidewalk and sighed.

Olivia ignored him, and thought for a moment. It was much too late in the day cross the river. She'd begun having doubts that it would be possible to reach her apartment before nightfall, even if they left at sunrise. Getting trapped in the dark was too great a risk. _I'm sorry Rach, Ella. You're gonna have to hold on a little longer._ "Back to Harvard…the lab." She glanced back at in the direction of the Weeks Bridge. It would have to wait. "We'll try again tomorrow, maybe the day after."

They started forward, moving back the way they had come at a loping gait. Olivia snatched up John's rifle as they moved past. It felt good in her hands, its weight solid and comforting. Somehow more real, given everything that had happened, and how precarious life had become.

She understood now why he had been so loathe to let go of it. Gripping it tightly, she hurried after Charlie and didn't look back.


	2. A Bridge Too Far

**-September 2008**

_._

_We are staying at the lab again tonight, on the last orders we received from Agent Broyles. It's not safe to be outside after dark. They seem to be more active when the sun goes down. More alert, according to Peter Bishop. Him and Agent Dunham said the building the was secure for the night, that they would work on it more in the morning. I don't like all the empty rooms above us. I can't believe this happening. I haven't been able to reach my father. I hope he's okay, that he's safe, and outside the city._

_I'm scared._

_AF_

_._

_._

The tension in the voice on the other end of the line was the first clue that something was amiss. There was an uncharacteristic tremor in his deep voice, his normally tough demeanor replaced by a hint of breathlessness, or dare she say it, of fear. The words he was saying, what Olivia was hearing, his orders for her and the others, were something out of a dream, or better yet, something out of her worst nightmare.

He couldn't be serious. It had to be some kind of joke, a bizarre, twisted, test of some sort, which she was just…unable to fathom the purpose of at the moment. That had to be it.

His voice rose rose in volume and intensity, competing with the sounds of screams and shouts of men and women in panic, which roared into focus clearly in the background. The sounds were distracting, making it difficult to focus on what he was saying. She heard a series of loud cracks that sounded suspiciously like gunfire, more screams, some of which sounded almost inhuman, and then the line went quiet.

"Sir?" Olivia said after a moment. "Are you there? Agent Broyles?"

A wave of mind-numbing coldness swept over her as she checked the phone's display.

_Call ended._

Olivia quickly re-dialed her superior's number, trying to ignore how her fingers fumbled over the phone's keypad. She rose slowly from her desk as the robotic voice of the Bureau's voice mail system answered after the first ring, and stared out through the slits in the blinds of her office window as its cold voice asked her if she would like to leave a message.

Out in the lab, the Bishop's and Astrid were busy eating the Chinese carry-out that she had picked up on her way back from the Federal Building. Her container of moo-goo-gai-pan was still sitting unopened next to Peter where she had left it, just minutes earlier, before she had received the disturbing call from Broyles.

Peter looked up from his special fried rice, and their eyes met through the office window. His fork had paused in its journey upward, halfway between his container and its final destination. His mouth hung open in anticipation of the coming bite, but slowly hinged shut as the ridge between his eyes furrowed with concern.

Olivia tried to pull her gaze from his but found it to be impossible. Her normally calm, rational mind had ground to shrieking halt as Agent Broyles's message percolated downward, through the layers of adulthood, toward the place where the little girl in her still lived, afraid of the dark and all the un-rational things that resided there, the festering masses of long-forgotten horrors.

The fork dropped from Peter's hand, falling down into the container, then flipped down on the lab table, catapulting sticky rice and bits of shrimp onto her assistant's lap. She saw it all happen in slow motion, could almost see the individual gains of rice in mid-air, flinging end over end. Astrid flinched back from the shower of rice, her gawk of protest directed at Peter falling on deaf ears.

He was no longer on his stool.

It seemed that Peter was in the doorway before the grains of rice has completed their arc. Olivia couldn't fathom how he'd moved so quickly, how he'd seemed to have appeared out of thin air in front of her.

"What is it?" he said.

She blinked, and tried to speak, but no sounds issued from her lips. Her throat was dry, the air in her lungs solid.

"Olivia? …Agent Dunham?"

He took an uncertain step toward her, holding his hands out before him like he was approaching a wild animal. "Who was on the phone?" he said, smartly changing his tactic.

She found her voice, buried somewhere between a rising panic, and a stray thought of her sister, who'd been planning a trip to the museum that day with Ella. They should be back at her apartment already.

"Uhh…that—it was Broyles," she managed to say, shifting her face up to his face. "Something…something's happened—is happening."

"What? Where?"

Olivia took a deep breath. Having gotten those initial words out, the rest followed with only a modicum of difficulty. "He…he was at Boston General," she said, motioning him to step inside the office. "There's been some kind of outbreak…or something. He wasn't very clear before he…he…got cut off."

"An outbreak?" Peter frowned, and then shifted warily on the balls of his feet. "You mean like a virus?" he asked.

Olivia shook her head slowly. "No…" she said in a whisper. "Not like a virus. Let's take a walk."

#

#

The campus outside the Kresge Building was breezy, with warm gusts blowing in from the east, rustling the collages of red-gold autumn leaves and drifting those that had already been tugged down by time and gravity. Students milled about on the grassy quad in little clumps, young men and women with bright smiles and even brighter futures ahead of them.

They were unaware of what was happening Downtown. Their blissful ignorance couldn't last. Word would reach them, and there would be a panic. It would happen soon. What her superior had described…word of it would spread—and quickly.

"It seems pretty normal out here, Olivia," Peter said from her side. "Are you sure Broyles wasn't just messing with you?" He took a step down from the Kresge Building entrance, looking left and right across the quad, then turned back to her. "I mean, you gotta admit…undead? C'mon…"

Olivia looked over at him sharply. "I didn't say they were undead, Peter," she said. "And neither did Agent Broyles. He said—"

"That there was an outbreak of people previously dead, who no longer were." he cut in, holding up a finger.

"They're not undead, they're—sick or something, Peter. I don't know what it is," she said flatly. "But you will not call them that when we tell the others."

Peter shrugged noncommittally. "Sure, whatever you say, sweetheart," he muttered, scratching at the thick scruff on his unshaven cheeks.

Olivia stepped closer to him. With her on a higher step than him, their eyes were level. "I already asked you not to call me that, Bishop," she said, fixing him with a burning glare. His blue eyes met her gaze without blinking. One corner of his mouth slowly turned upwards. She recognized the smart-ass look he displayed when he was being particularly difficult, and shook her head. "I don't have time for this. People are  _dying_."

She twirled away from him and yanked open the door, then marched back inside. The lobby just inside the entrance was loud and full of students, apparently a class had just ended, and she pushed her way through them, all the while considering whether it had been a mistake to keep the younger Bishop around after the incident with Flight 627 two weeks ago. Not that he wasn't competent, but his smart-ass attitude and his tendency to push her buttons whenever possible made working closely with him difficult on occasion. And with what Broyles had told her, there were going to be rough times ahead for them all. If only Walter's expertise wasn't needed so badly, and now more than ever. It would make her life so much easier.

Fingers closed around her bicep, stopping her progress in the midst of the crowd.

"Olivia…wait," Peter said from behind.

She spun around, tugging her arm free with a sharp jerk.

Peter stepped back, holding his hands up in front of him. The smirk was gone, replaced by a contrite expression she thought might actually be genuine. "I…I'm sorry," he said, nodding back toward the entrance. "That was uncalled for back there." He looked away, exhaling a slow breath. "Sometimes…I say shit without thinking…it used to drive my mother crazy."

His voice seemed sincere, as were his eyes when he finally met her cool gaze again.

"Apology accepted," she said, putting her difficulties with Peter Bishop behind her for the moment. There were far more important matters to deal with in any case. "Now we have tell your father and Astrid…and no mention of undead. I mean it."

"As you wish," he replied with an easy grin, and motioned toward the stairwell down to the basement. "After you, Agent Dunham."

Olivia moved down the stairwell to the basement, feeling Peter's presence following behind her. He was a confusing man. Not for the first time, she wondered why he had chosen to stay and help her. He had been all too eager to leave before him and his father had cured John of his sickness. It seemed like a good time to ask him.

She stopped at the bottom of the steps, and turned back to him. "Why did you stay?" she asked. "After we cured John. You could have walked away."

Peter started back at the question, clearly caught off guard. It pleased her that he was taken aback, that she could surprise him, genius and all.

"Oh…well, you seemed like you needed help," he said, shrugging his shoulders. "And I needed a job…seeing how you destroyed any chance of me salvaging my reputation back in Iraq." There was no blame in his voice, just statements of fact, as he saw them, at least.

Olivia studied his face, looking for signs of subterfuge, and again, he seemed to be sincere. "Good," she said, and then turned and hurried to the lab entrance with another word or glance back at him.

 _Let him stew on that,_  she thought, throwing open the wooden door and hurrying inside with Peter in tow.

Walter and Agent Farnsworth were sitting next to each other, finishing up their dinner. The junior agent was giggling at some remark from the elder Bishop. She had bubbly laugh, almost musical, as Walter had called it before, much to her embarrassment. At least  _they_ seemed to be getting along well. The two of them looked up expectantly as they hurried across the lab.

"What's going on Agent Dunham?" Astrid asked, dropping her chopsticks into her empty carton. "Do we have another case?"

"Not exactly…," Olivia replied. She wet her lips, and then turned to Walter. "Earlier today, a man died in routine surgery down at Boston General."

"How awful!" Walter said earnestly. "I'm very sad to hear that, Agent Dunham. Was he a relative of yours?"

"I wasn't finished, Walter," she said. "A few minutes after the pronounced time of death, he…uh, the dead man that is—he bit one of the nurses standing near the operating table. On the wrist." she finished in a rush.

"Say what?" Astrid said. "Can you repeat that, Agent Dunham?"

Walter's face twitched, and his mouth dropped open. "Oh…now that  _is_  curious," he said. "And then? What happened next?" His face became animated, eager, almost childlike in his anticipation as he rubbed his palms together.

Olivia swallowed, hearing the loathing in Broyles's voice again. "The dead man attacked the surgeon, and two other nurses in the operating room, all of whom were bitten as well. Though their bites weren't fatal in and of themselves, they were all dead less than hour later…" She paused as Astrid let out a squeak, and her hand flew up to her mouth.

"What happened to the…the…not-dead man?" Walter asked, rising slowly from his stool. His voice was sharp, intense, and rose in volume. "Is the corpse still animated? Is it self-aware?"

"Let her finish, Walter," Peter said, holding a hand toward him. "There's more to hear."

Walter relented with nod, and then motioned impatiently for her to continue.

"The three nurses and the surgeon who were bitten…after their deaths, they—came back also, and attacked anyone nearby." Olivia said. "Boston General, along with all the other hospitals in the city, are being quarantined until we can figure what's going on. According to Agent Broyles, this same phenomenon is happening at all of them. The patients who die—they don't stay dead."

"Oh my god…" Astrid said, covering her face. "I think I'm gonna be sick…" The junior agent rushed to nearest trash can and thew herself down on front of it, and began retching loudly.

Walter seemed stunned by the revelation, frozen in place, eyes distant, one hand on his forehead. He muttered unintelligibly to himself under his breath. Olivia exchanged glances with Peter, who shrugged.

"Walter, have you heard of anything like this happening before?" she asked. "Or do you have any idea why it could be happening now?"

There was no reply, no sound at all in the lab, other than Astrid, whose heaving into the trashcan was growing weaker by the moment.

"Walter!" Peter said, stepping close to his father and putting hand on his shoulder.

At his son's touch, Walter blinked, and then looked manically between them. "I…I have no idea," he said. "It shouldn't be possible…"

"You don't say," Peter said dryly. "Now tell us something we don't know."

Walter ignored his son and stepped closer, his eyes sharp on her own. "Agent Dunham, if what you're saying is true…these quarantines you spoke of—they…they won't work," he told her. "The genie is already out of the bottle, so to speak. In fact, I believe it was never in the bottle to begin with."

"What exactly are you saying, Walter?" Peter said, exchanging an uneasy look with her.

"I'm saying that we should begin making preparations at once," he replied. His voice sounded grave as Olivia had ever heard it. She glanced at Peter, who looked confused and shrugged as his father hurried away from them, moving toward the back of the lab.

"Preparations for what?" Olivia called after him.

Walter stopped and turned back to them. "Didn't I mention it?" he said, shifting his gaze around the lab. "Why, preparations for the end, of course."

"The end of what?" Peter said, narrowing his eyes. "Will you just tell us what you're thinking?"

"…Of everything," Walter replied. "Don't you see? Whatever is causing this…this phenomenon…outbreak, or whatever you want to call it—if it's not just a local event, and is happening everywhere, then one can easily extrapolate the rate at which—"

Peter sucked in a sharp breath. "He's right…" he said, turning toward her and rubbing at his temples furiously. His face was turning paler by the second. "In the U.S. alone, the daily death rate is something like six-thousand a day, and that's just of natural causes, like old age, car accidents, and plain old murder. Worldwide, it's over one-hundred-fifty-thousand…"

Walter nodded his agreement. "Yes…you begin to see the problem we face," he said, sounding grim.

Olivia felt her stomach roll violently, and glanced over at Astrid, who was just sitting on the floor next to the trashcan in a daze. Her eyes were vacant. It was possible she would be joining her there soon.

"You…you can't know that!" she insisted angrily, shaking her head. What the two of them were implying…it simply couldn't be true. The world…civilization couldn't just come to an end. She refused to believe it. "You haven't even examined one of the bodies yet! Agent Broyles was going to have one corpses brought here for study—"

"And have you heard from him lately?" Walter said quietly. "He was downtown, was he not? That's a lot people trapped inside a small area. Think of it this way, Agent Dunham. How would you go about killing something that's already dead?" He paused as if waiting for her reply, then continued. "We're going to be on our own, if we're not already, mark my words."

Her hand dropped to the gun at her belt, seeking its comfort as the floor seemed to rock beneath her.  _How would you go about killing something that's already dead?_ The words repeated in her mind cyclically, until the tumblers stopped on an image of her sister's face.

Rachel. Ella.

As the realization that her sister's family was at her apartment struck, and what that meant if what Walter said was true, loud voices and a rush of bodies passed by in the corridor outside the lab.

Their eyes met for a stunned moment as Olivia looked from Walter to Peter and then down to Astrid, who seemed to have recovered from her ordeal. After a moment, a silent decision was made and they rushed as a group over to lab's small group of windows, set up high on the exterior wall.

Outside, the portion of the quad visible through the window was a scene of chaos, with students racing across across campus in a mad stampede of young women and men. Olivia even saw several older people whom might be faculty among them hurrying as best they could toward their vehicles.

Walter took one look out the window, then hurried into the office, muttering under his breath.

"Where are they all going?" Astrid said with a frown, standing on her toes to see over the ledge. "And why so suddenly?"

"I don't know…" Olivia said, keeping her eyes on the crowd, in particular a stream of young people scrambling up the steps to the entrance of one of the larger on-campus dorm halls. Another rush of undergrads were trying to exit the building at the same time, and much pushing and shoving ensued.

"That doesn't look good," Peter said, pointing toward the dorm hall she'd been watching. "Somebody's gonna get trampled."

"I see it," Olivia frowned. "Maybe we should do something—"

"Listen to this!" Walter said loudly, hurrying out of the office.

Olivia turned from away the window. Walter had the small clock radio from her desk gripped in one hand, the black cord trailing out behind him as he rushed over to the cabinetry and plugged it into the nearest outlet.

"What is it?" she said, crossing over to him.

Peter and Astrid followed after her, forming a half-circle around the radio as the sound of AM radio static filled the air. Walter adjusted the tuner for a moment, and then a man's voice came into focus, the voice of the practiced newscaster, maintaining his stoic delivery despite the unsettling nature of the subject being reported.

… _receiving confirmed reports of gunfire from in the vicinity of Boston General and other area hospitals, as well as a growing wave of violent attacks on civilians throughout the greater Boston area, which appear to be random in nature. A source in the Mayor's office has indicated that the FBI, along with the Center for Disease Control, believe there may be terrorist attack underway, possibly chemical or biological in nature, which causes a violent and paranoid reaction in those whom are affected. Residents of Boston and the surrounding communities are being asked to remain in their homes until further notice to prevent any misunderstanding with local law enforcement, who are on high alert. I repeat…_

Walter flicked the radio off. "This is it," he said softly. "It's already begun…"

Silence filled the lab as they exchanged nervous glances, broken by the occasional creak and groan of the old building and the white-noise hum of the ventilation system in the background. In the hall outside the lab, several straggling students passed by the lab doors, their excited voices lingering behind them long after they had passed by.

As the voices faded to quiet, Astrid shook her head. The motions were sharp and indignant. "Guys…this can't be for real." she said, cutting the air in front of her with the edges of her hands. "This…this…can't be happening. When people die—they're dead. They don't get up again!"

Olivia heard the panic rising in the other women's and sympathized completely. She was having difficulty processing it all as well. Their training—and life in general, didn't account for a situation like what Walter suspected was happening. It was against common sense, it was against nature itself.

"Agent Farnsworth…let's just wait until we hear from—" she started, but was interrupted by the squealing of tires outside the building, followed by a loud crunch of metal.

Peter rushed back to the window and looked outside. "Shit…" he said in a grim voice. "That looks really bad." He glanced back over his shoulder as Olivia and Astrid joined him at the window once more.

In the interim from when she had last looked outside, the avenue that ran along the perimeter of Harvard Yard had grown thick with vehicle traffic. Cars and trucks were zooming past at far greater than normal driving velocities, swerving and dodging pedestrians who had abandoned any pretense of using the painted crosswalks. The flow of traffic was headed west, away from the city.

Through the iron-wrought fencing that ran along the sidewalk, Olivia could make out a silver minivan and a brown SUV locked together in a death-spiral of twisted metal at the fork in Massachusetts Avenue around MacArthur Square. Wisps of smoke or steam were rising from the crumpled hood of the SUV, where it was pressed into the bent-inward drivers side door of the minivan. There was a crowd of people around the interlocked vehicles and another, smaller crowd not too far away them, huddled over something lying on the street.

Olivia focused on the smaller crowd. Several of the Good Samaritans were kneeling down, bending over a still form on the pavement.

"I think someone might've been hit," Olivia said, and shifted her gaze to the accident itself. Whomever had been driving the minivan, she suspected they were not in good shape. A young woman wearing a pair of high, leather boots and blue jeans covered by a dark coat was standing near the car accident, talking on her cell phone. The woman gestured at the scene frantically as she spoke. "I'm gonna check it out." she told the others, and then moved toward the lab's back door, which led directly to the outside.

"I'm coming with," Peter said, following after her.

"Agent Dunham!" Walter said as she pushed open the door.

Stopping at the threshold, Olivia gripped the door-frame and turned back to him, halfway in, halfway out of the building.

"Be…very careful," he said slowly, nodding his head and massaging the palm of one hand in a furious manner. "Don't get too close, either of you."

Peter's gaze was disturbed as they exited the building together.

#

#

Vehicles were beginning to pile up behind the accident as they arrived at the scene. Impatient honks and shouts from impatient drivers filled the air as pedestrians streamed through line of cars and trucks, slipping through the spaces between bumpers. The crowd around the accident had thinned out, with only several of the onlookers remaining. The drivers door of the SUV was open, and an older man with graying hair was sitting against its back bumper with his face in his hands. Rivulets of blood were dripping his nose onto the pavement—the damage from the expanded airbag which she could see hanging limply from the steering wheel. He was shaking his head as a woman, the same woman she had seen on the phone earlier was crouched down next to him, obviously inquiring about the extent of his injuries. Olivia heard her tell him that she'd already called 911.

The man seemed okay as far as she could tell, other than his bleeding nose, so Olivia turned her attention to the minivan, and its driver, whose head was just visible over the SUV's hood through the broken glass of the van' door. It was a woman, she thought, and grievously injured, judging from her stillness and the blood which coated her face, dribbling downward from an injury somewhere beneath a mass of dark curls. She approached the minivan and looked in through the spider-webbed windshield. The van's driver-side door had been smashed inward, crushing the drivers seat, as well as the woman's left side, arm and leg. From her position at the front of the minivan, Olivia could see that the woman's shirt was drenched in blood, and several unpleasant-looking protrusions pressing outward against the fabric from underneath as she sagged against the seatbelt holding her in place. She thought the woman's side might have been pierced by a piece of metal framing from the door as well.

With a sigh, Olivia shook her head sadly. There was nothing she could do for the poor woman—the fire department would be needed to extricate her from the wreckage with the jaws of life.

"Olivia!"

She turned at Peter's insistent shout, and found him standing next to several people crouched down next to the still form she had seen from the window. He waved her over with crooked fingers as they made eye contact.

Moving to his side, Olivia stared down at the unmoving body of a young man, little more than a boy, she thought from his youthful face, splayed out on the pavement. A student. There was a backpack lying nearby, forgotten on the pavement. His right leg was bent below the knee at an unnatural angle, quite obviously broken. Other than the deep scratches on his face and underneath his torn sweatshirt, left behind from the rough surface of the street, she could could see no other injuries, though that didn't mean much. She was no medic after all, and he wasn't moving. Taking a closer look, she noticed blood leaking from one ear and the corner of his mouth.

A tear-streaked young woman, about the same age as the boy, was sitting in the street near his head, watching as another woman, older, with long, gray hair pulled back into a low ponytail, bent over the boy's chest. She noticed a light blue scrub-top peeking out from under the woman's coat as the she examined the young man's eyes, pulling back the lids with her thumb. She heard the older woman tell the younger that she was nurse.

"The girl said the minivan ran the light at Massachusetts and Church," Peter whispered in her ear. "It just missed her and hit her boyfriend. They never saw it coming."

Olivia nodded, pulling away from him slightly. "Someone's already called 911," she told him, watching as cars began pulling out line and accelerating on the shoulder around the accident. The flow of students from campus behind them was beginning to trickle to a stop. "The driver of the minivan is seriously injured, possibly dying. I don't think there's anything we can do here."

Though it made her feel useless, it was the truth. Her status as an FBI agent gave her no jurisdiction over civilian matters such as routine traffic accidents, fatalities or no. That was strictly local police matters, and they guarded their territory jealously. Her old partner, Charlie, being a former cop himself, had always had a good rapport with them, but she normally encountered cold shoulders. That she was young, and a woman on top of that, was generally not a point in her favor.

Peter looked past her at the minivan and shook his head. "You think that news report was what caused that crazy rush?" he said.

"I don't know what else it could be…" she replied, and then listened as sirens sounded in the distance. Looking up the street, she expected to see a fire truck or ambulance approaching as the sounds grew closer, but instead saw a line of police cruisers flying through the intersection a block away, heading east toward the city. The sight sent a tingling chill racing down her spine.

"I know this might sound a little cliche, and maybe even a little unmanly," Peter said in a low voice. "But uh…I've got a bad feeling about this."

Olivia listened as the sirens faded to silence. She looked the other direction, down the street, hoping to see emergency vehicles coming from the other direction, even though she knew they wouldn't be driving to a scene without sirens.

Surely they couldn't  _all_  be busy at that moment.

"I don't think it's too unmanly, Peter," she said absently, pushing her hair out of her face. She knew what he was talking about though, and could sense it as well. There was an odd feeling in the air, as if the moment were poised on the brink, and could tip into normalcy or into disaster with only the slightest nudge from either side. She had felt that way before, during cases and on raids, usually right before something would go wrong. "In any case, I know what you mean."

Their eyes met, and she found the uneasiness she'd been feeling reflected in his gaze. He had a razor-sharp mind and a quick intuition, she'd noticed them both before. They were some of Peter Bishop's more attractive traits. Not that she was interested in his traits, be they attractive or not, but his unwilling help had been crucial in saving John's life several weeks ago. Since then, he had proven himself worthy of his government paycheck and more, in his guardianship of Walter and in the assistance he'd provided in several of the strange cases they'd worked on together since then. Even if he could be a massive pain in the ass when he wanted to be, which was completely random, as far as she could tell.

Olivia broke the eye contact first, and looked around the scene of the accident once more, sensing a sharp rise in the tension suffusing the area. It was like a slight change in the air pressure on the surface of her skin, or the subtle sensation of passing from darkness into light. Whatever was going to happen, it was going be soon, one way or the other. She realized she was holding her breath, and let it out in a slow, steady stream.

Then it happened.

The nudge.

A short, muffled shout rang out behind them, the sound carrying just above the sound of the passing cars, still driving on the shoulder around them.

Spinning around, she searched for the source of the noise, but saw nothing out of place at first glance. The SUV driver was on his feet, pacing near the rear of his truck, holding a white towel or handkerchief to his nose. He was talking with another passerby, a stocky man in a bright red jacket, who had approached while her back had been turned. Both men seemed oblivious to the sound that both she and Peter had heard moments ago. The woman with whom he'd been talking with before, the one who had called 911, was nowhere in sight.

"Look!" Peter said, throwing an outstretched hand toward the front of the minivan.

Through the shattered windshield, movement could be seen in the front seat. She took a few steps toward the van, squinting in at the driver, whom she had assumed was dead, or close to death. The woman's head now appeared to be bowed over a dark something in her lap, moving from side to side. Moving closer still, she noticed something else that was different.

The minivan's passenger door was open. She was sure it had been closed before.

Increasing her her pace, Olivia hurried around the front of the van to the open door.

"Olivia…" Peter said from behind her. "I don't think you should—"

Whatever else he said didn't register as the interior of the van came into view. A pair of trendy, tan leather boots and the jean-covered legs inside them were kicking weakly, hanging over the edge of the passenger seat. She recognized the boots. The van's driver had her hands twisted in the young woman's dark coat, holding the woman's head close to her chest. The driver's face was buried in the other woman's neck, almost as if she were crying on her shoulder. A low, voracious gnawing sound, a sound that would haunt her sleep, emanated from the front seat. It was a distinctly chewy rumble, that was utterly un-feminine, and almost animal-like, she would think later.

She couldn't seem to process it, or put what she saw inside the van together in any rational way. The wet, raspy chewing sound, and the sight in front of her, were not things that should be associated with each other. Not in a rational world, at least.

Peter stepped up next to her. "What the fuck?" he said, peering in through the open door.

At the sound of his voice, the driver lifted her head.

The face that swiveled slowly in their direction was something out of a nightmare. What struck Olivia first were the woman's eyes. They gleamed with an unnatural, bright yellow-gold color that turned her stomach as they swiveled in their sockets in a robot-like manner. The blood from the wound on her scalp was already beginning to dry and crust over, and it cracked and flaked off as the woman bared her teeth, swallowing down a ragged sinew of torn flesh that hung from her blood-strained teeth, inhaling it like limp spaghetti.

"Holy shit…" Peter hissed. He took a step back and lifted his hands to his head. "It's really happening…"

His voice spurred her into action, driving away the strange blankness that had taken hold of her. She grabbed a leg, and yanked the helpless woman free of the driver's grasp.

Or rather, she tried to pull her free. The driver's grip was viciously strong, and refused to let go of the other woman's torso.

"Help me, Peter!" she said over her shoulder at Peter, who seemed just as wide-eyed and stunned as she had been. "Grab her other leg!"

She gave him some room as he reached and grabbed a boot, which pulled free at once, then grabbed the leg and pulled, putting his weight into the effort. The woman came free, banging her head on the edge of the door as the three of them fell back on the pavement. Inside the van, the driver lunged across the passenger seat, reaching out with both hands. The woman's teeth were bared in a horrifying snarl that made her hair stand on end. Olivia noticed that the driver's left arm was mangled, yet the fingers still moved freely.

"Close it!" she said, trying to disentangle herself from the woman, whose weight was lying limply across her legs. "Close the door!"

The fingers closed on the edge of the seat, and the woman—the thing that she had become, pulled itself closer, over the passenger seat toward them.

Peter rolled free of them and dove for the bottom edge of the van door. He swung it shut with considerable force from his knees, then fell forward on his hands, breathing hard.

She scrambled out from underneath the stricken woman, and then rolled her over onto her back. Above her, there was a scratching sound as the woman scraped her long nails on the window, leaving bloody trails behind on the inside of the glass. Her face pressed up against the window, and her teeth snapped futilely at its surface. There was no intelligence in the woman…or the thing's face—Olivia wasn't sure what to call her—but there was a certain awareness in the woman's eyes, instinctual and carnivorous. The woman made no attempt to open the door, and showed no signs of stopping her useless gnawing at the window.

Judging herself safe enough for the moment, she looked over the other woman, the Good Samaritan whom they pulled free. There was a horrific wound in the meaty part of her shoulder, close to her neck, that was bleeding profusely onto the pavement. Her eyes were closed, but she was still alive, and drawing in uneven, rapid breaths.

"How is she?" Peter said, crawling over to her. He took a look at the wound on her shoulder and winced, then put a hand on her forehead. "Her skin's clammy, cold…I think she's going into shock." Pulling his hand away, he glanced over at her. "We need to get her to Walter, before she…" He trailed off, shaking his head in deliberate way which she didn't particularly care for.

"Before she what, Peter?" Olivia said, rising to a crouch next to him. She pulled off her jacket and pressed it into the wound.

Before he could respond, a high-pitched wail, followed by shrieks of terror mixed with pain rang out behind them, coming from the area where the struck pedestrian was being tended by the gray-haired women in blue scrubs.

They jumped to their feet together, just in time to see the girlfriend backing away from her prostrate boyfriend, clutching one hand against her chest. Blood trickled from between her fingers, and she seemed on the verge of fainting.

"He bit me…" The girl was saying to no one in particular as she stumbled away from them. "He bit me. He bit me…"

Down on the pavement, the boy who'd been struck suddenly sat up. He pulled the startled nurse onto his lap and sank his teeth into her neck before she could react. Blood sprayed out in a crimson, showery mist as he ripped her throat away, coating the crowd of men and women standing close by—the majority of whom were dumbfounded by the sudden attack and wiped the blood from their faces in a daze, staring at their hands stupidly. One brave man stepped forward and grabbed the nurse, pulling her from the voracious boy's grasp. Before he could drag her far, the boy reached out and tripped him up, dropping the man and woman to the pavement. With a lunging crawl of surprising quickness, the boy was on top of the man, biting into the thick muscles of his thigh. The man cried out, trying unsuccessfully to pull free of the boy's clutches.

A cry went up from the stunned onlookers, and then chaos took hold, with men and women fleeing the scene in all directions as fast as their feet could carry them. Tires squealed and horns honked as the dispersing crowd began to impede the flow of vehicle traffic, which had happily adapted to the shoulder to make passage around the accident.

It had all happened so fast, like dominoes falling one after another. Three people had been attacked before Olivia had taken even a single step to stop it, if there had been any stopping it in the first place. She wasn't sure what she could have done differently. It was a question that would haunt her for days to come.

A man rushed past her, racing around the minivan toward the boy who was busily dining on the older man's leg.

With a start, she realized that the running man was Peter, from the brown corduroy jacket streaming out behind him. "Peter!" she said, finally breaking free of her shocked paralysis. She followed after him, with her hand dropping to the butt of her gun.

Peter ignored her shout, sprinting straight at the older man and the boy. For a moment, she thought he planned on diving on top of him, which made her blood run cold, but instead he reared back and kicked the crazed boy in the side of the head with an audible grunt of effort. The sound of the impact was a low, heavy-sounding thud of boot striking flesh and the crack of breaking bones. The force of the blow knocked the boy aside, sending him sprawling onto his back a short way away from the older man, whose struggles had grown feeble. He let out a groan and fumbled for the wound in his leg.

A large pool of blood was already forming underneath the man, and she guessed that an artery in his thigh had been ruptured by the boy's attack. She stopped at his side side and crouched down, feeling for a pulse at his neck. It took her a moment to find, but it was there, if very weak, and growing weaker by the second. The man was going to be dead very soon if the flow of blood wasn't stopped, and she had nothing to staunch it with.

From her crouch next to the dying man, she looked over at Peter, who had continued past the boy to the sidewalk. The section of Massachusetts Avenue they were on had been under construction in recent days, the sidewalk repaired and several sections of the street itself. Some of the construction material had yet to be removed from the sight and was sitting in a pile next to the iron-wrought fencing encircling Harvard's campus. He moved straight to the pile and bent down, searching among the length of wood and metal left behind.

 _What the hell are you doing, Peter?_ she thought, watching him for a moment, and then turning her attention back to the prostrate victim. His hands lay at his side, unmoving and limp on the pavement, though he was still drawing uneven breaths.

She heard a raspy breath intake of breath, and looked over at the body of the boy Peter had kicked. He was beginning to stir again, twisting his torso and turning himself over onto his stomach. His sickly yellow eyes locked on her face, and he began pulling himself toward her and the dying man, digging his fingernails into the rough surface of the street. The boy's jaw dangled from his upper lip, broken and evidence of the force of Peter's blow. He wouldn't be biting anyone else.

 _Enough is enough_ , Olivia thought angrily, and reached for her service weapon. Other than herself and Peter, there were no other civilians in the area, even the SUV driver had abandoned his vehicle. Before she could do more than pull the gun free, a heavy piece of lumber crashed down on the back of the boy's head with a nauseating crunch, driving him face-first down onto the pavement, where he remained still.

Looking up, she found Peter standing over her. In his hands was a length of wood—from the construction material, she surmised—about four feet in length. One end was covered in blood and bits of flesh. He looked pale and shaken by what had happened—was happening.

"You okay?" he said, meeting her eyes.

"Yeah…" she lied. Nothing about any of the entire situation was okay. "You?" she asked, sliding her gun back in its holster.

He swallowed and nodded affirmative, and then turned his attention to the dying man. "What about him?" he said. "He got bit, right?"

There was something about the way he asked the question, the way he hefted his piece of lumber that she found very disturbing. "Yes, he did." she said. "He's not gonna make it if we can't stop the bleeding. We need to get him to your father."

Peter grunted and shook his head. "He's dead, Olivia," he said. "There's nothing we can do for him."

"He's still breathing, Peter," she said, rising from her crouch and stepping close to him. "What do you want us to do? Leave him here to die?" Her voice rose in volume as she spoke, and ended in a shout. "I won't do it!"

"He's gonna turn into one of those things!" Peter said, not backing down an inch. "Did you not hear what Walter said? There is nothing we can do!"

She glanced down at man lying on the street. The pool of blood was flowing across the pavement toward a nearby rainwater drain. It was amazing that he was still breathing, from the sheer amount of blood he'd lost already. "We don't know that for sure…" she insisted, "Walter can't know that for sure!"

She looked around the scene of the accident, surprised by the quiet. They were alone in the street, with not pedestrian or a car moving toward them from, either direction. At some point during all the commotion it had simply ceased.

 _Where the hell is the ambulance, the police?_ she said to herself. _How can this be happening?_

"I'd say it's a pretty good guess at this point, wouldn't you?" he replied, gesturing down at the bodies on the ground. His eyes went wide as he looked up again, his gaze going over her shoulder. "Look out!" he shouted, and shoved her to the side roughly.

Olivia tripped over the dead boy's legs and fell back on her rear, while Peter readied his board as the woman they'd pulled from the minivan lurched toward them in what appeared to be a drunken half-run. The woman's teeth were bared, and her eyes were glazed over with the same yellowish color the minivan driver and boy's had taken on. In her peripheral vision, the nurse whose throat had been torn out began to stir.

Peter swung his board at the dark-coated woman as she rushed toward him, striking a blow across the side of her head. The blow was glancing, and while it slowed the woman momentarily, it did not stop her progress completely. The woman staggered to the side, blood pouring from the wound in her scalp.

"Get away from her, Peter!" she said, pulling her pistol free as he prepared to take another swing.

He stepped back, away from the woman at the tone of her voice, and she noticed he smartly kept his board ready if needed.

The woman's head swiveled toward her, the yellowed eyes locking onto her seemingly vulnerable position on the ground for an instant, and then the woman lunged toward her, arms outstretched and grasping.

Olivia brought her pistol up and fired without aiming. At that close range there was no way she could miss, and miss she did not. The first bullet struck the woman in the chest, slightly off center towards her heart, spraying blood in the air. Though it was a killing shot, the woman kept moving, utterly unaffected by the hole in her chest and the bloodstain rapidly spreading underneath her flapping coat.

The woman's eyes never blinked or wavered, and at that realization, she felt a true panic beginning to take hold for the first time since arriving at the scene of the accident.

Walter had been right. She heard his voice, echoing in her head once again.

_How would you go about killing something that's already dead?_

A mind-numbing fear began to permeate through her nerve endings, one by one as a stupor settled over her, sapping away her strength. The gun dipped in her hands, suddenly feeling as if it weighed ten tons. She could hear Peter shouting in the background, his words overruled by the beating of her heart, which was thumping drum-like in her ears. The woman wobbled closer. With a supreme effort, she brought the gun up again and fired again and again, squeezing the trigger in rapid repetition. Spent shell casings plinked on the asphalt. She unloaded the pistol's entire clip into the woman's upper body in her panic. The recoil drove the barrel upwards until a bullet decimated the leering grin, leaving a bloody mess behind.

The creature—Olivia could no longer think of it as a woman—dropped like a sack at her feet, head rebounding against the pavement. She—it—the thing was dead, finally. She wasn't sure whether it had been the sheer amount of damage she had done to it, or something else that had stopped it in the end.

Breathing hard and still full of adrenaline, she fell back on her elbows, and turned toward Peter just in time to see him cave the back of the nurse's head in with his piece of lumber, dropping her back onto the spot from which it had attempted to rise. He smashed the board down on its head again, and then let the bloody instrument fall to the street with a clatter.

"Are you okay?" he asked her once more. His voice was calm, almost mechanical.

Olivia nodded, not quite able to speak yet. The fear that had nearly overwhelmed her was only just starting to recede, leaving a deep scar behind she would not be forgetting anytime soon, if ever.

Without hesitation, he moved over to the older man who had been dying, and dragged him over the open drivers door of the SUV by his hands. With a grunt, he bent and lifted the man underneath his shoulders, and then shoved him up into the driver's seat.

"What the hell are you doing?" she asked, climbing to her feet. "Peter!" she said when he didn't reply, or even look in her direction.

"I'm making a point, Olivia," he said, glancing back at her for a moment. "Two points, actually."

In the time that his blue eyes met hers before he look away, she sensed a barely-contained fury bubbling beneath his gaze, saw it in his angry movements as swung the man's legs into the cab and slammed the door shut.

Realizing her gun was still drawn, she ejected the empty magazine as she walked over to him and slipped it in her pocket, then pulled a fresh one from her belt.

"A point?" she said, sliding the new magazine in place and chambering a round. "Your father was right, I admit it." She lowered her head, not wanting to see the look on his face. Apologies never came easy for her. "I'm sorry, alright? I…shouldn't have doubted—"

"No…" Peter cut her off with an emphatic shake of his head. "There's nothing to apologize for. That isn't the point."

"Then what—"

"Just watch," he said, tapping the window of the SUV.

Glancing between him and the man inside the cab, she shrugged, and slid her pistol back into its holster and waited for him to make his point.

The anger seemed to have faded from Peter's posture, and she wondered at its source. They had just witnessed the most disturbing thing she had ever seen, been attacked and nearly killed, yet she didn't think that was cause of his fury. And though he claimed it had nothing to do with her doubting of his father, it had definitely been directed toward herself. A new thought crossed her mind then, one which was completely ridiculous—he knew about her and John—but made sense when looked at from a certain point of view.

Perhaps he'd been scared, she realized. Not for himself but for  _her_. No one liked to be scared. When the woman had kept coming after she'd shot her the first time…she'd let her gun drop. He'd been screaming her name, she remembered that clearly. Had there been more than concern for a colleague in his tone? Had there been desperation in his voice? He  _had_  pushed her out of the thing's way, after all, stepping in between herself and it.

There was no way to be sure, of course, short of asking him, which she could never do. But if were true…it was something to think about, in private at least. She covertly glanced over at his profile, at his unshaved scruff and strong jawline. He was certainly not an unattractive man. Or not…she shouldn't be thinking about it or him that way, especially at that moment, after what they had just witnessed. It was not the time or the place. Besides, she had John, and had gone through hell to save his life. Peter had even helped her do it. And he was a pain in the ass, her ass specifically, most of the time.

"Look." Peter's voice drew her from her frivolous thoughts. "You see?" he said, tapping the window again with the back of his fingers.

Inside the SUV, the man was moving in the front seat, his head pivoting in their direction. His eyes were yellow-gold.

"What am I supposed to see?" she said, flinching back, feeling her heart rate spike as the man thew himself at the window, biting at its smooth surface, much the same as the female van driver had before him.

"That you couldn't have helped him, Olivia." he replied in quiet voice, gazing at her intently. "He was dead the instant he got bit by that thing. There was nothing you could have done. Not for him—or for any of these people." He threw a hand toward bodies scattered around them on the pavement. "Do you understand now?"

Olivia's mouth went dry at the unexpected amount of tenderness she heard in his voice, so unlike the Peter that she was used to in the lab. It hadn't yet occurred to her that she could have somehow stopped what had happened, but that he knew her well enough already to guess that she would later was telling. Her skin began to grow hot under his scrutiny, and she nodded slowly and turned toward him, ignoring the light scraping coming from the SUV's window.

"Peter, I…I—" He seemed closer to her than he had been, and her gaze kept dropping down to his lips, which were parted slightly. His breath was coming out in a shallow pant, or was that her own? It was difficult to think when his full attention was focused on her as it was. What was he doing to her, and where had it come from out of the blue?

John's face suddenly bloomed in her mind, the way it had looked back when he'd been sick. "I understand." she said stiffly, and quickly stepped away from him. "I know I couldn't have stopped this, you don't have to tell me." She scrubbed her hands across her face, then slid them back through her hair, tucking the loose ends behind her ears comfortingly. "What was the other point?"

"That is," he said, pointing at the man-thing in the SUV. "This is real Olivia, if you get bit—that's you. You become one of  _them_." He paused then, as if assessing his words effect on her. "You…didn't get bit did you?" There was a slight note of panic in his voice, and he reached out for her, as if he were planning on inspecting her for wounds himself.

She stepped back out of his range. Letting him touch her at that moment was out of the question. Whatever had just happened between them, it had to be due the adrenaline, making it through a terrifying situation together. It was a normal, human reaction. It had to be.

"No. I'm fine," she told him, "I wasn't…wasn't bit." An image flashed across her vision then, bringing back her panic tenfold. There had been a girl! She'd been clutching her hand. It had been bleeding. "Oh no…where's the girl?"

"What girl?" Peter frowned with confusion.

"The one who was with the boy!" Olivia said, spinning on her heels and searching the area. "He bit her! Right before he attacked the nurse! Peter, we have to find her."

The two of them spread out, splitting up to search the immediate area, quickly moving to the end of the block in both directions down Massachusetts Avenue for the missing girl, to no avail. When they joined up again several minutes later, Peter approached, shaking his head as moved toward her down the sidewalk. His face was grim.

"Nothing. There's no sign of her," he said. "She's gone, Olivia."

 

#

#

They hurried back across the quad toward the Kresge Building as Olivia pulled out her phone and tried Agent Broyles's number again.

A robotic voice informed her that it was sorry, that all circuits were busy, and she dropped the phone to her side before it could tell her to try again later.

 _This is isn't happening_ , she thought, running a hand through her hair. She suspected it was a phrase she would be saying to herself frequently in the coming days.

"You still can't get through?" Peter asked, furrowing his brow.

Olivia shook her head. "No. I'm gonna try the land line when get back to the lab," she said, glancing back over her shoulder. Two thin columns of black smoke rose in the air, visible over the top of the trees. "Are you sure that won't spread?" she asked him. "I don't think that was a good idea, Peter."

"Yeah…they'll be fine," he said offhandedly, looking back also. "What choice did we have? We couldn't just leave them there like that. The fires are almost out in any case. A couple of burning cars are the least of our problems at the moment, wouldn't you agree?"

She grunted noncommittally.

That was the understatement of the year. The fact that no emergency personnel—be it police, fire department, ambulance service, or anyone at all, had ever come to investigate her gun shots or the two vehicles burning blatantly in the middle of Massachusetts Avenue, not to mention the three corpses she'd left behind as well, was much, much more worrying. She'd been unable to reach anyone in authority at the Federal Building, or get through to either Agent Broyles, Charlie, or John, which was unheard of. All circuits were busy. And on top of all that good news, there was an infected girl loose somewhere in Cambridge, which was something she  _could_  have stopped—despite Peter's pep talk—if she'd been on the ball. That the infection would spread was not an if, but a when.

It was a certainty.

They moved silently past the bench her and Peter had sat together on several weeks ago. She had been upset, had blown up at him in the lab, and had retreat to the isolation and anonymity of the bench in the midst of the bustle of students moving about the quad. He had found her and had touched her hand. It had been a unconscious gesture on his part, impulsive, as was his nature, but it had had a calming effect on her.

She had never mentioned it to John. He wouldn't have understood. He'd never understood the need for, or approved of her new civilian partner and his father. He had been furious when they'd been split up after his recovery from the Flight 627 incident—a Bureau policy regarding partners who became involved—and that he was now partnered with Charlie, who was a close friend to both of them, had been only slightly mollifying.

Back then, she'd thought her life couldn't get any more complicated, with her sudden and strange promotion, and the even stranger cases Broyles had brought her to investigate alongside Peter and Walter Bishop.

She had been wrong, she realized, looking around the eerily empty Harvard campus. All around them, the old buildings were lighting up as the sun went down, the ornate sidewalk lights flickering to life, in preparation for the evening classes that would, under normal circumstances, be starting any minute. There was not a soul in sight however—other than Peter and herself—and no sounds to be heard either, not even a distant honk or shout, just soles of there shoes scraping on the rough concrete of the sidewalk and a feathery breeze sweeping in from the east, rustling the leaves on the trees and mussing her hair. To the south, the always-in-the-background rumble of heavy truck traffic on I-90 was ominously absent, which more than anything else, made no sense to her.

The world couldn't just come to a stop, could it?

It was surreal, and she was grateful another person was present, or she might have thought she was dreaming, or perhaps still hallucinating in Walter's tank.

"Well, I could have just shot them, you know," she said when they reached their destination. "We didn't have to burn the cars with them."

"True, you could have," Peter replied as they climbed the steps up to the Kresge Building's entrance. He reached for the door handle."But then we wouldn't know that fire can kill them also. Think of it as an experiment," he said with his familiar smirk as he held open the door.

She had no response to that, so she moved past him into the building. The lighting in the lobby was dazzling, painful on the eyes, the silence echoing and uncomfortable.

They exchanged an uneasy glance, and she sensed he didn't care for the ambiance of the space any more than she did, so they hurried toward the stairwell to the basement as one in a moment of unspoken communication.

 

#

#

Inside the the lab, they found Agent Farnsworth seated at her workstation, with Walter hunched over her shoulder chewing on a red vine. Both were staring at her monitor intently. The two of them looked up as the door banged open at their entrance.

"Peter!"

"Agent Dunham!"

The scientist and the junior agent hurried toward them, the former almost bouncing on his feet, the latter looking pale with fear.

"Where have you two been?" Walter said. "You're missing all the excitement!"

Peter pulled off his jacket and tossed over the back of a chair. "Believe me, Walter," he said. "We haven't missed a thing."

Astrid frowned at his statement. "I heard gunshots a while ago, a lot of them," she said worriedly. "Was that you?"

"Yeah," Olivia replied, leaning against a counter-top, feeling utterly exhausted all of sudden. She forced the tiredness away. "That was me. What have we missed? Have you heard anything else?"

"Just looping news reports on the CNN's website," the junior agent said. "It's not good news. They're talking about evacuating, warning people to stay away from all major metropolitan areas. I haven't been able to reach anyone at the Federal Building."

"I was right!" Walter grinned happily. "The phenomenon  _is_  happening everywhere, just as I predicted!"

"You don't have to sound so thrilled about it, Walter," Peter said through a yawn. "We know you were right, we just experienced it firsthand."

"What?" Astrid gasped.

"You must tell me everything that happened. Quickly, son!" Walter said at the same time. "All our lives could depend on it! You mustn't leave out a thing."

Olivia listened for a moment as Peter began telling their story, then moved away away from the group, heading toward her office. He was was good storyteller, and was welcome to it. She had been there, and had no reason or want to re-live the experience. One time was quite enough.

Once in her office, Olivia closed the door behind her, then sat down behind her desk and leaned back in the swivel chair. She let her eyes slide shut and relaxed, rubbing her temples and slowing her breathing to steady, even pace. She needed a moment to recharge her batteries, to clear her mind of the driving terror that had been lurking just out of view over her shoulder, ever since the dead boy had sat up and torn the nurse's throat out.

The mind wasn't meant to witness horrors like what had happened, at least hers wasn't. She kept her eyes shut, holding back tears that threatened to spill over. It took a minute or two—possibly as many as ten—before she was able to open them again without worry of falling into mad hysterics, unbefitting her position as a Special Agent of the FBI. It was a relief that she had her training to fall back on. She wondered how Peter was dealing with it all so well, so seemingly unaffected.

Perhaps his former line of work had left him better prepared to deal with senseless violence than she would have guessed. She watched him for a moment through slats of the office window blinds, observing his mannerisms from her unseen vantage point as he spoke with his father and Astrid of their little adventure out on Massachusetts Avenue.

He was normally an animated speaker, constantly moving his hands about as he spoke. It was a habit she herself was guilty of, a habit which brought on the occasional bout of self-consciousness, in which she tried to correct the quirk only to find herself doing it again once she shifted her focus away from herself.

There was no animation in his movements at that moment. In fact, she noticed that was standing quite still, one hand gripping the edge of the countertop he was leaned up against, the other rubbing incessantly at the back of his neck. It took her a moment, but then she saw what she was looking for.

His knuckles were white where he gripped the table, the tendons on the back of his hand standing out prominently from the pressure he was exerting.

Olivia smiled faintly, and then sighed at the sight. She found it a comfort that she wasn't alone in her fear.

Feeling a little better, she reached for the land-line phone on her desk. Her fingers hesitated above the dial pad, and at the last moment, she dialed the number to her apartment, instead of the Federal Building as she'd originally intended.

She had to make sure her family was safe first.

Olivia held her breath as the phone rang once, twice, three times. She had to be there. She had to.

Her sister answered on the fourth ring.

"Rachel, it's me," she said after her sister's tremulous hello.

"Olivia!" Her sister's voice was frantic. "Where are you? What's going on? They're saying on TV that there's been some kind of attack! That we should evacuate on one channel, and to stay indoors on another! Ella is going crazy, I…I don't know what do!"

"Rachel, I'm gonna need you to listen to me very carefully…" Olivia said, trying to project her calmness over the connection. Her sister had always had a bit of a fragile mental state, and the situation had to be pushing her to her limits. "Is everyone there okay? Ella, Greg? They're both fine?"

"Yeah…they're both okay," Rachel replied, and then snuffed her nose. "Olivia, what is going on? Has there been an attack?"

She didn't answer right away. Telling her sister everything that had happened would undoubtedly drive her mad, yet she had to be prepared for the worst.

"Olivia?"

Perhaps a safe middle ground could be reached. "We're not really sure what's happened right now," she told her after a moment of indecision. "Rachel, listen to me…listen to me very carefully. You need to stay inside the apartment until I can back there, or you hear from me again. Don't go outside, for any reason."

"So it's true then?" Her sister's voice rose an octave. "Oh my god, oh my god…oh my god…Liv, I don't know—"

"Rachel!" Olivia said, raising her voice. "You have to calm down—this is not helping. I'm going to be there just as soon as I can. Rachel?"

Rachel's sobbing and incoherent utterances seemed only to increase, and a moment later another voice, a male voice came over the line.

Greg.

"Olivia?" he said, having obviously taken the phone from her distraught sister. "What the hell is going on?"

Her relationship with her brother in-law was chilly, to say the least, but she thought she could trust him with this task at least. Last she'd heard, the two of them had been doing better, which was to say, he wasn't abandoning her and Ella on a regular basis or hadn't been seeing any other women lately. She didn't know for sure there had been other women, but all the signs were there.

"Greg?" she said. "Listen to me. I…I'm not entirely sure what's going on, but until I know more I need you to keep Rachel and Ella inside the apartment. Don't let them out, or let anyone in."

"Is is really that bad?" he said, sounding doubtful.

"…I don't know," Olivia answered. "It could be… Listen, I have a spare pistol in my bedroom. In a safe in the closet. There's ammo there as well." She hesitated, then gave him the combination. "Greg…I'm serious—don't let anyone in. Not anyone. There should be plenty of food for a few days…maybe a week, while we get this sorted out. You got that combination?"

"A week?" Greg sounded outraged by the idea. "You gotta be kidding me. What are we supposed to do locked in here for a week? We're supposed to be back in Chicago before then…"

"I hope I'm wrong, and that this was all for nothing," she said, ignoring his remark. She ground her teeth, her irritation with her sister's husband rearing its head. Had the man not been paying attention at all? "Just in case, you got that combination?"

"I got it," he said, sounding unhappy as he repeated it back to her.

She wondered if he would do as she asked. He wasn't exactly known for being compliant from what her sister had told her.

"Let me talk to Rachel again."

There was some talking in the background that she couldn't quite hear as the phone exchanged hands.

"Olivia?" She sounded a little better, a little more in control of herself.

"Rachel?" Olivia said. "Greg knows how to use a gun doesn't he?"

"Umm…yeah," Her sister sniffled. "I think so—him and his friends talk about them a lot, at least."

"Okay. Good." He would have to do. "How is Ella?"

"She's in the spare bedroom right now…lying down." More sniffles carried over the line. "I managed to calm her down a bit. I told her you were coming home."

"Rachel…I don't when I'll be able to get there," she said, getting up from her chair and glancing out at the others. Peter and Astrid were looking her way through the window. Walter had vanished, probably to his storage room. She had noticed he seemed to hang out in there a lot. "It might not be for a few days…can you wait that long? You have to stay strong, Rachel. For Ella's sake. Can you do that?"

"I…I guess I have to—don't I?"

"Yes, you do," she replied. "I'm sorry I'm not there for you and Ella, but…I…uh, I just can't come home yet. I'm sorry." Her office door opened, and Peter stepped inside. "Rachel, I have to go now." She felt a lump beginning to lodge in throat painfully, making it hard to breath, to speak.

"No. Wait. Olivia—"

"I love you, you and Ella both," she said. "Tell her I said that. Goodbye, Rach."

She hung up before her sister could respond, and then fell back in her seat. She covered mouth with one hand, pinching her nose painfully for several moments. The band of pain squeezing her throat slowly dissipated, and she pulled her hand away, meeting Peter's narrowed eyes.

"Family?" he said quietly, taking the seat across from her.

"Yeah," she said quietly, and wiped at her eyes. She had never mentioned her sister to him before, or really told him anything personal about herself, family included. "My sister and her family. They're visiting from Chicago this week."

Peter nodded as if that made sense. "Why don't you go to them?" he said. "You could bring them back here. At least until we figure out what's going on, you know?"

Olivia lowered her head. The lab was the last place a girl Ella's age should be. They were going to be right in the middle of it—of whatever was happening. It was no place for a girl, or for her sister.

"I…I think they'll be okay for a few days," she told him. "I stocked up on food before they showed up. They should be good for a while." They had to be good. They had to be okay. Anything else was not acceptable.

Peter nodded again, then opened his mouth as if to speak. It hung open for brief moment, and then he swallowed, not quite meeting her eyes. "Sure. That makes sense," he said. "We can always go get them later…if we need to."

"Yeah…"

She got the sense that he'd been about to say something entirely different, but had changed his mind at the last moment. It was good that he had. Her family was her business, and had nothing to do with him.

"So…have you tried reaching Broyles again?" he asked after an uncomfortable silence.

"No, not yet," she said. "What did Walter and Astrid say about what happened?"

"Walter?" he chuckled unevenly. "He didn't say anything. Just went into one his moods, said he didn't want to be disturbed, that he had to think. Astrid looked like she was gonna be sick again." He scratched at the scruff on his cheek roughly. "I know why no one ever showed up outside, at least."

"Why?" she demanded.

"This thing, this disease, infection, whatever you want to call it—Downtown is infested with it," he said. "Those cops we saw? That's where they were all headed. There was some kind of mob."

"What kind of mob?" she said, and leaned forward in her chair. "How could it have spread so fast?"

He shook his head. "I don't know. I guess it just takes one bite." He got to his feet. "I'm gonna go find some food. You want any?"

"No. I'm fine," she said, picking the up the phone. "Maybe a little later. Right now, I have to get hold of Broyles, or John, or Charlie, or anyone at the Federal Building. Someone has to know what's going on, have more orders for us."

Olivia dialed Broyles's phone, then John's, then Charlie's, before dialing each of their desks at the Federal Building. When no one answered, she repeated the process, and then repeated it again. When she looked up, Peter was gone. She had never even heard him leave. Hopefully he had found some food, she thought, and then resumed her phone calls.

Somebody would have to pick up, eventually.


	3. Aftermath

**-October 2008**

In front of Olivia, Charlie's shoulders swayed from side to side. The pack centered on his back had become her marker, her constant that she followed without thought. Her own pack, resting low on her back, grew heavier by the minute, the second. The padded straps dug deeper into her shoulders with every step, every movement she made.

The weather had deteriorated since they'd left John behind. Where there had been blue skies before, dark storm clouds now populated the sky above, blotting out the sun. Off in the distance, the occasional rumble of thunder broke the unnatural silence that had fallen over Cambridge—over everywhere, as far as she could tell. Azure flashes marred the edge of her vision, just visible over the top of the buildings they passed between. The flashes preceded the rumbles.

Out of habit, she counted the intervening seconds between the two when she got the chance. The span grew shorter as they moved north, back toward the Harvard campus. They weren't going to make it back before the rain hit.

"I think we're gonna get wet, Charlie," Olivia said in low voice. They were the first words either of them had spoken since the start of their trek back to the lab. Since the church, and what had happened outside.

Charlie slowed to a stop, and turned to face her. "It's just water, Liv," he panted. "You want to get off the street?"

Olivia pulled up beside him and dropped a hand to the ache in her right knee. Her jeans were torn, along with the flesh underneath she saw upon further inspection. A thin trail of blood disappeared down her shin. A souvenir from the sidewalk outside the church. In light of what had happened, the injury seemed minute.

She glanced back the way they'd come. The street was clear—they'd long outdistanced the infected that had followed them from the church. They were still back there somewhere, shuffling after them. The top of the bell tower was still visible, just over the top of the apartment building on the southward side of the street. Back where they'd left John. She'd left her sister back there also, and Ella.

She buried the thoughts, and everything that went with them. They couldn't help her now, and would only be a distraction, a liability. A hindrance.

"Maybe. I don't know...," Olivia said finally. She peered around at the abandoned vehicles clogging the road ahead and behind them, and along the rows of apartments on both sides of the street. There was no movement. No infected visible in either direction. "We haven't had much rain since this all started, and no big storms."

"You mean since the world ended?" Charlie said, mopping sweat from his brow.

"I'm still here, and so are you," she replied softly, hefting John's rifle to her shoulder. She gazed up at the roiling storm front. The dark clouds moved steadily toward them—foreboding, like harbingers of doom. They made her uneasy, for reasons that weren't clear to her. And since the reasons weren't clear, she decided it was probably nothing. It  _was_  just rain. She shook her head. Rain might actually do them some good—there were fires still raging all around the city. "Never mind, let's just get going. I'd like to get back before dark."

Charlie nodded, and adjusted the pack on his shoulders. "I hear that," he said, "Never realized how much I was going to miss streetlights."

Olivia grunted her agreement. She followed behind him once more, and glanced over at the ornate light poles that decorated the sidewalks on either side as she passed them by. When the power had failed, it had become bluntly clear how much civilization had relied on them. The tall apartment buildings and narrow streets of Cambridge, coupled with all the old-growth trees in the area made for little-to-no visibility at night—even when the moon was out. It was something to be avoided.

The infected seemed unaffected by the darkness, in spite of Walter's claim that vision was most likely the worst of their senses. A flashlight beam cutting through the night drew them like a moth to a flame. She wasn't eager to repeat her only experience thus far. Unlike Charlie, hers had been from inside the fence that encircled their section of the Harvard grounds. He had said very little about what happened on his long trek to the lab, with his wife in tow. Neither had John, who'd been with him from the beginning of the event.

The thought of being outside in blackness as he had been—among  _them—_ made her shiver. And she'd never been afraid of the dark in her life, not even as a young girl. She'd had worse things to fear back then.

They wouldn't be able to avoid it forever. Eventually, they would need to range farther out to find the supplies they needed, than daylight could afford them.

And then there was Brighton.

She suppressed the thoughts of Rachel and Ella that intruded, and focused on the cars and buildings they passed, listening and looking for any movement. Other than the scuffing of their boots on the sidewalk, the only audible sounds were the occasional gusts of wind, and the thunder in the distance that grew louder with every repeated rumble. It would be upon them soon.

Charlie glanced back at her, then increased his speed in an unspoken agreement. They moved at more than a jog, but less than a sprint, dodging between cars and trucks parked in a double-wide crooked line down the center of the street.

He pointed out obstacles as he passed them by, and they would have to stop. Sometimes the obstacle would be an infected, trapped inside a vehicle—their mouths would open and close like fish out of water, pressed up against the glass. They left the ones inside the cars alone. Sometimes the obstacle would be a decaying infected lying sprawled on the pavement, under tires, crushed between bumpers. The smells were atrocious—worse than anything she'd ever encountered during her time as an agent.

Women, children, young, old—it didn't matter. The affliction that had struck them down was an indiscriminate slayer, indifferent to such human niceties.

They killed only those infected in their way, staying close to the center of the street, and the protection the line of abandoned vehicles provided. Charlie was efficient with his knife, similar to the bayonet mounted under the barrel of John's rifle. The knife hadn't been there when he'd found the weapon, but after much scavenging, he'd found the parts he needed to attach it. She put it to good use, and tried not to picture his teeth snapping at her flesh.

#

#

Several blocks later, Olivia yanked back on the rifle, pulling the blade free of one of the infected's eye sockets. The thing that had been a woman once upon a time, dropped at her feet. She stepped over it, then moved to Charlie's side, staying low and moving between the row of vehicles.

"I don't remember it being this bad before," she whispered, peeking over the hood of the car they crouched behind. "Where the hell did they all come from?"

Charlie wiped the blade of his knife on the shirt of the unmoving form below him. "I don't know...," he hissed, and glanced up at the darkened sky. "I don't like it. We're gonna have to go around, maybe circle back to the west."

A light mist of rain was falling around them, a precursor to the torrents she could see falling in sheets to the east. They'd reached the end of the line of vehicles parked bumper to bumper, and had reached the cause of the traffic jam—a delivery truck of some sort, toppled on its side and blocking the road. The truck had collided with a smaller compact, partially running it over, leading to its demise.

They were at the southeastern edge of the Harvard campus, where a wide intersection of three streets marked the boundary. A fire department building was situated in the middle, in a triangular-shaped piece of property, surrounded on all sides by concrete. Back when there had been people to use them, the streets had had a name that meant something. In the aftermath, they were just large patches of pavement. Filled with the infected.

Many of the infected.

The dead were milling about, beyond the delivery truck, moving randomly at their shambling pace. They surrounded that firehouse, moving in and out of view. Most of them appeared to have been students from the look of the clothes they were wearing, though not all. Business people, men and women in suits, along with a few elderly and several small children were also in evidence, maybe twenty to thirty in all with the desiccated expressions of the infected—the undead, she admitted reluctantly. She tried to avoid looking at the children—a little girl who had been around Ella's age was among them. Part of her face was torn off.

The herd of infected were blocking their path to the lab, which was located on the northwestern side of the campus. The light rain increased to a steady sprinkle, and then to the beginnings of a downpour. Lightning flashed between low hanging clouds, still off their east—but not for much longer. Thunder followed the flash almost at once.

Olivia wiped water from her eyes. "Maybe with the rain we can slip past them," she said, glancing over the hood again, then over at Charlie. "It should give us some cover."

"Maybe...," he replied, eyeing the herd with a grim expression. "If we can trust what Bishop—"

Lightning cracked again overhead, directly south of their position, followed instantly by a boom of thunder that vibrated through the car they crouched behind. The noise startled them both, and they ducked low, shrinking up against the metal door panel.

"Jesus...," Charlie breathed next to her.

She heard a sound then, in between the gusts of wind and over the pounding of the rain on the concrete and the vehicles around them. It was a collective sigh, the combination of many harshly breaths exhaling at once. The wet, gurgling sounds came mostly from beyond the accident, where the group of infected roamed, but also from beyond the rows of tall greenery along the sidewalks, to their left and right. And behind them, from the midst of the traffic jam of vehicles. The sound brought to mind a rattlesnake, shaking its tail somewhere out of sight.

The din was chilling, and curdled the blood in her veins. Her uneasy feeling from earlier returned ten-fold, and Walter's voice spoke in her head.

_...I believe the infected brain parses stimuli in a highly simplistic manner—less than instinctual... Only after a repeated source of stimulation repeats itself, would they then be able to home in on it... Unfortunately, the only response they're capable of expressing is to—eat...the source the stimuli..._

The storm. They needed more than one sound to pinpoint... The thunder.

"What the hell is that?" Charlie whispered. His hand drifted to the pistol at his waist.

Olivia turned and lifted her eyes over the edge of the car. "Oh my god...," she said under her breath. The crowd of infected had stopped their random wandering, and were moving forward—toward the line of cars in which they were hidden. Their lips were pulled back in leering snarls, exposing their stained teeth. From the way their yellow eyes roved, they were searching for something—the source of the deafening noise, she presumed.

"We gotta get out of here," she hissed, grabbing Charlie's arm. "Right now."

He looked alarmed at her sharp tone, and stuck his head up for an instant, before falling back against the car. "Shit, shit...," he cursed softly, and then rose up again, looking around for a way out of the precarious situation.

Olivia did likewise, shooting a glance southward, back in the direction they'd come, over the line of cars and trucks. Through the pouring rain, hobbling outlines were visible in the intersection at the far end of the block, another herd of infected moving in from the east and more from the west.

Her thoughts raced. South was out. She looked over at the apartment buildings to either side, at entrance alcoves bathed in shadow. If the doors were unlocked, they might offer sanctuary. Or they could be death traps—even if they were able reach them without being detected. They had come across such buildings before—in which the infection had run rampant, and the dead had been trapped inside, waiting for the unwary scavenger.

Charlie cursed again as he spotted the group of dead moving south of them that she had seen also.

The growling of the horde drew closer. They had reached the overturned truck and were spreading out to either side around it, moving down the line of cars toward their position. There was nowhere to go. The infected were moving in from the north and south, blocking off their escape.

A teal pickup truck was parked on the opposite side of the aisle, with a fiberglass shell over the bed. It might be good to stand on—if they wanted to be trapped there until they were either pulled off, or collapsed from hunger or exhaustion. Rainwater was pooling at her feet, a large puddle that cast a rippled reflection of the truck's undercarriage.

Lightning crashed again overhead, spurring the creatures into a frenzy of gaping mouths and gnarled teeth. They surged forward with greater speed, their interest in homing in on the source of the noise renewed.

"...We're just gonna have to run for it," Charlie said in a low voice, drawing his automatic. He didn't look or sound confident in their chances. He met her gaze steadily through the rain. Rivulets dripped from his sopped hair and ran down his face. "I'll try to draw them off, then circle around and meet you on Massachusetts Avenue."

Olivia shook her head and stared down at the puddle. She wasn't ready to die, and she sure as hell wasn't ready for him to either—not for her. One friend was enough for one day. There would be no meeting up again. He wouldn't make it, and neither would she in all likelihood. There was just too many of them—drawn there by the storm's thunder. The truck's undercarriage reflected in the water again, catching her eye.

Charlie readied his pistol in one hand, his knife in the other, and then started to rise from his crouch.

"Charlie, no." She grabbed his arm and hauled him back down. "Under the truck. Quick!"

Putting her own words to action, she slung the pack from her shoulders then threw herself flat on the wet pavement. Ignoring the chill that seeped through her clothing, she shimmied underneath the teal-colored pickup truck, holding the assault rifle in front of her with both hands. Charlie joined her beneath the vehicle a moment later, grunting with exertion and pulling his pack behind him.

The smell of gasoline and oil was prevalent underneath the truck—a welcome change to the stench of death that had been a constant in the air above. She held her breath as the first of the infected approached on her right, in the narrow aisle between the truck and the cars parked along the curb. A pair of mens' loafers and dark, ragged slacks accompanied the harsh utterances.

She glanced over at Charlie, whose face was cast in a tense grimace, teeth exposed, nostrils flaring. His eyes followed the infected's progress toward them. He had a white-knuckled grip on the hilt of his knife, held out in front of him, the blade a horizontal line in front of his dark eyes. Her gaze went past him, to her backpack, lying on its side in the puddle where she'd let it fall.

"I left my pack...," she mouthed.

Charlie turned his head toward her pack, and then shook his head.

Another pair of legs approached on Charlie's left, a female, from the single open-toed sandal remaining on a pair of dirt-streaked bare legs. The female infected moved with a broken stride, half-dragging the barefoot leg behind, the toes of which were worn to ragged, bloody stumps. More pairs of legs followed the first two, on either side of the truck, shuffling, shambling in tune with the chorus of the growls and wet, bubbling groans that accompanied them.

The line of feet was never-ending. Olivia's breath sounded harsh and loud in her ears, no matter her attempts at regulating the flow of air through her lungs. A river of frigid water flowed between her and Charlie. The biting chill seeped in through her jacket, her shirt, piercing her flesh and penetrating to the bone. An uncontrollable shiver ran through her, starting with her teeth, which chattered together, and then moved through her torso and her thighs, and then down to her toes. She couldn't stop the quivers, or the jagged breaths that escaped her lips.

The discordant melodies of the dead were all around them.

Lightning and thunder crashed in long sequences of rumbles above them, and moving in a line to the southwest. The wind gusted down the narrow space between apartment buildings, howling with an unholy fury that carried with it the overpowering scent of decaying flesh.

"Fuck me..." Charlie's terrified whisper was barely audible above the cacophony. They exchanged glances, and she saw the reflection of her own fear in his eyes—naked and unadulterated.

Beyond her partner, her backpack lay front-side down in the puddle, trampled flat by the oblivious foot traffic. She winced at the sight—the loaf of un-moldy bread she'd scavenged from the back of a station-wagon was no doubt among the deceased.

She'd been so looking forward to some toast.

The thought was ludicrous amid the predicament they found themselves in, and she stifled the urge to giggle maniacally with the back of her hand. Charlie turned toward her with disbelief—no doubt wondering if she'd lost her mind from the look he gave her.

And maybe she had. She couldn't explain the odd place she was in. Their lives had become a moment-to-moment insanity of avoiding death—witnessing horrors and depravity that would test even stoutest of mettles. Yet they still had to live. They still had to have reasons to want to live—even if they were mundane—such as looking forward to cooking toast on the odd contraption Peter had built.

Olivia shook her head, and kept her hand in place for another moment, unsure of her uncertain mood. Her gaze lingered on her backpack. Grime-covered shoes and bare feet shuffled over it, pressing it down into the puddle with indifference. The shoulder straps were splayed out to either side of the pack, and flexed upward at the pressure from the footfalls, creating an alarming trip hazard. She held her breath, and watched several feet come dangerously close to getting caught on one of them. That was all they needed—to have one of the dead tripping up right next to them, and because of her carelessness.

She nudged Charlie, and directed his attention toward the pack with a pointed look. He looked over and then mouthed a curse. His white-knuckled grip shifted on the knife's hilt, and he gave her a questioning look.

"You want me to grab it?" he whispered above the pounding of the rain and catcalls of the infected.

 _Grab it...?_  Olivia glanced at the backpack and the continuous line of feet, and then around at what was visible from her position. Daylight was fading fast, with the already bleak weather fading to a gloom that was soon going to give way to blackness. The dead continued past them, one after another, on either side of the truck. She thought she could hear more on the sidewalk beyond the next row of vehicles at the curb, but with the rain is was difficult to be sure.

How many more could there be? She had thought their number to be no more than twenty or thirty, but twice that number had passed by her estimate. There must have been another group somewhere out of sight that she'd missed, maybe behind the fire station.

It was a good thing they hadn't chosen to run for it.

She turned back to him and opened her mouth to whisper a reply, then froze as a booted foot hooked one of the backpacks straps. What happened next was a blur, and yet she somehow still saw it with the horrifying clarity of slow motion.

The booted dead man took another step, dragging the backpack for an instant, before its other foot became entangled—and it promptly fell on its face. The smack of its bald head hitting the concrete next to them was stomach-turning, wet and solid at the same time.

"Oh, fuck..." Charlie grimaced, and shrank away from the fallen infected, pressing into her side while one of the infected's arms flailed toward him.

He slashed at the hand with his knife. Another pair of feet—women's knee-highs, she noted with a dissonant, outside thought—came down on its calves. The second infected's ankle turned, and comically, it collapsed on top of the fallen dead man's back.

The thing had been a woman once upon a time, with long, dark hair that had probably been beautiful. Now the hair was a tangled, stringy mess caked with blood and dirt. It thrashed about for a moment, and then bit into the first infected's neck and tore away a glob of flesh. Its head swiveled to the side—toward them—and the chunk of flesh fell from its lips to the pavement, almost as if it were unsatisfied with the taste of unliving tissue. Yellow-gold eyes rolled in their sockets, and came to rest on the two of them. It seemed to sniff the air with its rotting nostrils, and then its blood-stained teeth snapped together.

There was a moment of stillness, and Olivia found herself unable to look away from the burnished gaze. She felt Charlie tensing beside her, and then everything seemed to happen at once.

The infected lunged toward Charlie's mid-section with surprising agility, grabbing for him with claw-like hands. At the same time, heavy-set body crashed down on the undead woman, halting its progress, followed by another, and then another. The growing pile of infected writhed and squirmed, growling their wet, gurgling snarls and snapping at one another.

They had to get of there. There had to be a way out.

"Anytime you feel like vacating the premises, would just be fine with me, kiddo," Charlie said hoarsely.

Fighting through a quivering dread, Olivia pulled herself together. She took a chance and scooted to her right, and then peeked out from under her side of the truck. The traffic on her side was noticeably less crowded. Only a single infected was visible, about five or six cars ahead of them. It shambled down the narrow aisle between the vehicles, stopping occasionally to peer in the windows of the vehicles it passed by, or perhaps it was just distracted by its own reflection. Either way, if they were going to escape, it was the perfect moment.

"I think we can make it if...," she started to whisper, and the words died on her lips at the sight before her.

One of the dead had rolled off the pile, into a narrow gap at the edge of the truck. It was locked in a struggle with Charlie, who was fighting to keep its teeth from his throat. His knife was still gripped in one fist, lodged between himself and the infected, but she could tell he was unable to use it without letting go of the creature.

"Charlie!"

"A little help here...," he gasped, straining to keep the infected's chomping teeth away.

There was no room underneath the truck to maneuver the bayonet, so she dropped the rifle and grabbed the long knife from her belt. She pulled herself toward the front of the truck to get a better angle on the infected. Its head was about even with Charlie's, though facing the opposite direction—thrashing feet were visible beyond the truck's front tire.

A long, continuous grunt escaped Charlie's lips. There was a note of desperation in its tone. The living eventually grew tired. The infected never did—and he was losing the struggle. Its teeth inched closer to the soft flesh of his throat.

Thunder cracked overhead, another deafening concussion that was almost palpable, like a physical blow of pure sound. The pile of infected buzzed with wriggling activity.

Olivia readied her knife, but there was still no room for a killing blow. "Move your head back, Charlie," she said, not bothering to lower her voice. "I can't get to it!"

He didn't reply, but his head tilted back toward her slightly, giving her a narrow window for attack. She took the opening, and thrust her knife through the gap. She felt a slight resistance, accompanied by a  _Fuck!_  of pain from her partner, and then the knife slid home, into the flesh under the infected's chin. She kept pushing until the hilt was buried under its chin. The feel of its cool blood and clammy flesh against her hand made her skin crawl, but its movements ceased, finally.

She yanked the knife free. "C'mon," she panted, and slid away from Charlie, toward the passenger side of the truck. The single infected she'd seen earlier was closer, but not close enough to be an immediate danger. "This side's clear. We have to go, now."

"Right...behind you," Charlie huffed behind her. "It's about to get a lot more unpleasant under here."

Olivia glanced back toward his side before sliding out from underneath the truck. More of the undead had noticed their presence in the vicinity. Hands reached toward Charlie, over and around the body of the one she'd just killed. It hindered their progress—but that wouldn't last.

She moved out from under the truck, then rose to a crouch, keeping her gaze on the lone infected impeding their escape. Charlie slid out after her a moment later, and squatted down behind her.

"Forget something?" he asked softly, touching her shoulder.

She turned and winced at the rifle in his hand. She'd left it under the truck. "Damn it." She slammed her knife back in its sheath. "I don't know what the hell is wrong with me today. First the backpack, now the rifle. I almost got you killed—" She gasped at the river of blood running down his face from a nasty-looking gash on his right temple.  _No, not you, too._ He had cried out when they were under the truck. "What happened...oh my god, Charlie, were you bitten?"

He passed her the assault rifle and shook his head. "Nah, don't worry about it—wasn't your fault," he said quickly, shouldering his back. "Let's get out of here. I think we can head north on Quincy, then approach the lab from the east. Storm seems like it's moving southwest. It should be past us soon."

Olivia eyed the cut doubtfully—it appeared rather deep—but nodded, and turned back to the undead that was blocking their path. To their left, on the opposite side of the truck, a long line of infected were stacking up behind the bottleneck they'd created—almost like cattle waiting for their turn in the chute.

She crept forward along the line of vehicles, ignoring the soreness her thighs and knees, and approached the lone undead. It was a formerly male student from the Greek lettering emblazoned on his shirt. As she'd hoped—before the thunder and lightning ruined her plans—the steady rainfall masked her approach.

The bayonet was already sliding through its gaping teeth when awareness of her presence bloomed and then faded from its eyes. She shoved it backwards, letting its own weight pull it free of the blade. The way ahead was clear.

She looked back at Charlie. "Now, we run for it."

"You ready?" he asked, and glanced down at her leg. "How's that leg, kiddo?"

"How's your head?" Olivia retorted. In truth, her knee hurt like hell where she'd gouged it on the sidewalk—back where John died.  _John is dead._  She swallowed, and forced the pain away. Thinking about what had happened would only slow her down. "Let's go. It's not getting any lighter out here."

#

#

They moved north through the intersection at a steady trot. The crowd of undead had more or less dispersed, with a number of them trapped in the narrow space between the cars, and the rest seemed to have moved off, following after the storm and the line of thunder. A few stragglers roamed here and there—they appeared discombobulated by the rain and the white-noise that came with it.

Olivia made a mental note to tell the Bishops about the behavior. It could be important, and if nothing else, it was something to be aware of when they were outside the lab's barricade. And for her eventual trip to Brighton.

The rain continued to pour down on them, a gray mist that obscured the street ahead in the evening's twilight. It was familiar territory, one of the few streets that wasn't clogged with vehicles for whatever reason. They'd already scavenged the few places that weren't dorms, classrooms, or administration buildings.

Before, it had been a street she'd driven down regularly on her way to the lab. There had been a food truck that she'd always meant to stop at. Now she never would—she had come across its scorched remains not long after it had started. Its driver had been partly eaten. She'd had to finish him off with her knife.

The weather slackened steadily the further north they moved, turning to light rain, and then finally to a sprinkle. Lightning flickered and thunder rumbled distantly off to the southwest, evidence of the storm's passing. There was a pleasant, musky scent in the air that mostly covered the odor of wet ashes brought their way by the occasional gust of wind.

Charlie came to a stop at the intersection at the end of the block. They had reached the street where they would be turning west, toward the Kresge Building and the lab. He stood still, staring at the horizon. Olivia approached him warily, uncertain of what lay ahead. Out of habit, her finger strayed close to the assault rifle's safety.

"What is it?" she said, stepping up beside him. "What's the matter?" Though it was nearly dark, there appeared to be nothing ahead of them, no obvious dangers that she could see. No drunken silhouettes staggering about.

There was a long silence before he replied. "When John and I went to Malden to find Sonia, we weren't alone," he said, and glanced in her direction.

"You weren't?" She narrowed her eyes, taking a closer look at him in the meager light. He appeared troubled, his usual confidence shaken. It was very un-Charlie like. "John never mentioned anyone else being with you."

Neither of them, nor Sonia had spoken much of what had happened on their journey to Harvard. She'd had the impression that they'd witnessed things unspeakable.

"You remember Rodriguez?" he asked quietly.

"I think so...," she replied. An image of a dark-haired man, with medium height and build was associated with the name. She had yet to work on any cases with him directly, but she had seen him around the office. "What about him? Was he with you?"

Charlie stuck his chin out and picked at the dried blood on his face. "He transferred in a while back, not long before the Flight 627 incident," he said. "I think he came from...I dunno, somewhere in the Midwest. The Chicago office, Detroit...somewhere." He shook his head and shrugged. "It's not important. John knew him—I guess they were friends. From the Marines, I think."

"John knew him?" Olivia frowned. "He never said anything about him to me."

"Yeah. Like I said, it's not important. He showed up at Boston General with John, after word came down from Broyles about the disturbance there—right about the time everything went to hell. We were together when communications went down, and when the fucking firebombs started to drop. Whole city blocks are just...gone. We holed up in a bank vault in Charleston. Seemed about the safest place to be."

Firebombs. She had wondered how the fires had started—the intense smoke on the horizon. She'd heard the jets overhead. The military must have been desperate. And in the end, it had been for nothing. "How bad was it? Downtown, I mean," she asked. "I heard...things, before it all fell apart."

A shiver ran through him. Though she couldn't see his face clearly, she thought it must be deathly pale.

"It—it was bad...," he started in a shaky voice. "Real bad. The people, they were...they were..." He stopped, and scrubbed at his eyes before continuing in a whisper. "We aren't meant to see things like that. It does something to you, it...corrodes you, on the inside. You know what I mean?"

Olivia nodded, and peered around in the growing darkness, profoundly disturbed. This was a side of Charlie she'd never seen before, never thought she would see. His good-natured bluster was nowhere to be found. Even on the worst of the raids they'd been on together, the cases with all the death and the senseless murders and violence—none of that had appeared to shake him.

He was shaken now.

"Charlie, what happened out there?" she said gently.

"We finally realized that no one was coming," he explained, "that there was no one left  _to_  come. And I...I had to find her—my wife. Just to know, one way or the other. I was supposed to protect her from things like this." He paused, and took an even breath. It was a sentiment she could understand wholeheartedly. "The plan was to grab Sonia if she was still...alive, and then head to Cambridge and hook up with you and the Bishops. John figured you'd be safe enough at the lab, and I agreed. Not to mention if anyone could figure out what was going on, it would be Dr. Bishop—after what he did for John. Rodriguez didn't have any family in Boston, so he tagged along. And what else could he do, it's not like there was anyone else left.

"We found her. In our house." Charlie chuckled for a moment. "She was in bed reading a book by candlelight—just as beautiful as the day I met her. She asked what took me so long." He stopped again, and the smile was gone from his voice when he continued.

"On our way out of Malden, we ran into a swarm of those fucking things. We were in a line of cars—kinda like what happened earlier. We just came around a corner and they were right there, maybe a hundred of them. And they were still fresh. We didn't realize that gunfire drew more of them back then. I'd thought they were mindless, that they relied on sight.

"So we ran for it. John was on point, and Rodriguez took up the rear. We shot the ones that got close, but it wasn't enough. They were everywhere—coming at us from all sides. It was just...chaos. There was nowhere to go but up. Sonia was screaming—going out of her mind, hysterical. She slipped when we were climbing on top of some tractor-trailer. I didn't notice right away. Rodriguez stopped to help her. He saved her life. By the time me or John realized what had happened, it was too late—I could only pull one of them up."

Her partner's voice cracked, and then grew hoarse. "I reached for my wife...and they pulled Rodriguez under. They fucking ate him, right there, beneath us. When they finally moved on, there was nothing left of him."

"Jesus...," Olivia breathed. "I had no idea. I'm sorry, Charlie. But, you gotta know it wasn't your fault. Sometimes, there are no good choices."

"That's the thing, though...," he said roughly. "It wasn't a choice. It never occurred to me to save him. I didn't even see him, all I saw was my wife."

"It was your wife, Charlie," she told him. "Anyone would have done the same thing."

"Would they?" he mused.

"Yes," she insisted. "Of course they would. It was a natural reaction."

Charlie exhaled a long breath. "You know, when we were under that truck," he said. "All I could think about was Rodriguez, and that I was going to get what was coming to me." He looked over at her. "Thanks for saving my ass, by the way."

Olivia snorted. "Now that  _was_  my fault," she admitted. "It was the least I could do. C'mon, we need to get back. I can barely see anything out here."

#

#

Night had rolled over the city while they'd stood on the corner talking. With the heavy cloud cover left behind from the storm, the darkness was an impenetrable wall. Visibility was limited to only what was right in front of them. Crickets chirped and other night sounds filled the eerie quiet. She still wasn't used to the lack of any human noises, and didn't think she ever would be. It was too unnatural in the middle of a city.

The westward street was one of those thick with abandoned vehicles, parked in irregular lines. Under normal circumstances, it would have been about a ten or fifteen minute walk from the corner to the Kresge Building. Under normal circumstances—and theirs were anything but normal.

They moved carefully down the sidewalk toward the Kresge Building, following the line of iron fence-work that enclosed that area of Harvard's campus. The fence was decorative, but sturdy enough to keep out the infected.

Back when they had been brainstorming about how to go about fortifying the Kresge Building, it had been Peter's idea to use the fence, along with a number of the abandoned vehicles to make a barricade that cordoned off the back side of the lab. It had worked well. So far none of the dead had gotten through. In an odd coincidence, they had finished the barricade the same day that John, Charlie, and Sonia had arrived.

Olivia thought about Charlie's story as they crept toward the lab, and his conflicted guilt of having to choose one life over another. He was not normally a selfish man, yet when viewed through purely black-and-white lenses, it was an act of supreme selfishness. The fact that he'd brought it up meant it must be eating him alive. She felt sorry for him. He was a good man, one of the best she'd ever known.

She hoped she never had to make such a choice. That it was even a possibility was a sign of just how far they had fallen.

The world was coming apart at the seams, the gap between how things used to be, and their present reality growing wider every day. Every second. Civilization and everything that went with it, for all intents purposes, was over. Done for. She'd heard Peter say once that ' _the world had moved on_ ' to describe the situation. It had sounded like a quote, though she didn't know from what and hadn't asked him. She had liked it though, gloomy as it was. It was fitting. The world had moved on—on from humanity. They were just a remnant, grasping at a tuft of grass on the edge of a precipice.

The realization was humbling.

She glanced over at her friend. Her eyes had adjusted enough to the darkness that she could make out the harsh line of his jaw. He was still brooding—still guilt-ridden. She commiserated. Her own guilt still kept her awake at night.

"How's Sonia doing anyway?" she asked, shattering the silence.

Charlie shrugged in the darkness. "A little better...," he said. "She smiled this morning, so that's something."

A smile was indeed an improvement. Sonia had been nearly catatonic when they'd arrived—her eyes glazed over with horror. The normally vivacious woman had barely spoken since then.

Olivia nodded. "The day it all started, we heard a car accident outside the lab," she said. "This kid got hit crossing the street, in the rush right after the word went out about what was going on Downtown. It was fatal." She thought back to that day. Many, many people had no doubt died because of her lack of foresight. She'd never spoken of the missing girl to anyone, not even John when he'd made it back to the lab. Neither had Peter. It was both of their failures.

"Peter and I went out to see what was going on. I'd already spoken to Broyles, but I didn't really believe him all the way. I hadn't seen it yet. Walter had even warned me that the infection wasn't isolated. When the boy came back, he bit his girlfriend on the hand—and then I let her walk away from the scene. When we realized she was missing, we searched the area for her, but...but she was already gone."

She stopped Charlie with a hand on his arm. He stared down at her, his face cast darkly in shadow.

"How many thousands of people are dead directly because I let her go?" she whispered up at him. "If I had stopped her—"

"All those people would probably still be dead," Charlie interrupted quietly. "You did what you could. The ship was already sinking, Liv." He turned from her, and gazed up at the moon that had broken through the clouds for an instant. "I think we're all living on borrowed time anyway," he said. "Before long, it's just gonna be the dead walking."

Charlie trudged away from her, continuing in the direction of the lab. Olivia stood shocked for a moment, until he disappeared into the blackness ahead of her. She hurried after him until he was back in her line of sight, and then matched his pace.

He was in a bad way. Much worse than she'd thought initially. She was going to have to take Peter with her when she went out next—and maybe on the trip to Brighton, if he was willing. Charlie needed a break. He'd never had any time to relax since he'd arrived—they'd been going nonstop. He needed to process the horrors he had experienced, and have some time with his wife. They both needed it.

 _What about you?_  A small voice asked from the back of her mind.

Olivia swallowed, and buried the voice in a wave of determination. She would grieve—when there was time. When she had found her family.

When they were safe.

The rear of an old brown, full-length conversion van emerged from the darkness, parked on the sidewalk ahead. Peter had pulled it up against the fence, across the opening to the quad where the sidewalk passed through. Then he'd let the air out of the tires, to make sure no one could drive it away, and more importantly, so nothing could crawl underneath. He'd turned it into a gate—simple and effective, and only something a genius would have thought of. He had also been quite proud of it, as had Walter.

Charlie reached the van, and pulled open the side door. Unexpectedly, a brilliant red light suddenly illuminated the interior.

The light didn't belong there.

She gasped, and rushed forward, clicking the assault rifle's safety off and putting it up to her shoulder as she rushed toward the open side door. Angry voices were coming from inside.

"Get that fucking light out of my face, Bishop." Charlie's growl was furious. "You trying to get us all killed?"

"Where the hell is Olivia?"

Olivia lowered the rifle and pushed the safety back into place. "I'm right here, Peter," she announced, swinging in through the side door before the unpleasantry between them could progress any further.

The two men were crouched inside, face to face. The red light was attached to Peter's forehead, mounted on a strap. It looked ridiculous on him.

Peter looked over at her, and then past her through the door. She realized that he was waiting for John to appear, and reached back and swung the door shut behind her, then locked it.

"Go, Charlie," she said. "Let Sonia know you're back."

Charlie glanced between her and Peter, and then ducked through the open door on the driver's side without another word.

"What happened?" Peter said, after watching Charlie's departing form for a moment. He reached up and switched the red light off. "Where's John?"

There were two captain's chairs behind the driver and passenger seats, swiveled around to face the rear of the van. Olivia sat down on one of them, and let the rifle fall from her grasp. It landed between the two chairs with a light thump on the carpeted floor. She felt utterly exhausted all of a sudden, and guessed it to be the flood of adrenaline leaving her system—on top of everything else that had happened.

"He's...dead," she said finally. It was the first time she'd said it out loud. Her eyes watered and overflowed down her cheeks, leaving wet trails behind that collected the chill in the air. She was suddenly grateful for the obscurity of darkness.

"Damn," Peter sighed, and sat down on the chair next to hers. "I'm sorry, Olivia."

Warm fingers reached across the gap between them, and squeezed her hand for a moment, offering a fleeting comfort. The gesture reminded her of the time he'd touched her on the bench. When he pulled his hand away from hers, she missed its presence, and was again thankful for the lack of light. It offered sanctuary from identity, and the need to mask her emotions, visibly at least. In the dark, they were just two survivors, clinging to that tuft of grass.

A long interval passed, in which neither of them spoke. Olivia thought of John, and the day they had met. It had been on a multi-agency narco raid, and she'd been processing the scene when Charlie had introduced him. She'd found him to be arrogant and full of himself, and had disliked him intensely—until they'd become partners, and she'd come to know him better.

Her initial reaction to the man sitting next to her had been similar, though for different reasons. The main one being that he was—or had been—a criminal at the time. One of those men who preyed on the weak. And like John, he had turned out to be more than he seemed at first glance, though he could still be rather frustrating at times.

"So how did it happen?" Peter's quiet voice cut through the silence.

Olivia didn't answer immediately. She thought of John's smile from up in the bell tower, the salute he'd given her. The attack must have happened mere moments after that.

"It was so stupid...," she said, shaking her head slowly. "One of the dead grabbed him through a hedge of bushes. We'd thought the area was clear. I was up in the bell tower at St. Paul's, trying to get a view across the Charles. He was watching our flanks."

"Did you get to say goodbye?"

The directness of the question caught her off guard.

She floundered for a moment, and saw John's face, covered in blood, the bite in his neck. He hadn't said goodbye. He'd said something about...what was it? She'd been frantic at the time, but her memory had recorded the event with its usual precision. She had tried not to think too hard on it until that moment.

John had said something about the pattern. Was he talking about _The_ Pattern? She had never mentioned it to him, as she'd been reassigned. And he had said something else. About not being able to tell, or something to that effect. His last words had been an apology. Had he apologized for dying?

 _What else could it be?_  The rest was troubling, though. Maybe he'd been delirious, that might explain it. In any case, she couldn't think about it. Olivia looked at Peter's vague shape next to her. "We said our goodbyes," she told him, and then added in a whisper, "Twice."

Peter was silent for a moment. "I'm sorry...," he apologized again. "I know he...meant a lot to you." His hand touched her briefly in the darkness again. "This is a strange world we're living in, Olivia," he said in a soft tone.

Since they were in the anonymity of the night, she went on to tell him what had happened afterward, with her backpack and the truck. And how she'd almost killed Charlie with her mistake.

"You lost your pack?" he asked when she was finished with her tale.

"Yeah...," Olivia replied. She had expected him to tell her it wasn't her fault like Charlie had, and was glad he didn't. "We had to leave in a hurry."

"Anything important in it?"

"Important? Nothing, just a...a..." She hesitated as it came to her that there had indeed been some important items in it. Her mother's necklace, which she'd been planning to give to Ella, and a photo of her and John, taken in a booth. It had been their only picture together. Both were no doubt ruined now after the trampling they'd received. The loss of the necklace was particularly heartbreaking. Why had she even taken it off?  _Damn it._ She felt tears threatening to spill, and wiped at her eyes under the cover of darkness. "...Ugh, just a loaf of bread. I wanted to try out your toaster thing."

She quickly changed the subject before he could reply. "What's with that light? Do you want them to know we're in here?"

There was a faint click, and the red light turned on again, lighting up the bench seat at the back of the van. "Walter and I were talking today, about how the zombies are drawn to our flashlight beams," he explained. "And so we came up with a couple of experiments."

She realized his name for the infected no longer annoyed her. It was a small thing, compared to the enormity of the apocalypse—and it was as good a name as any that she'd come up with.

"What kind of experiments?" Olivia asked.

"Mainly, we wanted to see how they reacted to different wavelengths of visible light, from red up to violet. Our thinking was that we might be able find a color that they couldn't detect, or at least that wouldn't draw them like bugs to a zapper."

"And did you?" she asked, shifting closer to him. If they had, it could make their lives unquestionably less difficult. The night would no longer be closed to them. It was what had been holding her back from making the journey to Brighton.

"Yep." Peter grinned, and tapped the red lens of his light. "Red. They don't see it at all—like it's not even there."

"You're serious, Peter?" she gasped. In her excitement, she grabbed his forearm. "They don't see it all?"

Peter nodded his crooked smile. "I tested it myself," he said. "There was no reaction when I shined it in one of their faces. More than one, actually. I tested it on a few to be sure. Of course, that's not to say they still can't hear you, or smell you if you get too close, but the red light won't draw them in."

She realized she was squeezing his arm in a death-grip and let go. "Do you have any idea what this means?" she asked.

"Yeah, I think I do," he said softly, and flicked the light off again. "It means you can go to Brighton, and find your family."

Olivia blinked in the sudden darkness. She hadn't told anyone, not even John, why she'd been delaying making the trip. Somehow, he'd guessed the truth.

"Do you have any more of those lights?" she asked after her moment of introspection.

"I can easily make more," he answered. "We're gonna have to scavenge for more triple a's, though."

"Good," she said, tapping her lip. Her mind was awhirl with plans. "We'll need at least three more, preferably four. Can you do it?"

"Of course," he said. "There's nothing to them."

"There's one more thing, Peter," she said, picking up the rifle. "Charlie needs a break, some time with his wife. You don't know what he went through out there, before they showed up here." She hesitated, eyeing his shape in the dark. What would she do if he refused her? She had no leverage, like she'd had before. What was her family to him—to risk his life for? She swallowed, and then plunged onward. "...Will you come with me to Brighton?"

There was a length of harsh silence, and then Peter spoke. He sounded confused.

"Wait. You want  _me_  to go with you?" he asked.

"Yeah, I thought that was obvious," she replied, and her heart sank. She couldn't do it alone, and she couldn't ask it of Charlie. "You...don't want to?"

"No, I just..." He exhaled, and then cleared his throat. "When do we leave?"

She grinned in the blackness. He had said that to her once before, an ocean away, before the world had ended. This time no blackmail had been required.

"I'm leaving at sunrise, tomorrow," Olivia said, and ducked out through the open side door, to the campus side of the van. When Peter didn't follow her out right away, she looked back inside. "You coming?" she asked him, narrowing her eyes.

"I will, in a bit," Peter replied, and then added cheekily, "I kinda like it in here. It's like the clubhouse I never had, you know. Don't wait up for me."

Olivia rolled her eyes.  _Men_. They were all boys at heart, even after the world had ended. "Suit yourself," she said, and closed the door behind her.

#

#

They had chosen the opening in the iron fence-work closest to the Kresge Building for their gate, and the walk across the grassy area to entrance was a brief, if uneasy one. The infected had yet to find a way inside their sanctuary, but if the tragedy that was their current existence had taught her anything, it was that anything was possible. The dead were certainly out there, beyond their makeshift barricade. They wandered the rest of Harvard's campus with impunity, sometimes alone, sometimes in a herd. John had spent much of his time watching them.

Their corner of the quad was cordoned off by a wall of cars and trucks, parked side-by-side, and bumper-to-bumper in a wide arc that circled the back side of the Kresge Building, from fence to fence. The taller trucks were on the outside of the ring, with the lower cars parked on the inside, again with their tires flat, erasing the possibility of anything crawling underneath. From how quickly Peter had come up with the idea, you'd have thought he'd done such things before. Her lone contribution to the construction of the barricade had been to suggest staggering the cars behind the trucks, to make a brick-like pattern whenever possible. It had taken the two of them several perilous days to complete it.

Olivia labored up the steps to the Kresge Building's entrance, and pulled open one of the double doors. The candles Astrid lit every sunset in the lobby flickered softly, throwing oblong shadows across the tiled floor. The shadows danced in rhythm to the singular flames.

The Kresge Building had become an apartment building of sorts, with each of them taking up residence in various classrooms scattered about the basement, and with the arrival of Charlie and Sonia, the ground floor. The married couple had chosen a room far away from the others—she assumed to get some privacy. Walter had moved into her former office, after stating that he wouldn't be able to sleep outside the lab. The room Peter had chosen was somewhere down the hall and around the corner from her own. She hadn't actually laid eyes on his living space yet—there had been no reason to. Her own room, the room she had shared with John once he'd arrived, was conveniently just down the hall from the lab's entrance.

The room that was solely hers again.

Olivia followed the line of candles toward the stairwell, pushing grief away with a stolid effort. She would save it for another time. It could wait, after all, time was all that was left. The future had been put on hold indefinitely.

While taking the steps to the basement level, it occurred to her that she hadn't thought much beyond finding her sister and niece—alive and unharmed. Beyond surviving from day-to-day, what did they have to look forward to? Living the rest of their lives stuck in the lab, in their little compound? They would go crazy. Anyone would. There had to be something more to live for. Her toast she'd been looking forward came to mind. Something more than toast.

 _What's the alternative?_  she thought, and came up empty.

There was no alternative. Until Walter could figure out what was causing the infection, or come up with some sort of cure—neither of which were promising at present—then they would just have to settle for surviving. At least Rachel and Ella would be with her , where she could look after them. She could do that much.

Olivia emerged from the stairwell to the sound of Charlie Francis crying out in pain echoing down the dark basement corridor. His harsh utterance was accompanied by a female admonishment, telling him to relax. She hurried to the dim rectangle of light cast by the open lab door, and stepped inside.

The lab was aglow with flickering candles—Astrid had found a huge box of them in a storage closet somewhere—and she found Charlie seated in one of the lab chairs. Walter was bent over his head, along with Astrid who was directing a flashlight beam on her partner's face—or rather, the nasty cut he'd got under the truck. Sonia was standing on the opposite side of the chair, holding one of Charlie's hands. She looked pale.

"Hey guys," Olivia said. She moved down the short flight of steps to the lab floor, setting the assault rifle on a lab table on her way past.

Sonia and Astrid turned toward her, and she eyed her partner's wife carefully. Sonia appeared anxious, and Olivia wasn't certain whether the tight grip she had on Charlie's hand was more for her own comfort than his. Her free hand raked through her short red-gold hair, constantly pushing it back from her eyes. She had normally worn it pinned up—before. His wife had emerged from the catatonia she'd arrived in as a different person. The friendly and outspoken woman she'd always known was gone, replaced by silence, a haggard face, and the constant presence of tears—along with an inner horror visible behind her blue eyes.

"Agent Dunham!" Astrid said.

"Hey! Miss." Walter's voice was sharp. "The light, if you please, my dear," he said, nodding toward Charlie's head.

"Sorry..." Astrid redirected the light, exposing the harsh lines of the cut on Charlie's temple.

Olivia joined the group around the lab chair, moving next to Sonia, opposite Walter and Astrid. "How's that cut?" she said, tilting her head at it in the light.

"It's rather nasty, I'm afraid," Walter answered. "I had to reopen the wound to clean it, as you no doubt heard. Suturing will be required. And it's going to leave quite a scar."

"It's gonna look good on you, Charlie," Olivia said with a faint grin, meeting his gaze.

"Huh, that's just what I need," he said sourly.

Walter leaned in close to the laceration and frowned. "That's a very fine incision, young man," he said. "It almost looks cut, rather than torn—from a knife, or a razor blade. What did you say you snagged it on again—the underside of a truck? Have you had a tetanus shot in the last ten years?"

Charlie glanced with unease in Olivia's direction. All at once, she understood why he'd shrugged aside the injury when she'd asked about it before.

It had been her own knife that had cut him.

 _Shit._ She opened her mouth to apologize, but stopped herself at the intense look he shot her way. She eyed his wife in her peripheral vision. Olivia didn't necessarily agree with keeping her in the dark on what had happened—it had been an accident, after all. But she would follow his lead—for now. Sonia was going to have to come to terms with the world they were living in, eventually.

"I don't know what it was," he said, keeping his gaze intent on hers. "I'm up to date with my tetanus shots, though."

"Excellent," Walter said, rubbing his palms together. "Let me grab a needle and thread, and I'll have you stitched up in no time." He moved away, heading toward the cabinet where the medical equipment was kept.

Astrid came around the chair to stand next to her. "Agent Francis told us about Agent Scott," she said in a gentle voice. "I'm so sorry, Agent Dunham. I didn't know him that well, but, he seemed like a good man."

Olivia looked away from the tears brewing in the younger woman's eyes. "Yeah...," she said, gazing at Charlie's boots. There was a dark stain on the toe of his right foot—blood perhaps, from earlier that day or from some other similar day. "He was a good man," she murmured.

"I didn't know him that well either, but he used to make me laugh," Sonia whispered suddenly, turning all their heads. They were the first words Olivia had heard her utter in days. "On the mornings when he'd drop by the house to pick up Charlie. And...on our way here."

"He made me laugh, too..." Olivia swallowed through the growing tightness in her throat.

She glanced at Charlie and saw bleak despair, a haunted shadow lingering behind his eyes. John and he had been friends for a while before they'd been partnered together after Flight 627. It strengthened her resolve to leave him behind for the journey to Brighton. He needed to recharge.

"Here we are," Walter said, returning with a needle and a packet of thread. "I'm a bit out of practice, unfortunately. I've been in a mental institution for the last seventeen years, you see, and haven't had many opportunities to practice my needlework." Sonia's face went pale, and he grinned, and then began threading the curved needle. "Most of my patients as of late have been of the unliving variety, but I'm sure you'll be fine."

"Oh, that's comforting," Charlie muttered under his breath.

A silence fell over the group, broken only by Charlie's curses as the doctor began stitching him up, and Walter's chastisements to hold still.

Olivia watched for several minutes, then moved away from the group—swiping one of the smaller candles she deemed unnecessary for Charlie's medical assistance. She needed to make her preparations for the morning before she fell asleep standing up.

Despite all that had happened since the start of the outbreak, the lab still looked much the same as it had before. Walter's things were spread out over much of the flat surfaces, left lying where he'd used them last. His chemistry set, and the foul-smelling concoctions he was constantly brewing in the maze of test tubes and beakers, were a source of friction among them—especially with Peter, who was the only one of them who could make sense of his technical explanations. He claimed they were necessary for his research on the infected, but she wasn't so sure. He'd been doing much the same before the end of the world, only she and everyone else hadn't been living at the lab to be affected. She wondered if the true scale of what happened had yet penetrated all the way through the layers of his intellect, on a personal level.

Walter had yet to venture outside the confines of the Kresge Building, other than the day they'd finished the barrier. And those who did the scavenging, herself, Charlie, and Peter, tended to downplay the severity of their encounters with the undead.

It came to her suddenly that she had already marked John off the list of survivors , and she nearly broke down in front of Peter's work table. She steadied herself and took a deep breath. He'd been gone less than a day, and his name was already etched firmly among the deceased.

 _What does that mean?_  she thought, horrified at herself.  _Aren't you supposed to forget that they're gone for a while? Expect to see them, and then remember they're gone? Wasn't that how grief worked? What the hell is wrong with me?_

All she felt was numb. Numb and tired.

She pulled her ponytail over her shoulder and ran her finger through her tangled hair. It meant she was practical, she decided with cold logic. It meant that any one of them could die on any given day. How close could you hold someone when they could be gone the next moment?

 _And what of Rachel, and Ella?_  A contrary voice asked from somewhere deep inside.  _How does that logic apply to them? If they're even alive._

Olivia pushed the voice away, and set the candle down on Peter's table. She picked up a narrow headband—one of several lying amid a clutter of tools and tiny pieces of plastic of varying sizes and color—and examined it in the candle's light.

It appeared to be a headlamp one might find in the camping section of a department store, though the lighting mechanism had been disassembled—presumably by Peter. Along with the one she'd picked up, there were several more headbands with lamps attached on the work table, all taken apart in the same fashion. She wondered where he'd gotten them. They seemed too new to have been among Walter's old junk.

She smiled in spite of herself. Peter had been very busy. It was an encouraging development. His news about the red lights was the only sparkle of hope on what had been an otherwise black day.

A deep yawn stretched her mouth wide open, and she dropped the headlamp back down on the table. Over at the lab chair, it looked as if Walter was just finishing with Charlie's stitches. Olivia grabbed her little candle, and moved around the darkened perimeter of the lab toward the door to the hallway, hoping to avoid any more conversation. The need to sleep was overwhelming. Her preparations could wait until morning.

#

#

None of the others noted her swift exit to the corridor, and she peered toward the tremulous light dancing in the stairwell up the first floor. She considered checking to see if Peter had come in yet, but another yawn pulled her in the other direction, down the hall to her door.

The room she had selected for herself once it became clear that going back to Brighton would be impossible was just down the hall from the lab entrance. She paused outside, hand hovering over the door knob.

The silhouette of her reflection stared back at her from the narrow, vertical window set in the door's upper half. She gazed at the shadow of herself, and then closed her eyes and dropped her forehead against the cool metal of the door frame.

Inside the room was her past, with John. All his things, everything that he'd owned was in there.

She had a strong urge to find another room, but the need for sleep was even more powerful. Besides, it was better to just get it over with, to face the loss head on. That was what she had done before, in the hospital when he'd been infected with the raw form of the contagion that had spread through Flight 627. The nurse and then the doctor had tried to stop her, but she'd had to see him—had to know.

It was better to get it over with. She reached for the knob.

"Liv."

Olivia started at Charlie's sudden voice behind her. "Charlie, you scared the crap out of me," she said, turning to face him.

"Not likely," he muttered, then stepped into her candlelight. The stitches were a dark line angling from under his right eye toward his temple, "Look, I know you probably don't approve, but I wanted to thank you anyway for not...going into detail about what happened out there in front of Sonia."

She leaned back against the door and crossed her arms. "I don't understand," she said. "Why didn't you want her to know?"

Charlie hesitated. "You didn't see her on the way here...," he told her in a low voice. "She can't handle it—she was a kindergarten teacher for Christ's sake. And it's my job to protect her from these things. I was  _this_  close to not coming back. She doesn't need to know that."

"You can't protect her from this, Charlie," she said softly, looking past him down the corridor. The outline of his wife was visible, waiting near the stairwell. "And I think you're doing her a disservice by trying. What if something did happen to you? Do you think sheltering her from that possibility is doing her any favors? She was in shock. She'll recover. I think you're underestimating her."

Her friend was silent for a moment. "Maybe you're right," he admitted, "but...she's not there yet."

"I know," Olivia said, and then it was her turn to hesitate. "...And that's why I'm taking Peter with me tomorrow."

"What? You're taking Bishop with you where?"

"To Brighton."

"Liv, are you nuts?" he hissed. "John just..." He cut himself short, then ran a hand through his dark hair and swallowed audibly. "In any case, you can't trust that guy with your back. I'm going."

"No..." She shook her head. "Your wife needs you more than I do. I'll be fine with Peter. That red light he had—the...zombies, they can't see it. We'll be fine if we get caught out after dark. It shouldn't take us more than a couple of days to get there and back."

Charlie huffed angrily. "I don't like this, Liv," he said. "I don't like this at all."

"I don't like it either," she said in a firm voice. "But it's what's happening. I'm going to find my family, Charlie. One way or the other."

They eyed each other in the flickering candlelight. For a moment, she thought he wasn't going to back down, that he was going to insist on coming with her. But then he nodded with reluctance.

"Fine," he sighed and shook his head. "I hope you know what you're doing."

 _Me too._ The thought floated upward, unbidden.

"I thought you hated calling them zombies," he added.

Olivia snorted. "Yeah...well, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Isn't that the saying?" she said. "Why didn't you tell me about the cut—that it was from me?"

"Considering the alternative, I didn't really think it was worth mentioning," he replied in a dry tone. "When are you leaving tomorrow? First light?"

"Yeah."

"...Be safe, Liv." His voice was quiet. "I'll see you when you get back."

Charlie turned and strode away. He abruptly left her cone of light and became a vague shadow moving through the darkness of the corridor away from her.

"Bye, Charlie," she whispered at his departing back.

Olivia watched him until he rejoined his wife, and they moved together toward the stairwell. When they were gone, she pulled open her door and stepped inside the room that had been hers, then hers and John's, and now was just hers again.

She let the door close behind her, and leaned back. The candle cast an orange light over the student chairs that were pushed to the far side of the room, and the pair of mattresses that were pushed together in the corner under the window across from the door. There was a clump of dark shapes next to the mattresses—her bag of clothes, and the duffel bag John had arrived with. It was his only possession. She took a steadying breath, and headed toward the makeshift bed, unzipping her jacket and letting it fall to the floor.

Olivia flopped down on her mattress and set the candle down across from her, on the one that had been John's. She watched the flame dance and twist, until her eyelids grew heavy, and then pinched it out. Afterward, she pulled the other pillow toward her and pressed her nose into its fabric, and waited to fall asleep.


	4. The Long Walk

**-October 2008**

 

The ray of sunlight was inexorable.

Its sharp edge crept down the brick wall, over a faded poster highlighting the muscles of the human body, and then a bookshelf crammed full of ancient hardcover textbooks with frayed bindings. The light reached the edge of a thin mattress at the base of the bookshelf, and slunk slowly, but steadily, over the pin-striped fabric toward a clump of dark blankets, and the socked foot that emerged from underneath. The yellow glare reached the foot, and the attached toes that twitched and flexed, and then continued its daily journey, over the rising and falling mound of blankets, before finally falling on the mop of hair that rested on the pillow at the opposite end of the mattress.

The hair was dark, with slight curls slick with sweat that glistened in the morning sunlight, and framed a face unshaven with scruff that had given way to a beard. Closed eyelids spasmed in the brilliant light, and then fluttered open, exposing a pair of blue eyes.

Peter Bishop winced at the blinding glare, and then stared up at the water-stained ceiling tiles above. His confusion as to where he was, and how he had gotten there was momentary, and several seconds later it came back to him, forcing him wide awake.

_The Kresge Building. The lab._

_Oh yeah, and the end of the world._

The realization of his present circumstance was followed by the memory of the previous night—Olivia, and his…extracurricular activities. On the heels of that memory was another, conflicted in its scope. He lay still for a moment, examining his feelings on the matter.

John Scott was dead, and Olivia had asked him to accompany her to Brighton in the morning—today. To say that Olivia's boyfriend and he had never really hit it off would be something of an understatement. The guy hadn't trusted him to work alongside Olivia, and had told him so in no uncertain terms—out of her hearing, of course. That had been before everything went to shit. His threats had been thinly-veiled.

He couldn't exactly blame the guy for not trusting him—he wouldn't have trusted himself either. Reliability had never been his strong point, not in his adult life, at least. Being reliable was too much work. John Scott had seen his file…his record spoke for itself.

Despite the man's hostility toward him—whether it was undeserved or not—he was going to be missed. By Olivia for obvious reasons, but also for the man's skill with a rifle, and weapons in general. He had been impressive, maybe the best Peter had ever seen. He'd heard mention of his time in the Marines, but Peter had been around enough military over in Iraq to get a feel for the really dangerous ones—the Special Forces types. John had had that kind of feel about him. He had been good in a fight—and fighting, surviving was all that there was left for them.

He thought of what it must be like for Olivia. After everything she'd gone through to save his life, he was dead barely a month later. He wondered if she found it frustrating, and then dismissed the thought. She wasn't that kind of person. It hadn't wavered any of her determination to go to Brighton, however.

She was probably already up and about—waiting for him. And if there was one thing he'd learned about her in the month or so he'd known her, it was that she could be a bit impatient, when the mood suited her.

He groaned a wide yawn, and then brought his hands up from under the blankets and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. His careful positioning of the mattress had worked as intended. The sun had driven him awake just as he'd hoped it would—being its usual anathema in the morning.

Sitting up, he tossed his blankets aside and stretched his aching back. The old mattresses they'd found—more of a pad, than an actual mattress—left much to be desired in the way of comfort. As much as he'd detested the sofa in the hotel room he'd shared with Walter for several weeks, he would have given much for its lumpy cushions. He would have given much for many of the things he'd taken for granted several weeks ago. A hot shower was at the top of the list.

Exhaling another yawn, Peter reached for his shoes.

#

#

"I simply don't understand, Peter," Walter voiced with displeasure. "Why on earth would you go to Brighton? Agent Dunham's family is surely dead…or, undead by this ti—"

Peter grabbed his father's arm and pulled him into the office. "What the hell is the matter with you, Walter?" he demanded, swinging the door shut behind him. "Do you have even an ounce of empathy in that insane head of yours?"

"What? I believe I'm the only one being rational in this situation." Walter jerked his arm free. "It's been several weeks, after all, and I find it highly unlikely that they could have survived this long."

He glanced out the office window at Olivia. She was still seated at the table where he'd found her upon entering the lab, cleaning the chamber of the M4 that had been John's baby. From her pale cheeks and determined jaw-line, he suspected she'd heard his father's conjecture.

"We did," he said, turning back to his father. "We survived. Olivia warned them to stay in her apartment before it got bad. It's possible they're still there, still alive. Not to mention that statistically speaking, there's no way we're the only ones." From the thin line of his father's lips, he remained unconvinced. "It's her family, Walter. She has to find out one way or the other."

Walter's shoulders drooped, and he lowered his head. "But…but why must _you_ be the one to go?" His voice trembled. "What if something happens to you? What about that other fellow, Agent Franco—why can't he go? Son, I…I don't think I'll be able to—"

Peter sighed, and then hesitated before putting a hand on his father's shoulder. "Walter, I'm gonna be fine," he assured him. "We've got the new lights, thanks to you, and we'll be back before you know it. I'll be fine. Okay?"

Walter wrung his hands together, and then pulled a red licorice stick from his lab coat pocket. He nibbled on one twisted end, and then met Peter's eyes. "All right…" He nodded, chewing slowly. "Well…as long as you're going out, then could you pick me up some more Red Vines?"

"What? Pick you up some more Red Vines?" Peter scowled, and shook his head. "You're out of your mind."

"But…the—they're free, Peter," Walter gesticulated, flopping the licorice over the back of his hand. "My supply is running low."

"Walter, they're free because…" he started, and then stopped, seeing Olivia rise from her chair. Their eyes met through horizontal window slats. "You know what? Never mind. If I happen to come across a cache of Red Vines, I'll be sure to grab 'em."

"Wonderful," his father exclaimed with a clap, and then abruptly turned and left the office. He leaned close to Olivia on his way past and whispered in her ear, and then fled down the steps to his storage room.

Olivia arched an eyebrow as Peter approached. "Is he okay with this?" she asked, shouldering one of the spare backpacks.

Peter shrugged. "Probably not…," he replied, "but I've never let that stop me. It's not like he was ever around to care what I did before."

She frowned at his response, but said nothing and he moved past her to his work table, where his own backpack lay open. The head lamps he'd finished installing the red filters in late the night before, lay in a messy row. He grabbed one and passed it to Olivia, and then shoved the rest in his pack.

"Red bulbs are kind of hard to come by, so I coated the lenses with a red dichroic light-filtering gel that for some reason Walter…" He chuckled at the bored look on her face. "You don't really care do you?"

"Not so much, as long as it works," Olivia said, examining her headlamp. She stuffed the lamp inside her pack. "I've got enough food for a few days, mostly granola bars, and some of that dried fruit Charlie brought with him."

"Granola bars and dried fruit," Peter muttered with sigh. They were becoming staples. He grabbed his backpack. "Excellent. I'm really looking forward to them. I'll get the water, then I guess we're ready. Have you told Charlie and Astrid we're going?"

Olivia followed him over to the refrigerator. It was no longer cold, but they still kept the water bottles inside of it—out of habit he supposed, or perhaps to maintain some semblance of normalcy. It was rather pointless in his opinion. There was nothing left that was normal and no use pretending. All it took was one look out the window.

"Astrid was still asleep, and I told Charlie last night," she said as he pulled the refrigerator door open. "He'll let her know."

He grabbed a handful of plastic bottles and shoved them in his pack, and then another. "And how did Agent Francis take it?" Peter said, zipping the bag closed.

"He wasn't too happy about it," she answered.

Peter grunted, and threw the backpack over one shoulder. It was about what he'd expected. Charlie wasn't outright hostile toward him like John Scott had been, but they were far from friends. He figured it was the cop-criminal dynamic at play. "I imagine not…," he said, glancing over at her.

"Peter, Charlie's just…" She gestured randomly with one hand. "He was a cop before joining the Bureau. I think your…history—it doesn't sit too well with him. He'll get over it though, eventually." She eyed his backpack. "You know I can carry some of the water."

"Yeah, I know." He snaked his arm through the other strap, and then settled the bag on between his shoulders. "You ready?"

Olivia's eyes narrowed. From the way her lips thinned, it was clear that she was about to insist on carrying some of the water bottles, in an unnecessary demonstration of her independence. He walked away from her before she could.

Peter stopped at the table near steps up to the entrance, where most of the weapons they'd accumulated were laid out in orderly fashion. He picked up his crowbar from where he'd left it the night before. The crowbar was medium-sized, a little shorter than a baseball bat and about as heavy, with a nice, solid heft to it. It picked locks just as efficiently as it cracked open undead skulls.

"Here," Olivia said, stepping up next to him. "Take this."

She picked up a black Beretta off the table and held it out to him, grip first. He recognized it at once as her backup gun. She had given it to him once before, during their first real case together. The one with the test-tube man-baby. He'd thought things couldn't get any weirder than that. But he had been wrong—incredibly so.

"You sure?" he said. He didn't reach for it. He had never bothered taking a gun when he'd been outside the perimeter before. Running, and using his brain had seemed better options. And his crowbar. "I mean, last time you lent it to me, it didn't go so well." It was a bit of an understatement—the man she'd told him to watch had escaped. "And it's not exactly inconspicuous," he added.

"I'm not lending it to you," she replied, pushing it toward him. "Keep it, it's yours. We should all have one, just in case…"

Peter held her gaze for a moment, and then took the handgun. _Just in case of what?_ he thought silently, but didn't ask. There was something behind her green eyes that he'd never seen before. Something dark and desolate. Forsaken, maybe. John's death had left her in bleak territory. In a way, it was a good thing she had something to do, something to keep her mind from dwelling on him.

He stuffed the pistol in the back of his pants—feeling like a walking cliché in doing so—and heard Olivia's voice. _Safety's on the right. Do not let him move._ That had worked out well.

Olivia picked up the assault rifle of John's and studied the wicked-looking bayonet. "Are you ready for this?" she asked low voice.

"Not really," he told her truthfully. Her eyes flashed from the bayonet, locking on to his with an uncomfortable intensity, and he forced his trademark smirk into place. "But…I've never let that stop me before. Let's get out of here before Walter decides to make a scene."

#

#

Peter cracked open the van's side door and stuck his head out. After surveying the street outside in both directions, he pushed the door all the way open, and slipped out to the sidewalk.

"It's clear," he told Olivia, who was crouched just behind him. "Not an undead soul in sight. Maybe the zombies are sleeping in today."

Instead of responding to his attempt at making light of the situation—poor as it was—she ducked out of the van after him, keeping the barrel of her rifle pointed at the concrete. She peered up and down the street as he had. Her eyes narrowed on one of the undead crumpled on the sidewalk a short distance away to the east. The side of its head was crushed in, and bits of skull glinted in the sunlight. It had been a female.

Olivia nodded toward the corpse. "Was that you?"

"Yeah, it wandered a bit too close for my taste last night," he replied with a grin, and then changed the subject. "Which way are we headed?" There weren't too many options—it was either east or west, and then south, depending on where she wanted to cross the Charles.

She hesitated for a moment, and then turned to the west, toward Massachusetts Avenue. "Let's head west then south. The infected…the zombies—" she said, and a phantom smile crossed her lips for an instant, "they were following the storm yesterday. Maybe that way is clear now."

Her theory that the undead had been reacting to the sounds of thunder made sense to him, though he'd forgotten to get Walter's opinion on the matter. He wondered at its ramifications for their group. Something about it troubled him, like he was missing an important wrinkle, but he couldn't chase down the thought. He should have discussed it with his father before they left. For an instant, he considered going back to the lab, but shrugged the idea aside. From Olivia's stance, she was eager to get started—she was almost bouncing on the soles of her feet, like she was about to spring on some unwary criminal.

Instead, he nodded, and swung the crowbar up to his shoulder. "Lead the way then, Agent Dunham," he said, sweeping his free hand in the direction of the Massachusetts Avenue intersection.

Olivia cocked an eyebrow, and then shrugged and started off toward the end of the block with her rifle tucked under one arm.

Before following, Peter squinted back to the east, beyond the corpse of the female he'd brained hours after she'd left him in the van. Far down the sidewalk, a pair of boots were just visible, sticking out from between two parked cars. She hadn't seen them. His gaze lingered on the boots for a moment, and then he turned and hurried after her.

#

#

In spite of her stated intention to leave at first light, the sun was well above the horizon when they reached Massachusetts Avenue and turned south. The storm had fled to the southwest, and left behind a crisply blue sky. Puddles and pools of standing water left over from the storm dotted the street and sidewalk, and the smell of rain was still in the air—it hung low, waiting for a stiff wind to disperse it. The wind hadn't arrived yet, though it would eventually. The temperature was uncommonly chilly, even for early October, and sent dark thoughts of the coming winter his way. He buried his free hand in his jacket pocket.

He'd always despised Boston winters—and that had been with central heating. It didn't take a genius to see the cliff looming, just a month or so out of view. There were rough times ahead for them.

Peter followed Olivia's ponytail as she swerved through the mess of cars and trucks, observing the way it fell lazily over her backpack and black jacket. He noted that she had a slight limp, and was favoring her right leg from an undisclosed injury. He watched her hobble along for a while, and then abruptly realized it wasn't her leg he was watching and lifted his eyes back to her hair, which was a safer landscape.

Their pace had slowed considerably since they'd turned southward. The area they were moving into was less-traveled, and care had to be taken. Most of their scavenging runs had been on the Harvard campus itself, and to the north and east, away from the more commercial districts of Cambridge. The majority of the vehicle traffic—before it had stopped altogether, at least—had always been moving to the west and the south, toward I-90. It had seemed safer to stay away from that area of Cambridge, if possible. Until now, at least. They were heading right toward the heart of the city.

 _Good times_ , he thought, shifting his crowbar to his other shoulder.

Ahead of him, Olivia came to a sudden stop and crouched on the sidewalk next to a bus station canopy. Peter nearly walked over her, not realizing until the last moment that her legs were no longer moving.

"What'd you see?" he asked, squatting down and taking stock of their location.

She frowned and eyed him up and down—perhaps noticing his near collision—and then pointed over the vehicles in the street. He followed the line of her finger, and spied a group of stooped figures—at least ten of them—in filthy clothes standing outside the entrance of a Starbucks about a football field away. With a start, he realized they had already reached Harvard Square. The triangular-shaped island full of retail kiosks was just north of JFK Street, where they would be angling to the southwest toward Anderson Bridge. What had been an idyllic, trendy area of Cambridge with tiny shops and store fronts occupying the lower levels of the apartment and office buildings was gone. It looked as if a bomb—or several bombs—had gone off, with many of the surrounding structures blackened by fire and large portions of their masonry caved in, like they had been struck by a gigantic fist. The sidewalks ahead were littered with rubble and shattered glass. Many of the vehicles that were stalled on either side of the square were burned as well, the sheet-metal bodies twisted and torn from explosions and riddled with bullet holes. He'd scene similar scenes in Baghdad and Kirkuk—it reeked of U.S. military action. There weren't many bodies evident, and he wondered who exactly had been under fire.

"That big group, and four more over there," she whispered, and pointed out another group standing near the remains of the freestanding Dunkin' Donuts that used to occupy the middle of the square.

Peter shook his head at the devastation. "It looks like there was a pitched battle," he remarked under his breath. "You remember that sustained gunfire we heard to the south a week or so ago? I bet it came from right here. Fucking military." He stood up and peered around the bus station canopy, trying to get a better view beyond the square, to no avail.

"It doesn't matter," Olivia said. Her voice was determined, and more than a little impatient. "Whoever it was, they're gone now." She rose up next to him, brushing up against his shoulder. "We need to keep moving. That group of four is close. We'll take them, and then I think we can run past the others. Let's go."

Olivia started forward and Peter grabbed her backpack, pulling her back toward him. She spun around, eyes blazing, and he ignored her indignant glare. Why risk attacking when they were outnumbered? There was another way. Harvard Square was familiar territory—he'd grown up in Cambridge, after all.

"I've got a better idea," he whispered. "Wait here, I'll be right back." Keeping low, he moved away from the bus stop, toward the tightly packed rows of parked cars and trucks in the center of the street.

"Peter, where are you going? Peter!"

Olivia's furious hiss followed after him as he moved down the line of vehicles, looking for a gap he could slip through to cross the street. He pretended not to hear. She could get as angry as she wanted, but the point was to survive, and not take needless risks.

 _You didn't seem to have a problem taking needless risks last night_ , an unwanted voice spoke up from someplace inside his head. _That was different_ , _I had a good reason_ , he answered the voice, and kept moving.

At a narrow space between an empty red hatchback and a catering van that wasn't empty, he passed through the first row of vehicles, and then slid over the low hood of a Corvette to reach the sidewalk on the other side. They had already passed the particular shop he wanted, so a little backtracking was necessary. His back and thighs were protesting angrily from his bent-over sprint when he finally arrived in front of the shop he was looking for.

The glass store front was shattered from wall to wall, including the door, which hung lopsided from its hinges. He pulled and lifted the door open simultaneously, keeping the metal corner from scraping on the sidewalk, and stepped inside. He stopped just beyond the threshold and surveyed the interior, crowbar ready.

The liquor store he had frequented occasionally in his teens had been looted heavily, but he thought it likely what he needed was still there. Apparently, the end of the world had driven the locals to drink, and a lot—most of the shelves were empty. He moved forward into the murky light, heading around the rows of shelving to the hard liquor section. Broken bottles and empty packing covered the floor, and the beer coolers along the back wall were canted forward, leaning against the shelving endcaps.

Peter scanned the rows in the hard liquor section, passing over several bottles of schnapps and what remained of the low-proof alcohols, until he found what he was looking for. He slung the backpack from his shoulders and grabbed two bottles of grain alcohol from the bottom row. After placing them in his pack, he moved back to the front of the store and was about to leave when another prize caught his eye.

He was at the checkout counter in two long strides, where a locked display containing the exorbitantly priced top-shelf liquors had somehow remained unscathed during the looting.

"Excellent," he said to himself, and put his crowbar to work.

A moment later, he pulled a bottle of twenty-one year _Glenlivet_ scotch from the display. He shoved it in his pack next to the grain alcohol and the water bottles, and considered grabbing another before restraining himself. The pack was heavy enough as it was, and they still had miles to go before Brighton. Maybe on the way back.

With his work done, he retraced his steps back to Olivia, who was waiting impatiently where he'd left her next to the bus stop canopy. All told, he'd been gone less than five minutes, but her eyes were aflame when he set his backpack down next to her and removed the grain alcohol.

"This is your brilliant idea?" Olivia bristled with frustration. "To get drunk? Peter, I swear—"

Peter huffed and rolled his eyes. "Have a little bit of faith, Olivia," he said, eyeing her as he unscrewed the cap from each bottle. "Besides, you couldn't pay me to drink this stuff. That'd be like drinking battery acid."

He scrutinized the vehicles parked near the bus stop, and then grabbed a suitcase from the back of a BMW wagon and upended it on the sidewalk. Olivia regarded him silently as he grabbed a shirt at random and tore it in half. He dribbled a little of the alcohol on each of the shirt-halves, then stuffed them into the open bottle necks and examined his work. The grain alcohol in the molotov cocktails would do nicely, better even than the vodka he'd hoped to find. They were missing a few ingredients that would have made them true molotov cocktails, but they would work well for enough for his purposes.

"C'mon," he said, and shouldered his backpack. He handed her one of the cocktails, and then grabbed the other and his crowbar. "We need to get closer."

Her gaze was stony, but she followed him without protest down the row of cars until they were close enough to see the golden eyes of the first group of undead on the other side of the street. They were fresher than he'd like—a little more aware than he would have preferred. Gunshot wounds decorated their ruined clothing.

The bigger group near the Starbucks had wandered a little closer, which was a stroke of luck. Across the street, and about halfway between the two groups was an alley between two apartment buildings—easily within throwing distance. He glanced at Olivia.

"You ever play baseball or softball when you were a kid?" he whispered, keeping his eyes on both groups of undead through the spider-webbed windshield of the taxi they had stopped behind.

"What? No, I…wasn't really into sports when I was young," Olivia replied back. "Why?"

Peter rummaged in the front pocket of his backpack for a lighter he remembered seeing there. "I thought you might have a better arm than me," he said with a shrug.

His fingers brushed up against a cylindrical object, and he pulled it free of the pocket and held it up to the sun. It was a yellow Bic, with about half its supply of lighter fluid remaining.

Olivia set her cocktail down between them, and leaned on the stock of her rifle. "You aren't going to try and hit them with it, are you?"

"Nope." He opened his pack and removed the bottle of scotch. "We just need a distraction."

"What are you gonna do with that?" she asked, gazing down at the bottle.

He spun the cap off and smirked. "Drink it, of course," he replied. "This is twenty-one year scotch. It's going to be a rare commodity any day now."

Peter took a sip and winced at the tender harshness as it slid down his throat. A warm glow suffused his insides, and he sighed with content.

Olivia shook her head with a mix of amusement and exasperation. "You are…unbelievable, Peter Bishop," she uttered under her breath, and then pulled the scotch from his hand. "Gimme that."

She took a long swallow before he could warn her—longer than his own had been—and then reached for the cap and replaced it without comment. The bottle disappeared into her bag, also without comment.

He closed his mouth—it had dropped open at her lack of reaction. The woman was full of surprises. Not in a million years would he have guessed her to be a whiskey drinker, and an experienced one at that. He wondered what other secrets her green eyes concealed. Their gazes met, and she arched an eyebrow.

"Let's get on with it," she said.

Peter blinked, and cleared his head. "Right." He grabbed one of the cocktails, and lit the strip of cloth. The fabric caught easily, sending thin flutes of black smoke drifting upward. He handed the lighter to Olivia. "You ready?" he asked, testing the glass bottle's weight.

At her silent nod, he stood up and heaved the bottle in a high, lazy arc, over the lines of cars, over the zombies and the roofs of the remaining kiosks, and into the alley he'd been aiming for. The bottle seemed to hang in the air for an instant, then dropped with a resounding crash on the edge of a dumpster twenty or thirty feet from street. There came a _whoosh_ , and fire screamed up the side of the open dumpster, and into the dumpster, and on the side of the building it rested against.

The conflagration was mesmerizing, and Peter watched the dancing flamed creep up the side of the apartment building with anticipation. Until the undead began roving about the square, and a hand yanked him back down behind the taxi. The walking corpses turned about, and though both groups began moving in their drunken shuffles in the general direction of the alley, they still appeared uncertain on where they were headed.

"Nice shot, Bishop," Olivia said in a low voice. She lit the other cocktail. "Think you can do that again?"

He nodded and took the flaming bottle gingerly from her outstretched hand. "We'll see…," he said, rising from his crouch.

His next toss missed the dumpster, and shattered on the gravel in front of it. Again there came a burst of ignition, and a fireball blazed upward. The dead men and women's pace toward the alley increased, and they rounded the building and rushed toward the fire, oblivious to the danger it presented.

Peter grinned with maniacal glee as they walked straight into it, one after another. Fire licked the ragged seams of their pants and shirts as they shambled through the blaze, kindling into flame on some, but not all. The dumpster had become a roaring inferno, and what had once been a woman with wild hair combusted into a torch after wandering too close. They seemed unaware of the fire even as they burned.

He glanced back at Olivia, who was watching the scene unfold with cold satisfaction. "How's that for a distraction, Agent Dunham?" he said, and retrieved his backpack and crowbar from the sidewalk.

"It'll do," Olivia replied, sounding indifferent to his achievement. "Let's move." She grabbed her rifle from where it was leaning against the taxi, and started toward the far side of the square.

"Yeah, well…you can thank me later," he called after her.

"Keep your voice down, Peter." He heard her say. She didn't look back at him.

Peter huffed and then hurried after her. What did it take to impress the woman?

With their path to the south clear, they passed through the traffic jam without further incident. Tan and brown military vehicles came into view, blocking Massachusetts Avenue where it turned to the east, and JFK where it continued to the southwest. Both streets seemed empty for some distance beyond the barricades. He peered inside the cars and trucks as he passed them by, until it became clear that most of them contained the bodies he'd been looking for earlier—still in their seatbelts. Some of them were still moving. The tan and brown vehicles resolved into the familiar shapes of camouflaged Humvees.

Olivia abruptly veered toward a squat structure constructed entirely of framed, tinted glass in the middle of the south and east forks in the street. Peter hesitated, and then followed her warily. He knew the glass building well—it was the entrance to the Harvard Square station for the Red Line subway. The subway system wasn't high on his list of places to visit in a zombie-infested Cambridge.

She stopped at the top of the descending steps and waited for him to approach. "I want to test out these lights," she said at his inquiring look. "This seems as good a place as any."

Peter swallowed, and peered down into pitch-blackness of the stairwell. "I already tested them," he told her. "They work, I swear."

Olivia ran a hand over her pulled-back hair and tightened her ponytail. "I'm sure they do…but, I need to see it for myself. Just for…for…" She looked away, and then bent over her backpack without finishing her explanation.

He watched her search through her pack for her head lamp. There wasn't going to be any convincing her otherwise. The blond FBI agent could be damn stubborn when she wanted to be. He'd known that already—it had been clear from the day he'd met her in Baghdad. And accompanying her stubborn streak was a certain recklessness regarding her personal well-being. The combination led to such insanities as her willingly letting his father dope her up on LSD, and then mind-melding with her comatose boyfriend in a rusty tank of water. That it had worked, and she'd saved him was beside the point. _He_ wasn't built that way—self preservation was ingrained.

"All right, let’s do it," he said, letting his pack slip from his shoulders. "What could possibly go wrong?"

 #

#

The red beams of their headlamps were mottled on the faded-yellow brick walls of the stairwell. The dichroic gel sheets he'd used to make the red filters could have used a little more work—it was obvious that he'd failed to clear all the air bubbles. Distinct spherical shapes were present in the circles of their lights as they reflected on the painted bricks and concrete, and on the stainless steel of the escalator to their left as they crept down the steps.

They reached the landing together, and were met with a silent, empty corridor stretching both directions. Harvard Square station was a complex, labyrinth of tunnels and platforms stacked atop one another. He recalled exploring its depths fondly as a kid, racing along its slopes and ramps, and leaning impossibly far out over the overhangs—all the while ignoring his mother's pleas to be careful. He'd always had a bit of a problem with authority, and it had only grown worse with age.

Olivia turned her light toward him. "I've never been in this station before," she murmured. "Which way?"

Peter considered the madness of what she was proposing. "So we're actively looking to…to find some zombies?" he asked. Her red light nodded affirmative. "Well…then, I guess we should head toward the outbound platform. I imagine there were a lot of people in a hurry to get out here when it all went to hell. Maybe they were lucky enough to have an infected among them."

"Okay, let's go," she said. "I want to get back on the road as quickly as we can."

He took a calming breath. This _was_ insanity. She was going to get him killed—and yet, he couldn't muster the will to refuse.

Maybe _he_ was the insane one.

"…Right," he muttered, and then led them deeper into the unwavering abyss.

They moved toward the next set of stairs that led to the lower levels. His grip on his crowbar tightened until a shooting pain traveled the length of his forearm, and he forced himself to relax. He'd never been afraid of the dark, nor particularly claustrophobic, yet the darkness weighed on him like something tangible. The red beams of their headlamps seemed pitiful things—barely able to penetrate the space in front of them. An awful silence pressed in from all sides, and the quiet scuffs of their shoes shouted their presence to the far corners of the earth with every step.

Peter eyed Olivia with a sideways glance as they passed by a vacant ticket window. She appeared unaffected by the murk, and was fingering her ponytail absently.

Perhaps sensing his regard, she glanced up at him. "Everything all right?"

He looked away from her light, and forced his lips into a thin smile that she would never see. "Sure, what's not to like," he said, letting his typical dry tone show its face. It was better than letting fear sink its teeth in.

She didn't reply.

They reached the next set of stairs. If his memory served, at the bottom was a wide row of turnstiles that they would need to pass through in order to progress any further. A hand on his sleeve held him back as he took the first downward step.

"Peter." Olivia's voice was a whisper.

"What?"

He flashed his beam around in the darkness, looking for a threat. Finding nothing in their immediate vicinity that was cause for alarm, he peered back at her. Her hold on his sleeve remained. He glanced at her hand, and then examined her face for some clue to her condition.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

With him a step lower than her, their eyes were on the same level. Her soft features were washed in the red glow, giving her an alien aspect. Yet she still retained her inherent beauty that he'd known would be trouble from the moment he'd laid eyes on her in Baghdad, walking through the hotel lobby like she owned the place—and him.

"Thank you," she said.

Peter furrowed his brow. "For what? Coming down here?" he said. "Don't thank me yet, we haven't even gotten to the fun part."

A smile fluttered across her lips for an instant, and she shook her head. "For coming back with me to Boston," she said. "I don't think I ever thanked you for helping out with John. So thank you."

"Um, you're welcome…," he said, unsure what had brought on her sudden gratitude—there was an unhealthy, fatalistic ring to it that was unlike her. Also, she had given him little choice but to come back with her, but it wasn't a topic he was prepared to bring up—not with their faces inches apart in the inky blackness of an abandoned subway station. "Are you okay, Olivia?" He glanced down at her hand again, and she released him.

"Yeah. I'm fine." She nodded and moved past him.

He stared at her retreating back. She didn't sound fine. _What in the hell was that about?_ he wondered, and hurried after her down the steps.

At the bottom, Olivia came to a sudden, jerking halt, and he saw why an instant later when he joined her. A paralyzing dread clamped around his spine, and he found himself unable to move or look away from the turnstile gates, and what was waiting for them beyond.

The row of gates were as he remembered from his youth—stretching about twenty stations wide. What he wasn't expecting were the undead—or rather, the sheer number of them—standing within spitting distance on the other side.

They were just standing there. Waiting in the darkness.

The horde stretched from wall to wall, and every space in between. Their numbers extended beyond the range of his headlamp—as far as he could see. Hundreds of them, maybe thousands. It was impossible to tell—there were far too many to reasonably count. In the red light, their visages were ghastly, with unblinking, ocherous gazes and torn flesh that bordered on demonic. For some reason their stillness bothered him most of all; they appeared content to stand in the darkness forever.

Some appeared fresher than others, still resembled something that had been human. Those he watched with a wary eye; the freshes, or those that were recently infected, could move far faster than their elder brethren. Almost as fast as a human. Walter seemed to think it had something to do with the degeneration of nerve tissue as the corpses decayed. The explanation made as much sense as anything else.

The stench of rotting death wafted over them, and he wondered how he could have missed it from the top of the steps. Accompanying the foul odor was an odd sort of humming noise. It made him think of a beehive, or a bug buzzing in his ear. Only the sound was low enough in pitch that he wasn't sure if he was hearing it all, or just feeling it—like a vibration—or, if it was entirely in his head. Either were distinct possibilities.

With an effort, Peter tore his gaze from the undead and turned his light on Olivia.

She appeared to be in a state of shock, not unlike his own—her eyes and lips were both open wide, frozen in place. The assault rifle dangled from limp fingers.

He reached for her arm with an unsteady hand, whether to pull her back toward the steps, or merely for contact with another human being, he couldn't say. He was having trouble forming complete thoughts. Conflicting voices shouted inside his head.

His hand closed on empty air, and his heart stumbled in his chest, pounding with drunken, unstable beats.

Olivia had stepped out of his reach.

Not away from the legion of undead, flesh-eating monsters, like any rational person, any sane person would have. Toward the turnstiles. She took another careful step. And then another, and another, until she was less than ten feet from the gates, and the first row of undead directly on the other side.

The humming, vibrating sensation he'd heard earlier changed in some indescribable way. _Air pressure change_ , a calm voice told him over the quivering voice that was screaming for him to run, to leave Olivia and her madness behind. The air felt hot all of a sudden, and he thought of beehives again, and how certain species of honeybees defended the hive by creating friction with their wings—cooking would be attackers alive with intense heat.

It was true. He'd seen it on _National Geographic_. The thought came from somewhere else, somewhere outside himself.

He was going insane, right alongside of Olivia. He clamped his mouth shut, lest his stupid tongue betray them both. A pressure built in his chest in exponential increments—the urge to scream held back by his clenched teeth.

She took another measured step closer, and consequently farther away from him.

One of the undead moved.

Its head turned a fraction, followed by its predator eyes, which came to life and swiveled in her direction. Then a ripple of animation passed through the undead, its origin point being the one closest to Olivia. It spread outward in a rolling, circular wave that continued beyond the range of his light. A horrific growling filled the chamber, wet and bubbly snarls that reduced the shouting voice in his head to gibbering hysteria.

The horde pushed forward against the turnstiles.

Peter recoiled backwards and tripped over the bottom step behind him. He landed hard on his rear and elbows, and dropped the crowbar with a clank of metal on concrete. The gun in the waist of his pants, stabbed into his tail bone, forcing a gasp through his lips. In a surprising show of rational behavior, Olivia backed away from the gates, pressing the assault rifle tight against her shoulder. He waited for the thunder of her rifle to fill the subway platform, but it never came.

And neither did the horde. Though the mass of infected reached and lunged forward, they were unable to pass through the turnstiles.

It was the outbound platform—the gates only turned one way.

He snatched up his crowbar and joined Olivia, just out of reach of the outstretched arms and clutching fingers. She glanced up at him and lowered the rifle at his approach.

"I don't believe it…" he said, putting a hand to his chest. His racing heart thudded through his jacket. "They can't get through. It's like an animal trap—the turnstiles let them in, but won't let them out. We're lucky this isn't the inbound platform. How did you know?"

She shook her head, keeping her wide eyes on the undead. "I didn't," she replied. "I…I just wanted t—"

A metallic creak stopped her voice.

The mass of undead swelled forward all along the line of gates, pressing the front row against the angled metal bars of the turnstiles. Almost in unison, the bodies in front buckled over at the waist, dark blood pouring from between their gaping teeth as bones and internal organs were crushed by the mounting pressure coming from behind.

The metal gates creaked and groaned, and Peter took a step back, pulling Olivia with him. They weren't going to hold. There was too many of them—it was like a riot at a European football game. Too many eager fans.

"I think we should probably—" he started to say.

A gate to their left snapped with a sharp crack, and the walking corpse in front fell forward on the concrete between the turnstile stanchions. The undead behind surged forward through the narrow opening, trampling their fallen comrade with indifference.

Gunfire exploded in the darkness.

The sound was deafening in the confined quarters, and the light of the star-shaped muzzle flashes lit up the platform beyond the gates with strobing, chaotic images of endless snapping teeth and burnished eyes.

"Olivia," Peter shouted over the reverberating growls and echoing gunshots.

She mowed down the first five or six that attempted to pass through the gate, blocking the opening with the corpses of undead for a few precious seconds.

"Peter…," she said in a rising tone, turning away from the horde. Her red light flashed in his eyes. "Go. Run!"

Peter didn't argue, and bounded up the steps taking three at a time. Olivia kept pace with him on his right, until she stumbled, and fell to her knees with a curse about halfway up. He stopped and hauled her to her feet, and then grabbed her hand and refused let it go the rest of the way, despite her attempts to shake it free. More of the turnstile gates snapped off with audible cracks as they neared the top, and he glanced back in time to see the undead flooding toward the bottom of the stairs like a swarm of locusts.

"Don't stop," he told her. "I don't know if they can climb stairs or not, but they'll be climbing over each other if they can't." She tried again to pull her hand free, but he held it tight, and shook his head. "You can kick my ass when we're in the daylight, Olivia," he said, "but we're not losing each other down here."

"I'll consider it, Bishop," she muttered, and then relented and squeezed his hand once.

They raced side-by-side through the pitch-black of the subway station, retracing their path back up the winding ramps toward the stairwell to the surface. The red headlamp beams cut irregular swathes that bounced wildly ahead of them, and the pounding of their feet reflected back from all sides.

Adrenaline had him in its grip, and Peter felt a strange exhilaration—like he could run forever. Maybe it was the aftermath of coming within a hairsbreadth of being eaten, but he couldn't recall ever feeling so alive. He grinned in the darkness. Maybe Olivia's madness was contagious.

In spite of their flight from overwhelming danger, he couldn't help but notice how tiny her hand was compared to his own. There were several hardened nubs running in a line across the otherwise soft skin of her palm, and guessed them to be calluses from hours spent at an FBI shooting range. She was something of a perfectionist, and would have demanded it of herself if she felt deficient in any areas that could have affected her performance. He was wondering how good a shot she was when the upper stairwell slid into view.

The shaft of light might've been the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen. Olivia's speed increased, and she angled toward the set of stairs, pulling him along in her wake. They stumbled out of the black void of the subway tunnel a moment later. After the utter darkness they'd endured, the daylight was blinding to the point of being painful.

"Shit, that's bright," Peter said, blinking at the intense sunlight. He shielded his eyes with his free hand and let Olivia pull him away from the subway entrance toward the south of the square, heading toward JFK.

At the line of military vehicles they finally stopped running. Olivia released his hand and they leaned forward on their knees, sucking in deep gulps of air before speaking.

Olivia caught his eye. "So, your lights work…," she said in between breaths.

Peter stared at her dumbfounded. "Ya think?"

He tried to stifle a chuckle, but it came out in a snort that grew into full-blown laughter, originating deep in his gut. He laughed until his sides hurt, and tears threatened to run down his cheeks. It was cleansing laugh—celebrating still being alive—and he let it run its course.

Olivia's face turned a deep shade of red, but her calm demeanor soon broke and she covered her face with both hands. It was a pity—he'd never seen an unadulterated laugh from her before.

"You're insane, Olivia Dunham," he said after the laughing fit had passed. "You know that? Certifiable. I think I may have told you that before."

"Well, I try," she said. The red in her face had faded, leaving behind a trace of pink dusting her cheeks.

They exchanged glances again, and Peter had to look away before another fit of laughter took hold. "You know, for a moment there I thought we were dead," he said, and massaged a tightness out of the back of his neck. "…and that you'd lost your mind. What were you even doing?"

Her lips turned up in a faint smile. "I wanted to see how close I could get before they could see me," she said. "It seemed like useful information to have at the time."

"So it was for posterity's sake…," he chuckled. "I take it back. Maybe you have lost your mind."

He smiled, taking the barbs out of his words, and then peered back toward the subway. The entrance remained still, with no signs of an eminent horde of undead about to spill forth. Further north, a thin trail of smoke rose up over the edge of an apartment building.

"We should get out of here," he said. "I don't know if those things will find their way up here or not, but I'd rather not stick around to find out."

Olivia nodded and grabbed her rifle. The smile she'd been displaying disappeared as if it had never been, and she gazed southward down JFK.

"You're right," she said. "And it's not getting any earlier. I'd like to get through Allston before sundown if we can. When I was…looking across the river yesterday, I saw military, still active. We need to be careful, in case there's more about."

Peter frowned. "Why? You think they'd shoot _us_? Aren't they on our side?"

"I don't know." She shrugged, and glanced back at the carnage behind them in the square. "Last time I checked, the undead couldn't drive cars, though. Maybe they had orders—have orders…"

He took a closer look at their surroundings and the humvees blocking the road. The pavement around the trucks was covered in dark stains and empty bullet casings, some bigger than a can of tomato paste. He knew them—he'd seen them before, in Iraq. They were shells from a Mk-19 automatic grenade launcher. He looked up and saw the intimidating weapon itself mounted on an armored swivel in the back of the truck he'd been leaning against. Its presence certainly explained the destruction back in the square. Someone had been trigger-happy…yet surely they hadn't fired on civilians.

Could they?

He answered his own question. Of course they could. Such things had happened in Iraq regularly, where the insurgent population was indistinguishable from the innocents. Factor in fear and the end of the world, and all bets were off. It was going to be every man for himself, if it wasn't already.

 _Or woman_ , he thought, meeting Olivia's gaze. "Maybe we should just avoid people altogether," he told her.

She didn't argue against it.

#

#

They came across a mass grave in a park across the street from what had been one of Peter's favorite Thai restaurants. (He was going to miss their drunken noodles; they'd been divine.) The sour stench of decay that enveloped them as they'd approached it was worse than anything he'd ever smelled before. It might have been the apotheosis of all foul odors, but he wasn't sure. There was no metric for measurement, only what his senses told him.

He'd vomited up his snack of granola bar in the front seat of an empty Ford Escort as they passed it by, and then again when he'd peered over the edge of the pit. The second time had mostly been dry heaves, and the water he'd drank to wash away the acrid taste of the first.

Olivia had taken it stolidly, like she took everything. The only sign of discomfort she'd displayed was the slight tightening of her jaw when she'd gazed down at the nightmare at the bottom of the hole. Then she had turned and walked away.

He had stumbled after her, still wiping the puke from his mouth.

A while later, they were strolling down a relatively empty block of JFK, less than a mile from the bridge over the Charles. It might have been a normal day, if it weren't for the scorched buildings on either side of the street. Curls of gray smoke from the charred husks still drifted in the wind, despite the thunder storm they'd endured. Tall elm and honeylocust trees in planters broke up the sidewalk on both sides of the street at regular intervals. The trees had survived the holocaust untouched, and their wide branches wove together overhead, giving the street a rather tunnel-like appearance.

There had been little talk between them since the grave they'd left several blocks behind, and he was tired of the utter silence. He wanted to hear something beyond the wind blowing. That he liked the sound of her voice had nothing to do with it. Of course not.

"So have you seen any zombie dogs around?" Peter said.

Olivia eyed him sideways. "Zombie…dogs?"

Peter gave her a crooked smile. "Yeah. Dogs, cats, or any other animals that won't remain dead."

"Um…I don't know," she said. "I haven't really been paying attention. I don't think so. Why would you ask that?"

"Well it occurred to me that whatever is causing this, it doesn't seem…man-made. I mean, everything was fine—people died and they stayed dead, and then all of sudden they didn't. Whatever changed, it happened everywhere at once. It was simultaneous, like flipping a light switch. So I think we can rule out some kind of…biological or chemical attack, at least of the mundane variety. You follow me?"

Olivia raised her eyebrows. "Sure. I…guess that part makes sense," she said. "I don't see what it has to do with zombie dogs and cats, though."

"Just stay with me," he said, nudging her with his shoulder. "The event was global, so we need to think about it on a global scale. No one—not us, the Chinese, the Russians, or whoever, have technology capable affecting the entire planet at once like that. And that is if we could even raise the dead in the first place, which last time I checked wasn't in our repertoire.

"So where does that leave us? If we didn't do it—who, or what, did? The possibilities are fairly limited." He counted off on his fingers. "It’s some kind of attack by aliens. It's God’s doing. Or it's no one." he said. "I guess if you're an atheist, then God or no one would amount to the same thing."

"No one?" Olivia said. "How could it be no one?"

"Something natural could have caused it."

"Peter, the dead staying dead is what's natural," she said, and kicked a stone ahead of them down the sidewalk. "None of this is natural."

"Ahh…but you're still thinking on a human scale, Olivia," he said, nudging her again. She responded with a pointy elbow in his side. He grunted, and rubbed at the spot. "Maybe the Earth passed through a field of unknown particles, undetectable by any of our instruments, or…or we're moving through an unstable region of space-time that—"

"This isn't a movie, Peter," Olivia said. "The Earth didn't move through the tail of a comet. Something caused this, and I don't think there was anything natural about it."

"As impressive as it is that you've seen _Maximum Overdrive_ enough to make an apt reference to it in this conversation, I don't think you're getting what I'm saying," he grinned. It was impressive—and surprising, among other things. "There's so much about physics, and the fundamentals of life at its most basic level that we still don't have a clue about."

Olivia snorted. "That's very interesting, but you still haven't told me where the zombie dogs and cats come in. And I’ve never seen the movie. I read the book when I was a girl."

“Really?” Peter said with a grin. He supposed he had wandered a bit before arriving at his point. "Well…if we do see an undead dog or cat," he explained, "then I think it’s safe to assume that this isn't an attack on humans in particular, and that everything that's happening, is just a side effect of something else, something external—to us. And by us, I mean the organisms that live on this planet. It almost seems like something has changed on a quantum level, as crazy as that sounds. I imagine theoretical physicists would have had a field day with it—if they weren't all dead, of course."

Olivia's eyes narrowed, and she pursed her lips. "You know, you sound a lot like your father sometimes."

Peter skidded to halt. He sounded like Walter?

"I'm not sure if that's an insult, or a compliment," he called after her.

She glanced back over her shoulder, amused. "I'm not either…," she said, "Now keep up. We're almost at the bridge. If we're lucky it'll be clear."

They reached another jam of abandoned vehicles heading south as the canopy of treetops obstructing their view came to an end. The bridge over the Charles reared up ahead of them in a gentle arc.

Like everything else in Cambridge, it was an old bridge, with brick guardrails and no overhead structural steel to mar the view of the city, and of the bridge itself. Two lanes ran north and south. The lanes were wide and lazy—with easily enough room to hold four lanes, yet it had always been two, for as far back as he could remember. The bridge was anything but clear.

Both lanes were jammed with vehicles heading south, packed tight together like sardines in a can. Undead roamed the aisle between them, and the spaces along the guard-rails. The arch of the bridge prevented a view of the other side, but it was easy to extrapolate the conditions. The herd of infected extended off the bridge and spilled into the park on the west side of JFK, and another property to the east that held an old castle-like structure with high arched windows, and covered in red bricks and tan stucco.

"Shit. I don't think we're gonna be crossing here, Olivia," Peter said, crouching down next to Olivia behind a blue coupe. "I guess this explains why we saw so few on the way here. The fucking storm drove them south, until they reached the bottleneck and couldn't pass." He glanced to the east, down the street that ran parallel to the river. "Didn't you say something about crossing at the Weeks Bridge?"

Olivia squinted over the trunk of the car at the shuffling figures. "I'd thought about it," she said, "…before what happened with John." She swallowed, and then met his gaze without expression. "And it's a lot further east."

The reason she'd changed her mind and led them to the JFK crossing was clear; John's corpse was undoubtedly lying in a street somewhere near the Weeks Bridge. He couldn't blame her for wanting to avoid that, he supposed. Although it made crossing the Charles more difficult. The Weeks was foot traffic only, and was less likely to suffer from the same bottlenecks—in theory. But it was in opposite direction of Brighton, like she'd said. The next vehicle bridge to the west would likely be just as bad.

"It's gonna be like this the whole way, isn't it?" he muttered.

"Probably."

Peter put a hand on her arm. "I don't think we have any choice, Olivia," he said, "We have to try the Weeks, unless you wanna swim—and with the current, we'd probably end up there anyway before we made it across."

He didn't mention how cold the water likely was, or the pollution. No one swam in the Charles if they could help it, especially after a hard rain, when the pollution was at its worst—it had been prohibited, when there still had been laws. He certainly didn't intend to.

"Shit…," Olivia whispered and then closed her eyes. Her lips pressed together in a thin line. "You're right…I—coming this way was a mistake. I should have known…fuck…"

He hesitated—she seemed furious at herself—then gave her arm a squeeze and let his hand drop. "Don't worry about it," he told her. "Besides, if we'd gone straight there, we wouldn't have had all that fun down in the Red Line. You can't buy that kind of entertainment, not these days."

Olivia snorted a soft laugh, and lowered her head. "Fun, huh?" she said, "That's not quite how I remember it." She seemed to gather herself, and lifted her head over the trunk of the car. "All right. Let's follow the river east. Stay low."

They moved forward toward the intersection, creeping between the line of iron fencing to their left, and the snarl of traffic to their right. At the corner, there was a grassy area behind a hedge of squarely-trimmed bushes that concealed the entrance to one of Harvard's many libraries. Olivia glanced back and motioned toward the hedge. Peter nodded, and followed her behind the waist high bushes, where they stopped for a moment and caught their breath.

The muscles in his thighs were burning again, unused to the unnatural activity of constantly maintaining a crouch. He massaged them through his jeans for a moment, then pulled a hole through the branches with the hook of his crowbar.

The undead milling about in the intersection were mostly former students, from their colorful clothing and youngish appearances. Morbidly, he noted several of them still wearing backpacks on their shoulders, as if they'd just come from class. He let the branches close, and studied Olivia’s profile. She was gazing through the bushes next to him. The tip of her tongue peeked out from between her lips in her concentration.

“What are you thinking?" he hissed.

"What's that building across the street?" she said. "The old one on the corner."

He pulled the branches aside again. "The tan one with red bricks?"

"Yeah. It looks like it backs up to the river. What is it?"

"That's part of the university," he replied, "The…Weld Boathouse, I think it was called."

She let the branches snap back into place, and grabbed his sleeve. "Are there boats in it?"

"Boats?" Peter frowned. "Maybe, I think it might be where they…" His mouth dropped open. "…Where they store the boats—for the rowing team. There's a dock on the backside that you can see from the bridge. I used to watch them row when I was a kid. I always liked the kayaks."

"Kayaks…" Olivia breathed, "We can take one west up the river, then get out north of Brighton. It's our best chance."

"You're assuming they're still there," he said, playing the devil's advocate.

"Why wouldn't they be?"

He opened his mouth to reply, but snapped it shut when no reasonable response came to him. He'd seen rowers in the Charles since he'd been back in Boston on more than one occasion. "I don't know," he admitted. "I guess they would be. It's not like anyone was expecting the world to end, right?"

Olivia's answering nod was eager. "We're gonna have to slip through them somehow," she said. "You got any ideas?"

Peter moved around her to the edge of the row, and edged around the corner to get a better view. The infected were crawling all over the intersection between them and the boathouse. They were thickest in front of the bridge, but grew thinner a block or so to the east, where the herd dwindled into separate packs. They almost looked like football huddles standing on either side of the line of scrimmage.

"I think we can go around them if we go far enough east," he said in a low voice. He sensed Olivia moving in close behind him, and glanced back at her. "Then we can doubleba—look out!"

He jumped to his feet and swung his crowbar like a baseball bat, sinking the pronged hook into the head of an infected that was lunging for Olivia's unprotected back. It had stumbled silently out the library entrance—the door swung outward in his peripheral vision—and more were following after it. The hook sank in just above its ear with a solid, wet smack that vibrated up his arm and knocked the undead to the side. It collapsed into the bushes, and nearly half of its face came away—it had been an old woman, he saw to his horror—when he yanked the crowbar free in a shower of blood.

Peter spun toward the library entrance, and saw with relief that Olivia had not been idle. The one he'd seen following after the old woman lay at her feet, blood trickling from a gaping wound in its forehead. Her back was against the door, holding it closed against more that were struggling to push their way out. The bayonet on her rifle dripped on the concrete sidewalk at her feet.

The dark drops fell in slow motion, one after another.

_Drip._

_Drip._

_Drip._

He looked around them.

The mob in the street was rushing toward them—not nearly as many as had been in the subway—but more than enough to leave nothing of the two of them behind. Their snarling teeth seemed to agree. They were almost at the sidewalk, fanning out to either side around the bushes.

He realized Olivia was shouting at him, and had been for some time—seconds, at least, maybe hours. Everything returned to full speed.

"Peter!"

Their eyes met. Hers were wide open, and full of some emotion. Fear, excitement, determination—it could have been any of them, or none. He thought they mirrored his own. In that look, a silent communication passed between them—regret, thanks, and goodbye all rolled into a single nod, which she returned.

It had been fun. He was glad he'd met her.

"Stay with me," he said.

Without waiting to see if she would follow, he raced around the side of the hedge where they seemed fewest—and then everything that came after was shrouded in a blur of chaotic stop-motion.

The long crowbar came alive in his hands. It ripped through flesh and bone with the ease of machine-hardened tool steel. He kept his feet moving forward—always forward—and swung his weapon in wide arcs, tearing through reaching hands and gaping mouths. The undead's rasping breaths were everywhere and he screamed in answer—he'd been screaming in a wordless howl of defiance since the first swing of his crowbar.

There was a pressure against his back, and he saw Olivia's ponytail behind him mid-swing. She'd stayed with him. She was slashing and thrusting her bayonet like a sword, sliding its razor tip into those coming from the rear. Together, they moved deeper into the melee, leaving a trail of fallen undead behind them.

After nearly losing the crowbar to a snag, he shifted his grip on it, turning the hook inward. He caved in the forehead of a snarling business man, then shoved the angled end through the gaping teeth of a sorority girl—Delta Gamma, her sweater proclaimed her. She dropped like a wet sack. A boy with flaming red hair, an elderly black man with a white shaggy beard. On and on the dead came, all shapes, sizes, and genders, in a never-ending flood.

His arms began to ache, and the crowbar grew slick with undead blood—it was everywhere, coating his arms, his face, dripping into his eyes and open mouth. He tried not to swallow—their speculation on how exactly the infection was spread to the living was still inconclusive.

He could sense Olivia behind him, still guarding his back, as he'd been guarding hers, but it wasn't enough. They weren't going to make it. In mere moments, he was going to be dead, going to be eaten alive.

A fat man wearing a purple Taco Bell t-shirt dropped in front of him, and abruptly the way ahead was clear. His crowbar rebounded off the windshield frame of a red sedan after a reflexive swing. The sight gave him a burst of energy, and he leapt up onto the hood. Olivia was below him, backed up against the sedan's fender, and surrounded by a wide ring of infected that grabbed at her from all sides. Her rifle bayonet was a blur of motion.

"Olivia!" Peter shouted.

He dropped his crowbar, then grabbed her under the shoulders and lifted her from the fray. She fought him like a wild animal, twisting in his grasp and lashing out with her feet. The bayonet's sharp point came dangerously close to spearing him over her shoulder as he dragged her onto the sedan's roof.

"Olivia, it's me…," he said in her ear. "It's me!"

After a moment she relaxed, and he set her down next to him. Her chest heaved, and her green eyes were wide open, showing the whites all around. She was drenched in blood, her hair and face dripping with bits of flesh and gore. There was something feral in her gaze when it locked onto him.

Without thought, he reached out and cupped her trembling cheeks, holding her still. "You okay?" he said.

A final shiver worked its way through her. She blinked and nodded, then looked like herself again. "Yeah…I think so. You?"

Peter managed to force out a grin. "Oh, I've never been better." He released her and bent for his crowbar.

He looked out over the undead standing below them, shocked that they were still alive. Maybe there were as many as had been in the subway. He spit foul-tasting blood out into the crowd. Their hands reached up ineffectually, clawing at their shoes and he kicked at any that came too close.

"If we stay up on top of the cars…," Olivia panted, "we should be able to find a gap. You ready?"

"Ladies first, Agent Dunham," he replied with a little bow. Olivia rolled her eyes, but he caught a faint smile on her lips as she turned away from him.

He followed her down the line of vehicles, leaping from car to car, car to truck, until they left the initial group of infected behind. They reached a space between two groups, where there was enough space for them to make a break for the river's edge. After jumping to the pavement, they sprinted for a thin line of trees on the bank of the Charles. The trees provided a little cover as they reversed course, and headed back toward the boathouse.

Their followers were befuddled by the sudden change in direction. Those in the rear weren't getting the message that they were going the wrong way, causing mass confusion in their ranks. As amusing as it was to watch the undead attempting to right the ship, more importantly, the turmoil gave them the invaluable moments they needed to reach the boathouse unmolested.

"We're lucky they have the brains of a rock…" Peter commented as they rounded the back corner of the old boathouse. "We oughta be fucking dead, Olivia…"

Ahead of him, she shook her head. "Not yet, Peter," she said, and led him out onto the wooden planks of the boathouse dock. "Not yet."

There were a myriad of boats to choose from, all held in place in their slips by thick ropes and padlocked chains. Unfortunately, it was all speedboats, without a kayak, or canoe, or any boat without a motor in sight.

"That's not good," he said, moving along the rows. He picked one at random and glanced in at the ignition. He met Olivia's gaze. "There's no keys."

"Can you hot-wire one, like when we made the barricade at the lab?" she said.

"Probably…if I had enough time…," he said, peering around the backside of the building. He didn't bother stating that there wouldn't be enough time—he'd already seen that she knew in her eyes. "But I know they store the rowing team's stuff here. It must all be inside."

"Go look, I'll keep watch." She lifted the rifle to her shoulder.

He nodded, and ran to one of the arched doorways facing the river. His crowbar made quick work of the lock, and the door opened into a wide storage area. Boats of all shapes and sizes were stacked in racks from floor to ceiling in long rows. Long and slender, sleek racing shells were to the right of the door, with another rack of canoes and kayaks to the left. A huge wooden bin of upright paddles of differing lengths sat next to the door.

"Jackpot…," Peter muttered. He grabbed two of the paddles and chucked them outside, and was deciding between a two-seater kayak and a wooden canoe when gunshots thundered on the dock.

He glanced back over through the doorway, then yanked a small canoe off its rack. More shots rang out in quick succession. The canoe fell to the floor with a dull crash and he dragged it behind him toward the open door, and then out into the sunlight.

Olivia was picking off infected as they came around both sides of the boathouse. Shell casings clattered at her feet. She stood still—almost serene, he would recall later—alternating the direction of her fire between each side of the dock. She saw him with the canoe and moved closer. Undead collapsed on the dock, and tipped off into the water with great splashes.

He ducked under her firing line and tossed the paddles into the canoe, and then pushed it across the uneven planks. The boathouse dock had two wide ramps that angled gently down to the river. Whoever came up with them was a genius, he thought, pushing the front of the canoe into the water.

"Olivia," he called back to her. "Get in. Olivia!"

Olivia glanced back at him, then lowered her rifle and retreated quickly down the ramp. She tossed the rifle into the canoe, then jumped in the front seat and snatched up a paddle. Peter slid the boat the rest of the way in, wincing as the chilly river water invaded his boots, then worked its way up his legs to his thighs. When they were clear of the ramp, he threw himself across the back seat—nearly capsizing them and ending their journey.

Then something grabbed his leg.

"Stay down, Peter," Olivia said. She yanked her pistol free of its holster.

Peter twisted on his side and kicked at a zombified woman that had made its way down the ramp. Behind the woman, more of them lumbered out onto the dock. Though he was sure it was his imagination, the undead almost seemed to sense their prey's impending escape and redoubled their efforts to reach the canoe. The infected woman clawed at his kicking feet until Olivia shot it through the eye, turning the yellow orb into mash.

It fell forward across his legs, then slipped into the water. The canoe rocked precariously from side-to-side, and then righted itself as the current took hold, spinning them out into the river.

Sucking down deep breaths, Peter stared up at a small cloud twirling overhead. His shoes dangled into the water over the back of the canoe. For the second time that day he'd thought he was going to die, yet hadn't. Flashes of being surrounded in the scrum, of the gnashing teeth, and the clamor of harsh breaths passed through his mind like a fetid wind. He blinked the images away.

"Anytime you feel like helping, Peter, I would appreciate it," Olivia said. "Canoeing isn't exactly one of my strong points. I think we're heading out to sea."

Peter pulled himself upright, and swung his feet into the boat, letting the backpack slide from his shoulders. "Sorry," he said sheepishly, and grabbed the remaining paddle. "You may be used to being on the opposite side of the predator-prey relationship, but I'm not quite there yet."

"I don't think it's something you _can_ get used to," she said, dipping her paddle into the water. "…Unless you’re psychotic. Do you know how to steer this thing or do we need to switch seats?"

"As strange as it may seem," he said, dipping his paddle into the water. "I'm no expert either, though I think I understand the basic principles. Keep your paddle on the right, Agent Dunham…"

She did as he instructed, and they were soon facing upriver, though somewhat farther downstream from the ramp where they'd put in. His lefthandedness worked well with Olivia's right, allowing each to row on their natural side.

"Peter, look at that…" Olivia said, pointing with her paddle toward the dock.

The mob of undead were rushing down the ramp into the water, one after another. They sank to the man—or woman—beneath the surface. The suicidal plunges continued unabated as they rowed past.

"Now tell me that's not disturbing," he said, glancing back at the dock.

"What do you think will happen to them?" Olivia asked.

"I imagine they'll get swept through the dam into Boston Harbor," he said. "And if they're lucky, into the Atlantic, where they'll live a long happy life at the bottom of the sea, at least until they're crushed by the water pressure. It's not like they can drown. Too bad that none of the pumps are running at the dam—they've got grinders in them, you know."

Olivia looked back at him with a frown. "That's disgusting, Peter," she said. "They were people, once. They had lives and families, people who loved them."

"The key word there is _once_ , Olivia," he said. "What they were before is irrelevant. Those things tried to eat us."

"I know…," she said, and then lowered her head. "I just…what if… Never mind. Forget it." She plunged her paddle into the river and pulled on it with a determination that tilted the canoe with every stroke.

Peter gazed at her blood-specked ponytail and wondered what she'd been about to say. _What if…what?_ From her wild rowing—like she intended to sprint the entire distance to Brighton—he suspected it had been something about her family.

He intended to keep pace with her as long as he could. Her intense need and desire to reach her family was something he could understand.  Family was important—despite his rocky relationship with Walter. His mother had done her best to drive that point home. You protect and look out for those you love, she had told him, in multiple languages.

And after everything they’d just endured, he was still alive—they both were. He ran his gaze over the south bank of the Charles as he paddled, beyond the treetops to the innocent-looking structures that peppered the shoreline. He suspected their hardships were only just beginning, but they were going to have to make do.

Somehow.


	5. Brighton, and What Happened There, Part 1

**-October, 2008**

.

The Charles River's push against the canoe was relentless.

They had been paddling against the current for what felt like all day, though Olivia was certain it couldn't have been more than an hour, and was possibly less. It wasn't a strong current, but it let them know it was there with every stroke of their paddles—and every second spent not paddling in which it slowly reversed their course. She would have known exactly how long they'd the been struggling against the river, but her watch had stopped working at some point prior to their escape off the dock. In addition to the current, a fierce cross-wind sweeping in from the north shoved them continually toward the south bank, forcing Peter to make constant course corrections. It was monotonous work.

The cold wind bit at her skin through her jacket, chilling her to the bone. The jacket was insufficient to the task she required of it, and she made a mental note to grab her heavy coat from her apartment before they left. She couldn't complain too much however, at least she was dry. Which was more than she could say for Peter.

She paused mid-stroke and shot a look toward the rear of the canoe. His blue jeans were soaked up to just below his waistline, but he hadn't complained about being cold—yet. She thought it might be coming soon. He looked rather miserable, though still alert and scanning the river banks on both sides.

The wind and the afternoon sun had dried the blood splatters and stains on his face, at least the parts of it that weren't covered by his days-old growth, now more beard than scruff. If the dry coating she felt on her own cheeks and in her hair were anything to go by, she looked just as bad as he did—which was to say like hell.

Olivia took another covert glance over her shoulder. He was a good partner, or co-survivor, or whatever the phrase was. Partner implied a structure, an institution or system that recognized such made-up terms. Co-survivor seemed more accurate, despite being awkward to say. Maybe it was just friend. They were friends, weren't they? After what they had just been through together, it was difficult not to think of him that way. She had trouble recalling what exactly he'd done that had annoyed her so greatly in the days leading up to John's death.

In hindsight, it had all been so...petty, and unlike her on top of that. Peter and she had been getting along more or less fine before it all started—they'd solved a few cases together, and he'd been very helpful with his father, and on his own. And he was rather charming when he wanted to be.

Yet after John had made it to the lab, she'd found herself siding more and more with him, and against Peter in many of their discussions. Where she had found his dry wit amusing—at least in small doses—it had begun to grate on her nerves in ways it hadn't before. As it always had on John. Looking back at her behavior, it was clear that she'd been siding with John because he was John, and had been transferring his attitude toward Peter onto herself, at least in part. It was unlike her. To her shame, she vividly remembered wishing for an instant that it had been Peter, instead of John, who'd accompanied her with Charlie to the bell tower.

 _Well, that won't be a problem anymore_ , the voice of her subconscious spoke up.

She couldn't argue with that. The death of one party solved a lot of interpersonal relationship problems.

Olivia withdrew from her thoughts and glanced at the shoreline to the south. A green guardrail ran along a street that followed the river's winding contour. She'd driven that particular street a thousand times. There were a number of sports fields just on the other side: soccer, football, baseball, and tennis. It had been heavily used year round by kids of all ages, and adults. The river made a sharp turn to the south not far ahead of them, and the street with the green guardrail continued straight, crossing over the river on a bridge not unlike the one they had just left behind.

Her stomach growled and she shifted on the canoe seat, squeezing her legs together. It was becoming more uncomfortable with every stroke of her paddle. She set it across the gunwales, before stretching out her back and pushing her arms out to the side. Maybe a five minute stop would do them some good in the long run. She searched the southern bank for a likely spot, and saw a thicket of trees just before the river's abrupt southward turn that looked like it might offer some seclusion. In addition to being hungry, her bladder was about to burst at the seams.

"Hey, you hungry?" she said, twisting in her seat to face Peter.

"Yeah, you got any cheeseburgers?" Peter replied. The dried blood on his face turned his grin into something grisly. "I'd kill for one right now, present company excluded, of course." He switched his paddle to her side of the canoe, keeping them on a straight course.

Olivia eyed him over her shoulder. "Sorry...," she countered, "you're gonna have to take that up with Walter and Gene."

"Gene...?" he spluttered. "Olivia, don't ever let Walter hear you say that. I think he loves that cow more than he loves me."

She doubted that very much, but didn't think it wise to correct him. She had noticed the way Walter watched Peter when he wasn't looking. From what she could tell, there were two things in life that his father loved: working in his lab, and Peter. Without either, she thought he might descend into the same sort of madness she'd found him submerged in at St. Claire's Hospital.

"Can you get us to those trees over there?" she wanted to know, pointing out the spot she'd seen. "I think we can afford to stop for a few minutes."

"You sure?" he asked, "I can probably go a while longer..."

Her face began to burn, and she spun back to the front of the canoe. "Yeah...," she said, and resumed her paddling. "And, I...kind of need go to the bathroom, also."

"Uh huh...," he grunted.

She waited for him to laugh, or say something further, something Peter-esque about her need to go pee, but he remained silent and merely turned the nose of the canoe toward the river bank. Maybe he had to go also.

After an unspoken agreement, they increased their speed toward the shore. Olivia dropped her paddle and jumped out as the nose of the canoe ran aground in between two sycamore trees with peeling white and brown bark growing close to the river's edge. Thick, winding tree roots exposed by erosion at the waterline made for uneven footing, of the sort perfect for spraining an ankle—a frightening complication she did not need. She stepped carefully, and dragged the canoe up onto the bank until it was clear of the current's grip.

"Here," Peter offered, and handed her John's assault rifle, stock first. "I think we're okay in these trees, but after...earlier, I don't think we can be too careful, you know?"

Olivia nodded, but pushed the rifle away. "It's almost empty," she said, "and I have my sidearm. I'll be right back." She could have told him exactly how many shells were left—seven, including the one in the chamber—but a lingering self-consciousness held her back. It was a familiar feeling, one leftover from her youth, when her habit of counting everything had made her stand out among her peers at the boarding school.

Peter shrugged and laid the rifle on the bottom of the canoe, then stepped ashore. She regarded him for a moment, and considered whether or not a warning to keep his eyes to himself was necessary. Before she could however, he moved past her, and headed in the opposite direction that she'd been planning to go.

After watching his back for a moment, she turned and made her way through the trees until she found a clear spot to do her business. She kept her gaze glued to Peter's brown jacket through the narrow gaps between the tree trunks as she went about it, but he never turned his head. A small smile curled her lips. He was a gentleman when he wanted to be. It was good to know, not that she had doubted him—too much. He was a man, after all.

When she was finished, she grabbed their packs and the rifle from the canoe and joined him in a relatively clear area upriver from where they'd landed. He was standing on top of a large, irregular-shaped boulder. It was half-buried in the mud like it had been dropped from a great height. He stared out over the river to the west, shielding his eyes from the sun.

Olivia climbed up next to him, and grabbed a couple of the granola bars from her bag, along with a bottle of water from his. "What is it?" she asked, handing him one of the granolas. Directly across from them on the north side of the river, a tall office building smoked, and its upper floors were blackened with soot. A number of tiny figures stood in groups in the surrounding parking lot, and wandered the street that ran along the far bank. "You see all those over there?"

Peter stared at the granola bar with a sour expression, then tore it open and took a bite. "Yeah...I saw 'em," he said with a nod. "We're lucky we took the river. Just before what happened outside the boathouse, I'd almost suggested we try to cross at the Eliot Street Bridge if you didn't want to try the Weeks. It would have been a bad idea. Look."

He pointed toward the tight bend in the river, where it turned south. The river beyond the bend was out of view, except for a short section of the Eliot Street Bridge that jutted out from the far bank.

The bridge ended abruptly in a jagged drop-off, just above the first archway. It had not been empty when it had happened. What lay below it in the water, and whether or not it had been the entire bridge, was obscured by the curve of the land.

Olivia's eyes widened. "They destroyed it?" she wondered. "How could they do that?"

Peter took another bite of his granola bar. He chewed for a moment, then shrugged. "I don't know...," he said, and then sat down on the rock and looked up at her. "Maybe it was like you said, and they had orders. A running retreat, maybe..."

The northerly wind made her shiver and she sat down next to Peter on the boulder, ignoring her aching knee. She found a slight depression that offered marginal comfort, and opened her own granola bar. It was tasteless on her tongue, like eating cardboard. She wondered if the order to blow the bridge had been made on the ground, or if it had originated in a war-room somewhere, by men making decisions with cold logic. She'd been a part of that system, and had always thought she understood, and even approved of its implications.

But seeing the results, living in the consequences, was something else again. And the consequences were all around them—back in the square, the bridge, the burned buildings. It had all come apart. The men making decisions had clung to their tuft of grass for as long as they could, lashing out wildly in all directions with whatever weapons they could lay their hands on.

As if to punctuate the thought, automatic weapon fire echoed to the southeast, far in the distance. Peter turned and looked toward the sound, his brow furrowed into deep lines. The gunfire went on for several seconds, maybe as many as five, before it died away.

"That sounded like it came from somewhere over in Allston, or maybe Brookline," he said, glancing over at her. "Let's pretend that we intended to go this way all along. After seeing that," He tilted his head over at the destroyed bridge, "and what they did in Harvard Square, I get the idea that the military isn't too interested in helping out any survivors."

Olivia grunted her agreement. He would get no arguments from her. She spun the cap off the water bottle and took several sips, then passed it to Peter. He took a long drink, then dribbled some water on a shirt from his pack and scrubbed at his face. When he was finished, he handed her the shirt and the water.

"You could use a little work there, Olivia." He nodded toward her with a frown. "The  _Carrie_  look—it doesn't really suit you."

"It doesn't, huh?" she said, wiping at her cheeks with the shirt. "Too bad I can't move things with my mind like she could. It might've come in handy right about now."

Peter chuckled. "Don't we all," he said. "That's every boy's dream from the age of ten, to about...thirty."

Olivia smiled and shook her head. That certainly explained a few things about men in general. She tossed him back his shirt and grabbed her backpack. In the front pocket was the extra ammo for the rifle. She ejected the magazine and began reloading it, pressing the bullets inside one after another, until the spring grew taught.

"How much more ammo do you have for that?" Peter inquired, after watching her for several minutes. He'd finished his granola bar, and was ready to go.

"Less than a full magazine." She could have told him there were sixteen rounds left, but didn't. "After that, we're out, unless we come across more military." She snapped the magazine back into place, and re-chambered a round.

"I imagine they wouldn't be too thrilled seeing you with that," he said, and climbed to his feet with a grunt. "They would probably regard that rifle as their property."

"Well...I never specified that I wanted them to be alive, did I?" She grinned and peered up at him.

Peter smirked and reached for her hand, and she let him pull her upright. With the uneven footing on top of the boulder, she found herself pressed up against him for a moment while they steadied themselves against each other. He smelled of...maleness, and not unpleasant, exactly—none of them smelled good—just earthy...and male. And he appeared to be just as surprised and affected as she by the close quarters. Their eyes locked for several heartbeats. His face colored under his thin beard, and he cleared his throat and stepped away from her. He snatched up his backpack and leapt off the boulder, landing cleanly on both feet. Their eyes met again briefly, then he started through the trees toward the canoe.

Olivia swallowed, and stilled her beating heart. Peter had incredibly blue eyes. She'd noticed them before, particularly on the day they'd re-opened the lab for Walter. When he'd brought her a cup of coffee as a peace-offering. She had admitted the threats she'd used to get him to come back with her from Iraq had been bluffs, and he'd been impressed by her performance. And like then, not a single thought of John had gone through her head.

 _Stop fretting over men, Olivia Dunham, and get on with it_ , a voice said. It sounded a lot like her sister Rachel.

The voice snapped her up straight, and guiltily banished all such thoughts to an undisclosed location. She jumped down and hurried back to the canoe, where she found Peter bent over the front pocket of his backpack.

He zipped it shut at her approach and tossed it in the canoe. "You ready?" he said, and moved toward the rear without waiting for her response.

Olivia nodded as he stepped over the side to the rear seat. She set her bag and the rifle inside, and shoved the canoe back into the river. In a moment of small victories, she managed to find her seat without getting a drop of water on her boots.

There was a moment of confusion, where they drifted with the current for some distance while reestablishing control over the narrow canoe, and then they were on their way. They paddled hard for the southward bend in the river, and the shattered bridge that lay just around the corner. The small broken section that was visible grew larger, and she could begin to make out little details on the bridge's brick facade, and along the bank surrounding it.

Black scorch marks shot upward on the outside of the first archway, just below the broken point. The bank was littered with rubble, bricks and chunks of concrete, and the windows of two nearby boathouses—similar, but much newer than the one they'd left behind—were all shattered.

"Definitely explosives," Olivia noted, glancing back at Peter. "Probably C-4 or Semtex. You can see the blast points."

"Excellent...," he muttered. "Our tax dollars at work."

They reached the sharp turn, and Olivia's breath caught as the rest of the bridge slid into view. Where there had been three arches spanning the width of the Charles, only one remained. The center and northern arches were both gone. They rested at the bottom of the river, and all over its banks. Vehicles had been on the bridge when it had collapsed, and were lying in the river in two separate piles, partially submerged beneath where each of the arches had been. A jagged tee rising from the water was all that remained of the center abutment.

Neither of them spoke as they drew near of the wreckage, close enough to make out individual vehicle makes and models. There were people still trapped inside the vehicles—some were still struggling against their seatbelts. Peter steered them a little closer, and the bullet-holes that peppered the cars and trucks became obvious also.

"They butchered those civilians, Peter," she stated, running her gaze over the scene—it was a crime scene in her eyes, if there were only someone to prosecute. "Same as back in the square. The military wasn't even trying to help them." She turned away from a minivan full of moving silhouettes. "They probably thought they'd reached safety, that they were doing what all the emergency broadcasts said to do."

Peter guided them clear of the debris, and they paddled toward the clear space under the single remaining arch. "Fear and desperation bring out the worst in people," he said. "And when it's a group, under orders...well, they probably rationalized murdering women and children as being for the greater good. Maybe they came to the conclusion that civilians were walking time-bombs." They passed into the shade under the bridge, and he let out a bitter laugh that echoed off the low-hanging concrete. "I can't say I'm too surprised though, after what I saw in Iraq. Humans are capable of some sick shit, and that's without the end of the world."

Olivia grunted, and pulled hard on her paddle. There was nothing more to say. What had happened in the square and on the bridge was as bad or worse as anything she'd seen in her time as Agent—and it had been the 'good guys'. What a joke that was.

They rowed swiftly through the low tunnel, then back out into the sunlight. Beyond the destroyed bridge and the murdered civilians. The river curled back to the southeast for a short distance before narrowing and returning to its southwesterly course. Familiar structures dotted the horizon, buildings in the Oak Square neighborhood, just north of her part of Brighton. She stared hard at the tallest of them, a hotel that she had driven past regularly. From a distance, the hotel and many of the structures close to it seemed to be untouched by fire. The sight filled her with hope for the conditions farther south, closer to her apartment. It was still possible her neighborhood had been spared from some of the destruction. It was a small hope, a single flame that held back overwhelming loss.

 _They're going to be fine,_ she told herself. _They have to be okay._

It was a promise, and she'd been making it to herself everyday since the horror began. John had been included at first, along with Rachel and Ella—until he'd shown up with Charlie, at least. She had done a good job of convincing herself that if it had been true for him, then it would be for them, also.

#

#

"That looks good over there, Peter." Olivia pointed out a wide ramp that descended into the river. The dock was nearly identical to the one they'd left behind, though the attached manor-sized boathouse was more contemporary, with sharp angles and bright red masonry. "I think we're due north of my apartment. It should be about two or three miles straight south from here."

"Sounds like a piece of cake," Peter remarked. The pattern of his rowing changed behind her, and the nose of the canoe turned toward the ramp on the southern river bank. "Just two or three miles...nothing to it."

She peered back at him mid-stroke. "You getting cold feet?"

He met her gaze with a grin, and shook his head. "And miss out on all the fun we've been having?" he said. "I wouldn't dream of it."

"Good, `cause it's a long way back to the lab," she said, then looked up at the sun falling toward the horizon. Even with his head lamps, she wasn't eager to be out in the night. "And I don't think you'd make it before dark. At the rate we've been going, I'm not even sure we're going to make it to my apartment before dark."

"We'll make it, Olivia," Peter assured her.

She glanced back at his confident tone. He looked determined, brow furrowed and lips pressed together into a tight line. His beard made him look older than he was, and she wondered if that was why he'd always left his scruff thick, before. A corner of his mouth turned up and he gave her a single nod.

"Get ready to yank us out," he said, looking past her.

The tip of the canoe slid up on the ramp and Olivia hopped over the gunwale. She grabbed the front near the nose, and began dragging their small craft up the ramp. The wooden planks were coated with slimy green algae close to the water line. On her third step she slipped and fell hard on her injured right knee.

"Shit..." she gasped and dropped the canoe, then clutched her knee in a tight grip.

When she'd woken that morning her jeans had stuck to the wound, glued in place by a thick scab. It had torn free when she'd stripped them off to inspect the injury. The cut had been surrounded by angry purple bruising, her shin had been covered in dried, flaking blood—it still was.

Peter's boots landed on the wood beside her. He shoved the canoe the rest of the way onto the ramp, and then she felt a hand on her back. "You okay?"

Olivia looked up and nodded. "I'm fine," she said, ignoring his outstretched hand, and climbed to her feet. She put her weight on the injured leg and winced. It wasn't good. Pain throbbed up and down her leg, in tune with her heartbeat. She gritted her teeth and turned away from Peter.

"Like hell you are," he disagreed, stepping in front of her. His eyes narrowed. "I saw you limping earlier. Let me see it."

"Peter, I'm fine," she insisted, and reached into the canoe for her backpack.

He grabbed hold of her arm. "Olivia, you're bleeding out on the dock," he said in a furious whisper. "Now let me look at it."

Olivia glanced down. It was an exaggeration, but her pants leg was red below the knee, and the stain was spreading down her shin, toward the top of her boots. She could feel it trickling down her leg. "Shit..." she hissed, and lowered her head. "Fine. We're losing time, though."

"We're gonna lose a lot more if you collapse from blood loss," he said. "Now sit."

Peter smirked at the glare she directed his way, which did nothing to improve her mood, but she did as he'd instructed—as he'd ordered. She sat down on the wooden dock across from him, keeping her leg straight out in front of her. His touch was gentle as he peeled back the leg of her jeans, at odds with his clenching jaw. He sucked in a harsh breath when the wound was exposed. Fresh blood spilled down her leg and pooled on the dock below. The bandage she'd put over it hung loose—clearly not up to the task required of it.

"A band-aid...?" Peter shook his head. "This is bad, Olivia. You should have had Walter look at it. It should have been stitched up—and I think it's infected, or will be soon. Too bad we don't have any more of that grain alcohol." He rubbed his neck, and looked around the dock for a moment. "I'll be right back. They probably have a first aid kit in there somewhere."

Before she could tell him to leave it alone, he was gone, running up the dock toward the boathouse with his crowbar. Olivia watched him force the door open and disappear inside, then inspected her leg again.

It was not good. Her classroom in the Kresge Building had been dim; in the daylight, she could see just how ugly the gash in her knee was. It was more of a puncture wound than a cut. And it was deep, almost to the bone, with jagged and torn edges. In her haste to reach John's body, she must have fallen on something sharp-edged, a rock maybe, or broken glass. She had barely felt it at the time.  _Damn it_. She felt like screaming her frustration—and might have, if it wouldn't have drawn any infected in the area straight to them.

The river lapped at the edge of the dock, little waves that came in ripples. They reminded her of Lake Michigan, and the rare occasion she'd had to visit her sister and Ella in Chicago. The last time had been the year before, for Ella's birthday. They'd gone to the beach—Greg excluded, of course. He'd been busy watching a baseball game. The man had had the gall to complain about the noise from her small birthday party. And now she was depending on that same man to keep her sister and niece safe.

Peter returned to her side a moment later. He'd brought her a bundle of gauze, a wad of white cloth, and a bottle of rubbing alcohol. She glowered at the bottle of liquid pain, and then at the man holding it.

"What are you planning to do with that?"

"Well, I'm certainly not going to drink it...," he muttered, gazing down at her bare leg. His eyes drifted up to hers and he gave her a questioning look.

Olivia sighed, then nodded her assent. There was no time for coyness. They needed to be on the move. Besides, the man had already seen her in her underwear—and that had been the day after they'd met. What was touching a leg to that? "Let's get on with it," she told him.

He lifted her leg below the knee, and wiped the blood from around the wound. "You might feel a slight sting...," he warned, and upended the rubbing alcohol over her leg.

The pain was intense, and bone deep. She sat up straight and gasped through clenched teeth, clawing her fingernails into the wooden planks. "A slight sting, huh...?" she said, when the fire in her knee subsided. "They teach you that in medical school?"

Peter shook his head. "No, in EMT training." At her inquiring glance, he elaborated. "I don't know if you knew this or not, but I served a brief stint fighting wildfires in Arizona. EMT training was required for the job."

"I remember reading that in your file," she admitted as he placed a fresh bandage over the cut. "Why'd you quit?"

"In that file that didn't exist?" He grinned and looked up from her knee. "It wasn't for me. Turns out being cooked in a forest fire wasn't my cup of tea." He wrapped her knee with gauze until it was tight, but not unbearably so. "That better?" he asked, stowing the rest of the gauze and rubbing alcohol in his pack.

Olivia smiled at the image of Peter in a firefighter suit, then bent her knee, testing its flexibility with the wrap. It was better—the pressure from the wrap reduced the bright lance of pain to a dull roar. Manageable. She nodded, and this time didn't refuse his proffered hand. He pulled her up.

"Thanks, Peter," she said. "It...it might have been a good idea to let your father take a look at it."

He shrugged as if the matter were already in his rear view mirror, and tossed his backpack over one shoulder. "Your apartment is straight south from here?" he asked.

"It was...is...on Strathmore," she confirmed, grabbing her pack and the rifle from the canoe. "On the west side."

The street name felt like a foreign language on her tongue. She'd spent so much time trying not to think of how things used to be, they no longer had any real meaning. The world was a graveyard, full of humanity's left-behinds. It would all rust away, eventually.

She followed Peter off the dock and around the brick building to the front of the property. Her leg ached with every step, but the pain faded into the background. She found little comfort in John's rifle. The weapon just felt heavy on her shoulder—a futile grasp for something lost. She thought she might put it aside when they returned to the lab. Her pistol had always been good enough.

A wide thoroughfare ran across the front of the property. The street was empty in front of the boathouse, but abandoned vehicles were visible in both directions. It was four lanes across without the shoulders. The east-west lanes were separated by a median with a single row of planted trees down its center. She'd never looked at them, or even noticed them before, though she'd driven by them every day.

What would they look like in ten years, or twenty? What would it all look like? A forest with a crumbled street running down its center. How long would it take before there was nothing left of them? A hundred years, or a thousand? How long would all the  _things_  they had made last? Her companion could probably tell her, but she didn't ask—the answer was as irrelevant as the question.

Peter was speaking.

Olivia turned away from the row of trees. "What was that?"

"I asked if you had a particular route in mind," he said, glancing up at the sun overhead.

"Not really...," she replied, and scanned the row of low office buildings across the street. If her memory served, beyond the small business park was a large residential neighborhood of single family homes. Then came I-90, and all the commercial centers along the highway. After I-90, there were more neighborhoods, all the way to her area of Brighton, which was heavy with apartment buildings. "Let's just stick to the residential areas as much as we can."

Peter agreed, and they started south across the street. During the last few weeks of scavenging in Cambridge, they had determined that neighborhoods comprised mostly of freestanding homes were usually less populated with the infected—at least the large groups of them. Why that was the case they had yet to figure out, but she suspected it had something to do with the demographics of each. She could only hope it was the same on this side of the Charles.

They came across an infected woman wandering the parking lot behind the office buildings, and then another standing in the street a block over. Both were far from fresh, and Peter dispatched the first without incident as they strolled past, and she the second. They saw a few others on their way through the business park, but none presented any immediate danger, and so were left alone.

She kept her gaze sunward as they moved south into the first residential area, extrapolating how much time remained before nightfall. At their current pace, they would be cutting it close. She noticed Peter doing the same.

#

#

"When was the last time you rode a bike?"

It was the first words either of them had spoken since she'd killed the last infected, about three or four blocks back.

Olivia looked up from the fallen leaves that covered everything in sight. The particular street they had taken was lined with trees, and autumn was in full swing. A thick blanket of red and brown was draped over the front yards they passed, along with the sidewalks and the street, and over the few vehicles that remained. She'd eyed every car they had passed, considering whether or not it was time to break their unspoken rule of no vehicles.

"A bike?" she questioned, "I don't know. College, I guess. Or Quantico. I've always been more of a runner."

"But you do know how to ride one, right?"

"Of course I know how to ride a bike, Peter," she said, casting a piercing glare his way. "I'm not a child..."

He held up hands in an innocent plea. "Hey, I've know guys my age who couldn't ride a bike to save their life." he defended himself. "So it's definitely possible, just improbable."

They walked on, and Olivia waited for an explanation for his out of the blue question, but it never came. She huffed with exasperation, and wondered if he was doing it to get under her skin. He was like that, sometimes. Not too often as of late, but it drove her crazy when the mood struck him.

"Why did you want to know that?" she asked impatiently a few minutes later. "About riding a bike."

"Oh..." He eyed her sideways and shrugged. "I saw some earlier. Leaning up against a house a few blocks back."

Olivia jerked to a stop. A bright flush burned her cheeks.

Peter continued on for a few a steps, then turned back. "What's wrong?"

"Why didn't you mention you saw some bikes?" she demanded.

"I just did."

"I mean back when you saw them," she replied. The flush spread to her ears. They prickled with heat. She took an involuntary step closer, and glared up at him. "This isn't a joke, Peter. We could have used them. We could have been there by now." It was a slight exaggeration, but she didn't care.

"I'm aware that it's not a joke, Olivia...," he said with razor softness. "It's kind of hard to miss. I didn't mention them because you didn't seem too concerned about speed—not with all the bikes we've already passed on the way here, and your little side trip into the subway, which I might add almost got us both killed, in addition to being a complete waste of our time."

The tips of their noses were inches apart, his above hers with his greater height. She felt his breath caressing her cheek, and the feathery texture of it only inflamed her further. The iron-grip that she normally kept on her emotions began to fray. Everything was coming to a head; the end of the fucking world, John's death, and her inability to reach her family. A warning bell chimed somewhere in her head, but crimson fury smashed through all her stopgaps. Her frustration boiled over; at their situation, and most of all at John, for dying on her like that. It should have been him at her side, not Peter. It should have been him. How could he have let that happen? She saw red.

"If you thought it was such a waste of time, then why did you go with me?" Olivia half-shouted. Peter's eyes went wide, and she shoved him away from her with her rifle across his chest. "Why are you even here? Does this amuse you? Watching me flail around like this? You could have fucking told me."

"What...?" Peter blinked and shook his head. He appeared dazed by her onslaught. Good. "Olivia...no, I wasn't—"

"Go to hell, Bishop." She spun on her heel and stomped away from him, taking up the southward course at a foot-blistering pace.

Her vision blurred, and she wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her jacket. The fabric stank of decaying flesh and she threw her arm to her side, biting back a shriek. She wanted to hit something, to unleash her rage on something tangible—something that could feel it, and know that it was hers. Her gaze stalked the homes she passed by, wishing one of the infected would dare show their emaciated faces.

None did.

Halfway down the next block, her anger cooled enough for her levelheaded self to return. She slowed her rapid pace, and realized that the only footsteps audible were her own. A gentle breeze blew like a whisper, rustling the leaves on the ground and those still remaining in the trees. The branches creaked overhead against its insistent pressure, loud in the silence, but her thumping heart was louder still. She turned her head, hoping to hear him following discreetly behind her, but there was only the wind in her ears.

 _Way to go there, Liv,_  she said to herself. Had he left her? If she turned around would the street be empty? What would she do if he was gone?

Had she been wrong about him?

She restrained herself from looking back. As long as she didn't, there was still a chance he was back there—that she hadn't driven him away. He could be keeping a safe distance from her. And why wouldn't he, after the tongue lashing she'd given him?

It was difficult to recall what had set her off. Surely not something as ridiculous as bicycles. She remembered seeing abandoned bikes all over Cambridge. Using one of them had never occurred to her until Peter had mentioned them. Her cheeks began to catch fire again, but not from anger. She'd been a fool.

Olivia squeezed her eyes shut and twisted her head slowly. It wasn't like her to be so irrational—to lose control of herself. She stopped abruptly in the middle of the street and gazed down at her boots. They were buried up to her ankles in damp leaves. A lock of hair had escaped her tight ponytail, and she tucked it behind her ear. She took a deep breath and turned around, bracing herself for the worst.

Her heart plummeted to the pavement.

_No..._

She swept her gaze down the vehicles parked along the sidewalk on both sides of the street. Cars, trucks, a rusted out van, a little SUV similar to hers. Some of the front yards were encased in chain-link fencing, others in primly trimmed bushes—she was beginning to hate the sight of such hedges. A strong gust of wind twirled those leaves dry enough to fly into the likeness of a cyclone. They spun in a lazy fashion for an instant before falling back to the street. She shivered at the chill.

He'd left her. He was gone. The realization felt similar to being punched in the gut. For a moment she couldn't breathe, and then managed to suck in a harsh gasp.

 _Peter..._ What was she going to tell Walter? If Peter didn't return, he would likely go mad. She could forget about him working on a cure, figuring out the infection. She'd just doomed them all. The taste of bile rose in her throat.

"You feeling better now?"

Olivia jumped at his voice next to her. She spun around, and found him standing on the sidewalk less than ten feet away. Her mouth gaped open, and he lowered the water bottle from his lips, his brow furrowed into deep lines.

"What's wrong?" he asked, and took a hesitant step off the sidewalk.

"Where the hell did you come from?" she retorted, struggling to contain the relief see-sawing her emotions. It was almost euphoric, a stark contrast to the dismay that had left her on the verge of retching moments before. She hadn't been wrong about him.

Peter frowned. "I was over on the sidewalk," he explained, and tilted his head toward the line of cars behind him. "You seemed like you...needed some space."

"Oh...," she stuttered. "I—I didn't see you over there."

He shrugged and held up the plastic bottle. "I was just getting water from my backpack..." His eyes narrowed further, and a muscle flexed under his beard. "What...did you think I'd left you? Because of back there?"

Olivia swallowed and gave him a weak smile. "No. No, of course not...," she said quickly, and then cleared her throat. "I just... I...wasn't sure where you'd gone, that's all."

She met his gaze calmly, letting none of her inner turmoil make its way to the surface. His blue eyes studied her, and she held herself still as they wandered her features. She had the feeling he didn't believe her, but after a moment he lifted his shoulders and sighed, then glanced down at his bottle of water.

"...Here." Peter shoved it into her hand. Before she could protest he turned away and started south, twirling his crowbar like a baton.

Olivia stared into the depths of the clear water. He probably deserved an apology, but she'd never been too good at handing them out.  _Or admitting that you might have made a mistake_ , another voice added. Her aunt had told her once that her problem was that she had a stiff neck. That had been right before she'd been sent to boarding school. She could do something about the latter, at least. As for the former, that was going to take some working up to. She took a sip and hurried after him.

"So...," she started, matching Peter's pace. "About those bikes..."

The corner of his mouth lifted, and he glanced down at her. "What about 'em?"

He sounded more or less like himself, and she took that as a good sign. "I was thinking we might grab the next two we come across," she suggested. "So maybe...uh, keep an eye out?"

Peter chuckled, showing all of his teeth. "That I can do, Agent Dunham," he said, and just like that, all was well between them.

#

#

Wind tore at Olivia's hair and sent tears streaming back across her temples. She squinted against it, taking a wide turn onto the next block. She glanced back at Peter, making sure that he had seen her and was following. The light was spotty in the setting sun. It cast long shadows across the pavement ahead that made navigation tricky at times, and downright harrowing at others.

Peter caught her eye and nodded, hunched low over his handle bars. His crowbar stuck up over his shoulder, secured to his backpack by the hook and several bungie-cords they had found at the same house they'd taken the bikes from. It looked fairly silly, but who was left to see it?

Olivia glanced down at the rifle strapped to the crossbar underneath her seat. It reminded her of something a young boy would have rigged up, but considering the one who'd done the rigging, it made an amusing sort of sense.

They had found the two mountain bikes inside the screened front porch of a dilapidated house set close to the street a few blocks behind them. She'd let Peter have the fancier of the two, with shock absorbers in the front and rear—he'd been close to drooling over it. Hers was black and red, and coated with mud. From the mess of empty beer cans and trash inside the porch, she judged it to have been off-campus housing for one of the nearby universities. The stench of death had been thick near the front door. Their owners would not be missing them.

She was leading them on a jagged southwesterly course through the streets of northern Brighton toward her apartment. Much to her annoyance, she'd been wrong about how far west they'd come; another half-mile down the river would have put them truly due north. There was nothing to be done about it but to adapt, and she'd always been good at that.

As she had feared, the fires that had run rampant through parts of Cambridge had not entirely spared Brighton. They passed by blocks in which every home or business had been burned to the ground, while the next block over was left untouched. The fires appeared to be random. They served no particular purpose that she could discern. She suspected arson was at play the farther south they went—whether by the military, or by some crazed pyromaniac was impossible to guess—she could only shake her head at the senseless destruction.

They encountered relatively few of the infected, most of which had been avoided easily enough. The lack of any large groups made for easy travel, but was worrying in a way. She feared running into another large group of them unexpectedly, stuck at a bottleneck as they had been on the northern side of the river. One such potential obstacle was just ahead.

The street ended at a tee. A tall chain-linked fence was visible between two matching brick structures on either corner of the intersection. The westbound lanes of Interstate I-90 lay just beyond the fence, atop a short incline. Abandoned vehicles clogged the lanes: cars, trucks, buses—all left behind by fleeing civilians. Civilians who'd only been following the instructions given by the authorities. She wondered if they'd been gunned down like those in Cambridge, or if they had fled on foot after it became clear that their vehicles would have to stay behind.

Olivia squeezed the brakes and came to a stop in front of the fence, and then waited for Peter to catch up. She had expected him to be a better rider than he was, with all his questioning of her own abilities. It was clear—in her opinion, at least—that of the two of them, she was the better cyclist. His wobbly start had been comical to watch from behind, and she'd quickly made an executive decision to take the lead. Either he was fine with that, or he'd been unable to catch her. She preferred the latter explanation for his tardiness.

Peter arrived a moment later. He brought his bike to a skidding halt next to her, sliding the rear tire out in flamboyant fashion. She could envision a ten-year-old Peter doing the same, right down to the same self-satisfied grin he was sporting.

He leaned forward on his handle bars. "Which way, boss?" he said.

His dark hair was curled with sweat that beaded down his cheeks and disappeared into his thin beard. She looked away from the sight—it stirred things awake that were better off remaining asleep.

"We have to cross over somewhere," she replied.

"Where are we at, anyway?" He glanced over at the street sign on the corner and frowned. "Litchfield... We're right in between the only nearby ramps over the highway."

Olivia looked toward both overpasses, neither of which were visible through the intervening trees and the rise of the freeway itself. "I think the Market Street overpass is closer," she said. "And it's the wider of the two."

"We could climb the fence," Peter suggested. "I'm not too eager to experience another bridge crossing, not after what happened at the last one."

She silently agreed with the sentiment, but was loathe to leave their new mode of travel behind. If they could just cross over with the bikes, they could be at her apartment in ten or fifteen minutes of hard riding—assuming they could avoid any infected in their path.

Indecision filled her. The need to know about her family was overpowering, and yet the harrowing encounter in front of the boathouse was still fresh in her memory. During the frenzy she'd retreated to some far corner of her mind, had witnessed the terror from some place outside herself. She saw a torrent of images—of yellow gnashing teeth below burnished gazes, of grimy hands clutching and grabbing for her flesh, of the infecteds' wet snarling coming from all sides—they flitted through her memory, one after another. Of Peter's solid presence behind her—until he'd been gone. She'd thought he had succumbed and that she was next, and it had...triggered something. Something animal-like that she'd never felt before—and never wanted to feel again. A blinding hatred, a white-hot rage had filled her, had driven away all conscious thought. In hindsight, it was an acceptance of her own inevitable death. She had nearly killed Peter when he'd pulled her out of it, hadn't even recognized him as a person until he had cupped her face. Had there been something tender in his touch? In his eyes? Surely she was mistaken.

"Olivia, we've got a few stragglers."

She startled out of her reverie, and Peter hooked a thumb behind them. Some of the dead they had passed had finally caught up with them. Several women that could have been any age, and a child, a little boy that looked no older than eight. The undead were stumbling down the center of the street toward them.

"Shit..." Olivia looked beyond the fence, then to the west, toward the Market Street overpass. She had to risk it. They wouldn't get caught off guard, not again. "Let's just see how it is at the bridge. If it's bad...then we'll go over the fence."

"I'm gonna hold you to that," he said, and grabbed his handle bars.

"You will, huh?" She smirked and put her foot on a pedal. "Try to keep up this time, Peter."

He looked indignant and started to splutter out a reply, but she pushed off and missed his comeback—it had been something memorable, no doubt. She looked back once to make sure he was following, then began pedaling with a purpose, plunging her legs up and down until she could feel it in her thighs. Her right knee began to ache again almost at once, but she distanced herself from the pain. It was a small thing, negligible.

Brick buildings past by in a blur to Olivia's right; an auto repair shop, a receiving entrance for a cleaning supply house, a dingy-looking law firm with graffiti painted on the wall outside its entrance. She passed by an alleyway and glimpsed a group of undead on the edge of her vision, standing not far from the street. Behind them, at the opposite end of the cramped drive, stood a pale man wearing a dark suit. At least, she thought she'd seen a man. Had he been wearing a hat? The alley was gone an instant later, replaced by another brick building, then a line of homes and a mix of picket and chain-link fences.

She risked a glance back, and saw Peter right behind her, checking their rear also. She wondered if he'd seen the man, and made a mental note to find out—if they ever made it to safety. The infected began spilling out onto the street behind them.

The picket fences gave way to more businesses, a solid line of inter-connected brick structures with green framed windows. She passed another alley, more businesses, and then another alley. A dark figure marred her peripheral vision. She craned her neck toward the narrow gap between buildings and saw another man in a suit clearly for an eye-blink, and then he was gone, lost in the alley receding behind her. Surprise and unreality almost put her on the pavement. The bike wobbled underneath her.

It had been the same man.

 _That's impossible...,_ she thought wildly, forgetting to pedal and coasting for several heartbeats.  _It can't be the same man—no one can move that fast._  Especially wearing a suit—and a hat. She'd seen the hat again. A fedora? What was going on? Maybe she'd lost her mind.

"Olivia!" Peter's hoarse cry caught her attention. "Olivia, stop!"

Olivia looked ahead. The road turned in a gradual arc to the left, toward the Market Street overpass. A thick wall of infected blocked their path, less than two blocks away. She flinched and sawed hard on the brakes, skidding through a patch of loose gravel. The rear tire swung out wide to one side, then the other, and then the bike skittered out from under her and she fell hard on her side.

The handle bar twisted and jabbed her in the gut, forcing the wind out of her. The rifle ripped free of its bindings and clattered across the pavement. She jerked to a stop, the outside of her left leg and the palm of her hand burning with road-rash.

Something struck her across the shoulders, knocking her forward, and then Peter was flying over her head, arms windmilling out to the side. She could have sworn his surprised eyes met hers the instant before he hit the ground, landing with a dull thud and a painful-sounding grunt. The crowbar strapped to his backpack rang violently on the pavement as he rolled to stop and lay still, face down on the street.

Olivia stared at his unmoving form, unable to move. The accident had been so sudden, so unexpected. She scrambled out from under their bikes and rushed to his side, ignoring the bright points of pain in both legs that flared up with every step.

She was afraid to turn him over. "Peter...," she whispered, glancing down the street at the undead. The road ahead was black with them. She wasn't sure if the mob had noticed them yet. None were moving in their direction, at least. Behind them, a smaller group—the one she'd noticed in the alley—was converging on their location at a moderately slow stagger. They were old infected, skin grizzled with decay. There were more than she remembered, but they were still some distance away and not an immediate worry. She put a shaky hand on Peter's shoulder.

He groaned and stirred at her touch, and she helped him roll over onto his backpack. "Peter, are you okay?"

"Ahh... What the hell happened?" Peter dabbed at his forehead gingerly. Blood seeped from some hidden wound above his hairline, and dribbled through the gravel pasted to his forehead into his eyebrows. "I feel like I got hit by a bus." He inspected the blood on his fingertips, then looked up at her. "Are  _you_  okay?" he said, running his eyes over her. "I think I hit you..."

Olivia shook her head. "Don't worry about me," she told him in a low voice, "I'm not the one who landed on their head, Peter. You don't fly so well."

"You don't say...," he said with a wince. She helped him up to a sitting position, and he glanced over at their entangled bikes. "Remind me not to do that again." He saw the smaller group of infected approaching and eyed them warily. "We need to get out of here, like yesterday."

"I don't think the bigger group has noticed us yet," she informed him. "C'mon. Can you stand?"

"I think so..."

Olivia hauled him to his feet. He wobbled for a moment, then righted himself against her shoulder before taking an unsteady step. She watched him take several more careful steps, until she decided he was good enough and released her hold on his arm.

"We're gonna have to climb over," she told him, "Think you can do it?"

Peter grinned and moved toward the bikes. "Since my only other option is to stay here and become zombie food, I think I'll be able to manage," he replied. "Certain death is a good motivating tool."

"Good, then we better move." She thought about leaving the rifle for an instant, then snatched it up and moved toward the fence.

Peter started to follow her, but stopped after only a step or two. "Wait. Hold on a sec. I think I've got an idea." He threw his backpack to the ground and tore open one of the smaller pockets. He rummaged through it, and cursed quietly at not finding what he was looking for right away.

"What is it now?" Olivia asked, glancing uneasily between the two groups of undead. The man was chock full of ideas today. The smaller group had lurched close enough for her to count them by sex—five males and four females—and the larger pack was beginning to stir. Three of those nearest to them were newly dead, their skin was ghostly pale and stood out in the fading light. "What are you looking for anyway?"

"These." Peter held up a small hand tool—a pair of pliers or snips of some kind. "Wire cutters. Maybe we can take the bikes with us."

Olivia glanced between the wire fence and the cutters. It was a good plan, though not exactly risk free. They could probably find another pair of bikes on the other side of the highway—but how quickly? If her memory served, several blocks of little shops and businesses lay across the highway to the south. It would be some time before they reached any more houses—and even then, bikes were not a guarantee. The conditions over there were unknown, and the sun was dipping below the horizon. They had his lights, but she wasn't eager to use them.

Her apartment called to her.

"Do it," she ordered, keeping her eyes peeled on the three freshes, and on the smaller group—now close enough for her to make out their stained teeth. "We can still climb over if we have to."

Peter nodded, then went to work with the wire cutters, snipping through the first wire just below the level of his chin. It took some effort on his part—the metal wire was thick, and she suspected the cutters were not designed with fencing in mind.

The infected moved closer. The scraping of their uneven footsteps dragging across the pavement reached her ears first, then their harsh vociferations.

Olivia estimated their speed, then dragged the bikes over to where Peter was working. She tossed their backpacks over the tall fence to the grass embankment on the other side, followed by his crowbar—it landed on her backpack with a ring of metal on glass.

"Hey, watch the scotch," Peter muttered. He grunted, and cut through another wire.

"Really, Peter?" she said, eyeing his progress. "Is that all you're worried about right now?" The slice he'd made in the fence was still only several feet off the ground. Peter grunted and made another cut, then another. He didn't reply to her needling, and she wasn't sure he'd even heard her through his focus.

The undead were close. Their sickly-yellow eyes glowed in the twilight. Olivia raised the rifle to her shoulder and released the safety. Before firing it down in the subway, it had been over a decade since she'd shot something similar, all the way back in her basic training. Its use was going to be required again, unfortunately. "We're not going to have much time once I start shooting," she warned him. "How much longer?"

Peter glanced at the approaching undead mid-cut, "A couple minutes...," he grunted, "maybe three."

Olivia nodded. His cut was almost waist high, but still too short to push a bike through. She would just have to make sure it was enough time. She zeroed-in on the closest of the small group—a stringy-haired woman with broken fangs for teeth—and placed the aim-point on its swaying forehead.

"Wait as long as you can," Peter said.

He made another snip, grimacing through the effort.

She didn't require the additional instruction. Once she started, the small group would have to be taken down quickly and efficiently, without many misses—none if she could manage it; the fresh infected from the larger group would close the distance between them with frightening rapidity.

The broken-toothed woman staggered within twenty-feet from the fence. Its predatory gaze was cold, indifferent, and was looking back at her through the reticle. She held her breath, and then squeezed the trigger.

The rifle cracked and recoiled back lightly against her shoulder. The infected woman's forehead disintegrated into a red mist. It collapsed mid-step.

On the edge of her vision, the larger group came to life and lumbered toward them. She ignored the approaching horde, and squeezed the trigger in quick succession, destroying the face of another woman, then a male with a leering grin behind it. Streamers of blood splattered and bits of gore flew, and infected dropped to the pavement with legs turned to jelly. She continued firing, working her way through their numbers without hesitation or pause.

Bullet casings ejected to her right in a shallow arc, landing in soft tinkles on the edge of the street behind Peter. One of the bronze shells rebounded off his back. Despite her focus on the corpses dropping in front of her, she saw the shell fall clearly. A strange sort of calmness descended like a veil, a cognizance of her surroundings that bordered on extra-sensorial. Somehow, she was aware that the three fresh infected were far out in front of the larger group, moving toward them at a stumbling half-run, teeth bared—yet they were only a dark smear in the corner of her eye.

Abruptly, the street was empty in front of her, and she drew in a deep breath. The smaller bunch of infected lay in separate clumps and mounds, arms and legs splayed in unnatural positions on the asphalt. The nearest had fallen close enough for her to make out several misshapen moles on the remains of a bald infected's head. None were moving.

She exhaled and swung the rifle toward the larger group. The pale-faced freshes rushed toward them, swaying and staggering as if their motor-control had gone haywire—which it had, she supposed. She took careful aim on the first of the three. Twenty-one shots remained, the running score kept up to date by her internal ticker. Her aim had been perfect—here, and at the boat dock—but those had been the slow-moving variety, and close, little more than a turkey-shoot. Letting even one of the fresh infected come so near would be insanity, a recipe for disaster.

"I got it," Peter announced behind her.

"Get the bikes through."

She fired at the closest of the three, and blood sprayed from somewhere near its neck or shoulder. The infected twisted from the impact but didn't slow. She fired again and missed it altogether, then struck it in the chest on her third shot. It kept coming, with the other two close behind.

The rifle barrel swayed in tune with her pounding heart.  _Shit...shit..._  Doubt whittled away at her confidence. The undead's drunken movements were too random, too unpredictable. Her rifle marksmanship results in basic had been average at best, certainly nothing worth bragging about. And that had been with a stationary target.

She fired in short bursts, hoping one of her shots would find its way home. The rifle came alive in her hands, spraying bullets into all three of the freshes. Muzzle flashes lit up the space around in her staccato rhythm. The acrid stink of burnt gunpowder filled her nostrils, was chalk-like on her tongue.

Her shooting was desperate, a panicked result of her eroding demeanor. A knee exploded, a wrist. One of the freshes fell forward onto the street. It continued onward, crawling and slithering on the ground like a snake. The other two staggered under the hail of lead but hardly slowed. Dark stains polka-dotted their shirts and blouses. Behind them, the rest of the pack moved at their shambling walk, arms outstretched and grabbing with a lack of depth perception she might have found humorous in another time and place.

"Forget them," Peter said urgently behind her, "Hold the fence!"

Olivia spun around and found him struggling with her bike at the vertical slice in the fence. It was clear that getting the bikes through the narrow gap was not a one-man job, and she rushed to his aide. She tossed the rifle through the opening, then yanked up one of the cut sides and pulled her sidearm. It was a last resort; she estimated they had as many as ten seconds before using it would be a necessity. Its grip and weight were both comforting and familiar. With it in her hand, she felt better about their situation at once.

Peter shoved her bike across the threshold. The mountain bike hobbled along for several feet then tipped on its side. Then he grabbed his own bike and pushed it through, bending his head low to steer clear of the sharp pricks of fencing that remained.

"C'mon!" He let go of the bike and pulled back the opposite side of the cut, then motioned her through. "Olivia, now!" He motioned again with sharp, jagged gestures, full of intention.

She started to duck through the slit, then gazed back at the oncoming freshes, the two in the lead, the one on the ground. They were nearly upon her, close enough for her to see their exploded eyes, the brackish spittle hanging between their teeth. Their fingernails were claws, dark with mud or blood, with bits of flesh underneath.

Their existence was an offense, no a  _blight_ —on herself, on life. A black spot on the very nature of reality itself. Such things didn't belong...anywhere. Maybe in a story, or a dream. Certainly not charging at her on a chilly autumn evening in Boston.

Her gun hand itched with the desire to extinguish the cold light behind their eyes. To put them out of their misery. It would be so easy. Point and shoot. _Pow, pow, pow!_

"Olivia!"

She slipped through the opening in the fence instead, and Peter let it snap shut behind her. He gave her a look that said he was unsure whether or not she was crazy, and that he wanted to discuss her aberrant behavior. It was an expression of his she'd become rather familiar with over the course of their journey. She was looking forward to the conversation.

The first two infected crashed into the fence, rippling the fence out to either side. They pressed forward futilely, biting and shoving fingers through the diamond-shaped mesh. In spite of how the fence sagged at the vertical cut, they appeared oblivious to its presence and splintered their teeth on the metal wires.

 _They're utterly mindless_ , Olivia thought, and holstered her pistol. She could almost have pitied them. Almost. She stooped to retrieve John's rifle.

Peter approached the fence opposite the undead and gazed at them silently. Then he jammed the straight end of his crowbar through the mesh, taking one through the eye. The infected sagged and went limp, and it hung from the crowbar's tip before sliding off and collapsing sideways down the fence with slow exaggeration.

"You want the other one?" he said without looking back at her.

"Why not..." she murmured, moving to his side.

She felt his gaze on her, but kept her attention on the remaining infected. Just as it was unaware of the cut in the fence, its fallen companion might as well have not existed. Hunger was its only intelligence. Its teeth were broken, gray shards, on the ground below, and what little of them that remained in its gums, like fangs. Her bayonet silenced its rasping breath, and it dropped to the street next to its partner.

"I'd say we have about a minute or so before the rest get here," Peter assessed, turning away from the fence. "I don't know about you, but I think it'd be a good idea to be somewhere else when they do."

Olivia nodded and eyed the approaching mob, moving at their slow and steady pace. From her elevated position on the embankment, their numbers were more definitive—perhaps a hundred, maybe two. Enough to force their way through the damaged fence, eventually. She shouldered her backpack, then picked up her bike and started up the incline, pushing it through the tall grass. It and the rifle made for an awkward burden, but there was no time to re-strap it in place as it had been.

The westbound lanes of the interstate were a solid line of empty cars and trucks, stretching in four crooked lines as far as she could see in both directions. The lines were broken occasionally by the taller forms of tractor-trailers and buses caught in the mess. No infected were in their immediate vicinity, though slow-moving silhouettes were outlined against the sunset to the west, moving toward them, drawn in by her gunfire. They were distant however, and not an impending threat.

Only a slivered arc of the sun remained above the horizon, and it disappeared beneath the uneven roofs of the abandoned vehicles while she waited for Peter to catch up. The crimson aura left behind resembled nothing so much as a fresh pool of blood staining the heavens. If it was a sign, the message it was sending wasn't positive.

Peter joined her on the shoulder. He looked at the outlines moving toward them and sighed. "C'mon...this is getting old," he muttered.

"They never stop coming, do they?" she said softly, and pushed her biked toward a narrow gap in the first row of cars. "How are we gonna make it all the way back to the lab? Ella's not even six years old..."

"Is that your niece?"

She glanced back at Peter as she guided her bike between two bumpers. It was the first time he'd ever asked her a question about her family, though she was certain he'd seen their picture on her desk in the office before Walter had moved in. Her past reticence to discuss them with him seemed a moot point. He  _would_  be meeting them soon enough. They both would.

 _And if Walter was right?_  a nagging voice asked.  _What then?_

The very real possibility that he might be right was too much for her to dwell on, though she hadn't bothered praying for their safety. Long ago, she'd given up hope in anything out there that answered such wishes. If a nine-year old had to take matters into her own hands, then she had no use for whatever gods may or may not exist. They didn't concern her.

"Yeah," Olivia replied. She grinned, picturing her niece's toothy smile. "She's an amazing little girl. Smart as a whip."

"I'll bet..." Peter said. "What's her mom like—your sister?"

She stopped and turned back to him. "Rachel's married."  _To a complete bastard, but still married_ , she added silently.

Peter snorted quietly. "That's good to know," he commented. "What I mean is—is she anything like you?"

"Like me?" She gazed up at him coolly. "What does that even mean?"

"I dunno." He shrugged, unaffected by, or unable to see her face in the light. "Intense, maybe. Determined. I don't know if you're aware of this or not, Dunham, but...you're kind of stubborn."

A faint blush warmed her face despite the chill in the air. She lowered her head, grateful for the impending nightfall. "Rachel and I...we're not too alike," she told him after the heat had faded from her cheeks. "As you'll soon find out..."

She moved away from him before he could say anything more, and guided her bike in between two trucks. The concrete divider separating the east and west lanes blocked her path. In sharp contrast to the west lanes, the east lanes were barren. Not a single car or truck stood between her and the fence on the south side of the interstate. She lifted her bike over the low median, then started toward the opposite shoulder. She stopped in the center lane and looked around, finding the utter lack of any vehicles even stranger than the traffic jam of abandoned ones clogging the west lanes.

"Now this is not a view I thought I'd ever see," Peter confessed, stopping next to her. He gazed in both directions, rubbing the back of his neck uneasily. "Standing here, in the middle of I-90, in the dark, with a former FBI agent. How did I get so lucky?"

"You met me," Olivia explained, and nudged him with her elbow. She pushed her bike toward the fence. "You should thank me, Peter. You could still be in the Middle East right now, fighting off hordes of jilted Iraqi businessmen. At least we have your father with us."

"You say that like it's a good thing," he called after her. "I might prefer the Iraqi horde to Walter."

"He can help us figure this out, Peter. You know he can."

"Maybe, Olivia," he admitted grudgingly. "Maybe. Or he could be the one responsible, for all we know. Either are equal possibilities."

"You don't believe that," she scoffed, glancing back at him. "Your father was in that institution for the better part of the last two decades. When would he have had the time? And he's been with you since he got out. Besides, I'm pretty sure I heard you say earlier that you didn't think mankind was responsible. Aliens, wasn't it?"

Peter was silent for a moment. "I'm sorry for what he said—back at the lab before we left." He shook his head. "I told you once, he can be a bit myopic."

Olivia swallowed a lump forming in her throat. She eased her bike down the embankment and leaned it against the fence. Peter did likewise, then got to work cutting another opening for them to pass through.

"Do you think he's right—your father?" she asked after he'd been at it for a while. He was squatting in front of the fence, working on a section of fence at knee height.

Peter looked up at her with one eye. "I wouldn't have agreed to come with you if I didn't think there was some chance, Olivia," he answered, then turned back to his cutters. "There's gotta be more survivors...and not just military. We probably passed some on the way here, hiding out in their basements or attics. Statistically speaking, we can't be the only ones left."

"My apartment didn't have either," she said softly. "...A basement or attic."

"But they had your warning, didn't they?" he reminded her. "Your sister seems like a smart girl, I'm sure she stayed put like you told her."

"Peter, you've never even met my sister."

He grunted and snipped through a section of fence down low near the dirt. "Maybe not," he said, rising from his crouch. "But I've met you. I think that counts for something."

Olivia blinked, taken aback by his unexpected sweetness. He gazed down at her, and she was again glad for the dimness, though part of her wished it were lighter out so she could read the lines of his face. She wasn't sure how to react.

Was he serious? Why did he say such things, and where did they come from? His cynicism was as whimsical as his humor. Or was it all part of an act? Peter Bishop, con man, was a niggling doubt that surfaced at inopportune moments. That he was with her at that moment had to count for something, though. She wished she could be all the way sure of him.

She brushed a clump of loose bangs behind her ear, then cleared her throat and looked away. "Um...well, clearly, you don't know Rachel or her...husband," she clarified. "You might be less confident if you did."

Peter pulled open the fence. "I guess we'll find out, won't we?" he said. "You said you lived on Strathmore?"

"Yeah, just north of the reservoir," Olivia confirmed, and pushed her bike through the fence. After she was through, she lifted the fence from her side. "Do you know that area at all?"

"I know the reservoir." Peter chuckled as he ducked through the opening, holding his bike in front of him. "When I was in high school—before I quit, at least—it was a destination spot for certain...activities."

"Certain activities, huh? And what would those be?"

"Uh...yeah." He coughed, and then pulled a headlamp from his backpack. "I think it's time for these, don't you think?"

Olivia grinned faintly, amused by his avoidance. She tried to picture him as a typical pimply teenager, but couldn't summon the image. Her own solitary existence during those years had left her with little frame of reference. He wasn't a bad-looking guy, and with his quick wit and intelligence, she imagined that he'd been one of the 'popular' kids at that age. She wondered what had led him to quitting, but it wasn't the time for asking.

She pulled out her own headlamp, and fit the elastic band over her head. The red beam cut through the deepening night with little difficulty, though its cone of light was shorter than she would have preferred for night riding. They would have to be careful. No more accidents. They were too close.

"You ready?" she asked, after securing John's rifle back in place beneath her seat. The rifle was low on ammo, but there were still a few shells in her pack. It was still useful...and she couldn't bring herself to leave it behind just yet. It was still useful.

Peter nodded. "After you, Agent Dunham."

Olivia adjusted the beam of her headlamp again, then pedaled down the embankment to the street below.

 _I'm coming, Rachel_ , she thought, and then added,  _You have to be there. You have to be okay._

#

#

The street sign was bent at a sharp angle, almost parallel to the sidewalk. The white letters set in green reflected glints of pinks and reds that had caught Olivia's attention from a distance, otherwise she might have ridden past it, so unfamiliar had her neighborhood become.

She rolled to a stop in front of the fallen sign and stared down at it with dismay. She scrubbed her hands together furiously. Her fingers stung with icy wind-burn, along with her face and most of her body despite her clothing. A strong shiver worked its way through her chest and limbs, and up her neck into her jawline. She clamped her teeth together, fighting against it.

The temperature had dropped dramatically with the coming of night—made even more so by the constant wind buffeting them as they made their way south. Puffs of condensation drifted upward with each exhaled breath.

As they had worked their way south from I-90 through the maze of barricades, roadblocks, and wandering herds of undead, it had become increasingly clear that Brighton had not been spared the worst of the fighting and the fires—Cambridge had. The conditions were far worse than she'd thought they would be, or even could be. If it had been a running retreat, it was of the scorched-earth variety.

Her hope of finding her family alive had wilted with every burned building, every massacre and atrocity they'd passed by. She had pressed onward though, the need to know one way or the other was irresistible.

"Is this your street?" Peter asked in a low voice, bringing his bike to a stop next to hers.

Olivia nodded, keeping her gaze on the familiar letters.

He blew into his hands, before shoving them deep into his jacket pockets. "Fuck. How can it be this cold out here? It's not even November yet..." He glanced around in the darkness, at the burned out apartment buildings, and the blackened husks of vehicles parked in front of them. "Was...is one of these yours?" he asked carefully.

She shook her head, and lifted her gaze from the sign. "No." Her voice barely audible in her ears. "My building...it's a couple blocks east from here."

The street was black with some sort of residue or ash, as if the pavement itself had caught fire. A strong odor of fuel stung at her nose. The smell had been lingering since they'd entered the zone of eradication.

"I know that smell, Olivia...," Peter said, noticing her wrinkled nose. "I remember it from my first time in Iraq in 2005. Kerosene, from military-grade firebombs."

"Charlie told me about the military dropping them," she revealed. "He and John took cover inside a bank vault in Charleston while it was going on."

"They got lucky then. The vault door could have been welded shut. It's nasty, nasty stuff."

"None of us are lucky, Peter...," she whispered. "C'mon."

She made the turn down Strathmore, and rode slowly through the debris littering the street. The night was utterly silent—not even the constant chirping of crickets and other night creatures that had been accompanying them were present. It was as if every living thing had fled ahead of the coming calamity, or been consumed by it. Not even the dead walked.

Nearly every apartment building they passed on both sides of the street was a smoking ruin, exterior walls either crumbling, or just collapsed onto the sidewalks and street below from the massive heat they'd endured. Charred spikes stood upright at regular intervals along the sidewalk, all that remained of the shade trees they'd once been. She pedaled past a stop sign melted into the blistered pavement, cars and trucks cooked into unrecognizable lumps of blackened metal, even what she thought was a score of military humvees that had not escaped the fires. All were burned beyond recognition.

They were forced to stop at a large mound of odd-shaped sticks and rocks piled up against a shoulder-high barricade, stretching across the street and both sidewalks. Upon closer inspection, she saw that they weren't sticks or stones at all, but incinerated human remains. It was impossible to differentiate one body from another, and whether they'd been women, men, children, young, old, or infected. From what she'd seen already, they could've been any, or all.

Her stomach roiled at the sight, and Olivia let her bike fall to the pavement. She glanced over at Peter, whose brow was furrowed at what lay beneath the barricade.

"We'll walk the rest of the way," she said. "It's not too far from here."

"Is that what it looks like?" he asked, and dropped his bike next to hers.

"Yeah."

They gazed in silence at the desecration. She'd only seen similar in old photos from the atrocities committed during The Holocaust. For reasons that were unclear, she found it more offensive than the mass grave they'd come across north of the Charles. She supposed it was the unknown. The pit had been full of infected, that had been clear from one glance. What was in front of her now could've been anyone—her family included. Ella could be one of them. Rachel. Ashes both of them. Crumbled bones all that remained.

Her stomach heaved suddenly again, the constriction jagged and violent. Her hand flew to her mouth, trying to hold off the coming flood. The sour taste of bile flooded her palate, gritty and foul all at once, and then she vomited up her last bottle of water and what little dinner she'd had on the street, away from Peter. Her throat burned from the acid, watering her eyes, and another wave rolled through her. The force of it bent her over at the waist, and there was slight pressure on her back. She squeezed her eyes shut, panting, and concentrated on her heaving stomach—willing it to be still.

 _Get a hold of yourself, Liv,_  she thought.  _You've seen worse than this. You've seen worse..._

Olivia inhaled a ragged breath, drawing it through her teeth. She opened her eyes and turned her head from the splattered puddle. The pressure on her back moved, and she realized it was a hand. Peter's hand. His fingers moved in tiny circles between her shoulder-blades.

"You okay?" he asked.

She nodded, and took in another deep breath. Peter pulled his hand away.

"Sorry," she apologized, feeling sheepish. She pushed off her knees and straightened.

"What are you sorry for?" Peter frowned. "For being human?"

"No. I just..." She trailed off, unable to voice the words, the possibilities.

"Olivia, you don't have to explain," he said. "I get it. Let's go see what there is to see."

Olivia wiped her mouth, eying the barrier with growing trepidation. Her apartment was mere minutes away on the other side. And her family was either there, or she would never see them again. She grabbed her rifle and followed Peter to a break in the mass of burned bodies, or at least a thinner area where they could approach the concrete blocks without the need to climb over the remains. He pulled himself on top of the low wall, before reaching down for her hand.

Out of habit, she almost pushed it aside, but then decided she was being foolish and stubborn, and let him help her up. Having had a full dose of Peter Bishop over the last day, she'd come to the conclusion that whether she let him help her, or if she declined and helped herself, it made little difference to him. He treated her the same either way—with an offer of assistance, but never insisting if she refused. It was refreshing in a way; to be treated as an unconditional equal.

The FBI had been dominated by men. Men with large egos who  _would_  insist, as if they couldn't believe her capable of doing the same things they could. Not Charlie, of course, or John after she'd gotten to know him, but others. Many others over the years. Her first impression of her superior, Special Agent Broyles, was that he had been one of them, but she'd been wrong about him. She wondered what had happened to him.

"...If you don't want go," Peter was saying, "just give me your address and I'll go check it out, then come back."

Olivia realized she'd been standing still atop the barrier in her contemplation, staring out into the night and oblivious to her surroundings. She glanced over at him and shook her head.

"No. We both go," she persisted. "No splitting up. And...I have to see for myself, either way. I couldn't live with myself if I didn't. Besides, if they're there, they might not answer the door for you, Peter. Not with that wound on your head."

He was wearing a crown of dried blood, rivulets stuck in place from the wind and their ride. It was a ghoulish look, and not dissimilar from one of the infected at a glance.

"Good point," he agreed with a lurid smile. "Didn't you say they had a gun? After all we've been through to get here, getting shot would just be my luck."

"That would be ironic, wouldn't it?" she remarked. "How's your head feeling anyway?"

"Aside from the splitting headache, it's perfect." Peter picked at one of the dried streaks of red on his temple. "You got any painkillers in your apartment? A Percocet would be spectacular right about now."

"I may have something...," she said, eyeing his wound. She hoped he didn't have a concussion, and made a mental note to keep an eye on him once they reached her apartment—assuming it was still there. "C'mon, we've stalled long enough. It's just ahead."

Olivia lowered herself to the pavement on the other side of the barricade, wincing when her knee made contact with a sharp edge. A painkiller suddenly seemed like a good idea. Peter landed lightly beside her, and she squeezed the rifle, then took a breath and moved away from the barrier.

The line of burned buildings continued beyond the barricade. At some point, a spring began to coil somewhere inside her. A tension that wound tighter with every step, with every familiar landmark turned to ash they passed by. She tried to relax, to take steady, even breaths, but her throat refused to comply. It was full of ash. The spring coiled tighter around her neck, constricting and choking until taking in another breath seemed an impossibility. She did anyway—sucking in a torrid breath between her teeth. It hissed in her ears. Devastating loss hovered like a headsman's axe, waiting for the signal to drop and slice away what remained of her life. Her heart thudded in her chest, hollow and gong-like in the silence.

The decorative iron fencing that lined the steps up to her building's entrance emerged from the darkness ahead. Followed by the outline of her building itself against the stars, and the exposed portal over the double doors that had caught her eye when she'd been apartment hunting. It was the only one on the block. The building looked different than she remembered, the silhouette against the sky wrong somehow. Peter's headlamp had a slightly longer reach than hers, and she saw why when he directed his beam upwards.

A painful gasp burst through her lips. She could feel the keen edge of the axe, inching its way downward. Her building had been one of the taller structures on Strathmore, five-stories rising majestically above the adjacent three and four-story buildings.

It was gone, or at least a large portion of the top two floors was missing. The dull-gray masonry was black with ash and scorch-marks. It ended just above the fourth-floor windows in an uneven serrated line. What lay beyond was hidden in shadow. It was difficult to make out in the dark, but it appeared something had struck the top of her building, along with the building next to hers. Bricks and mortar littered the street below, and a twisted hunk of metal that resembled a blade had sheared through a sedan she recognized. It belonged to one of her neighbors. A helicopter or a plane?

At the back of the entrance portal, only one of the intricately-carved doors remained. The door hung from its upper hinge, the arched stained-glass window missing from its frame. Behind the limply-hanging door was a black-hole. It seemed to be waiting for final confirmation before commencing with the destruction of everything she held dear. With an effort, she forced herself to approach the steps. Her training reasserted itself, and forced her to reexamine the scene with a detached clinicality.

The black residue they'd been walking through had disappeared at some point. The double-door was merely splintered, its lacquered finish was coated in ash, but untouched by fire, as was the masonry near ground. Some of the apartment windows remained unbroken—including her own on the second floor. Her hope sputtered, then reignited.

"I guess this is your building?" Peter whispered suddenly, shattering the silence into a million pieces.

Olivia exhaled the breath she'd been holding, and could only nod a reply. She didn't trust her voice. She took a step up. Then another. The ache in her knee was distant, someone else's pain. She reached the landing.

The black-hole resolved into a red-tinted corridor. The missing door lay on the other side of the threshold. She moved inside, stepping over the broken glass and the rubble from above. She stopped inside the doorway, one foot resting on the toppled door. Peter's presence was a balm behind her. The corridor was silent and still. A dank odor hung in the air; mold and wet ashes, mixed with sewage. The combination was tolerable despite being awful. She'd been expecting the foul odor of death, of decay—but it was gloriously absent.

She took a step forward and the door wobbled and creaked loudly under her weight, halting her progress. She tilted her head, and listened for anything out of place, the rustle of clothes, the padding of shoes on tile, or the wet rasp of an infected.

Olivia swallowed, and held still for the count of ten heartbeats. She heard nothing, no movement, furtive or otherwise. Only the slight wisp of Peter's breathing behind her. She glanced back and he shrugged, then motioned her forward with his crowbar.

"What floor are you on?" His voice was quieter than a whisper.

"Second floor," she mouthed, holding up two fingers. "There's a set of stairs around the corner at the end of the hallway. Follow me."

She removed her foot from the unsteady door, then moved past it down the corridor, toward the elevator lobby and the emergency stairs. It was surreal being back in her building, in such familiar confines. The rectangular grid of mail-slots slid into view, recessed into the wall. She was tempted to stop and check hers, but moved past it without slowing. The key would make a needless jingle. And it could wait—it was more a curiosity than anything.

Beyond the mailboxes were the first-floor apartments. The first door she came to hung open, the wood crushed next to the knob by a heavy blow. Or blows. She stepped inside and cast her light around the interior.

The apartment was a mess. Clothes and blankets, cushions and pillows were strewn about the small family room. A television lay screen down on the carpeted floor. The layout was different than hers, smaller, the kitchen visible from the entrance, where her bedroom was. The refrigerator door was open, its contents spilled out on the floor. She studied the scene, and tried to determine the sequence of events. Someone had left in a hurry, and it appeared someone else had trashed the apartment afterward—presumably the same person who'd kicked in the door, though it wasn't a certainty.

Peter was coming out of the next apartment when she returned to the hallway. He waited for her to approach. "Anything in there?" she asked.

"No, though it looks like somebody looted the place," he reported. "The pantry was nearly empty, and the fridge."

"That's about what I found, also," she said.

"Did you know any of the people that lived in these?"

Olivia shook her head. "No. With my job, the odd hours—I never really got to know too many of my neighbors."  _How about none of them, Han_ _?_  a dry voice from her past questioned. The voice was ignored as it always had been.

She brushed past Peter and headed toward the end of the hall. They passed another empty apartment, looted of food in the same fashion as the first two, then turned the corner into the elevator lobby. She crossed straight to the metal door leading to the emergency stairwell and pulled it open, then jerked to a stop.

A battered refrigerator sat upside-down in the doorway. Through the finger-width gaps on either side, several tables worth of dining room chairs were visible, along with a number of small appliances, including several microwaves and televisions. None of them appeared to be from her place. Whether or not that was reassuring, she wasn't sure.

"What is it?" Peter queried.

Olivia stepped aside and let him get a look.

"What the hell?" He scratched his head, and they exchanged glances. "This is a good sign, isn't it? I mean, whoever did this could still be up there."

"Maybe...," she said, refusing to let her hopes rise any higher.

She gave the refrigerator a little shove, but it remained still. She pushed harder, trying to make enough of a gap for them to slip past it, but if the pile moved at all, it was imperceptible. Something was behind it, between it and the base of stairs, preventing it from sliding backwards. Pulling it forward, out into the hallway proved futile as well. The back of the refrigerator faced outward, with little in the way of edges for gripping. She couldn't get a good hold on it. Frustration crept in. She was so close! A fucking refrigerator was not going to be what stopped them.

"We have to get through here, Peter," she said, smoothing back her hair in an effort to remain calm. "Can you do anything with that?" She touched the crowbar in his left hand.

"I don't know, maybe." He studied the blockage with a critical eye, then squatted down. "You know, for all the effort it must have taken to get this thing down here, I'm not sure what purpose it serves. The door swings outward. Your friendly-neighborhood zombie's too mindless to open it."

"Maybe it was people they wanted to keep out," she replied, thinking of the soldiers that must have been all over the streets outside.

Peter slid the angled tip of the crowbar under one corner of the refrigerator. "Could be...," he said, "though whoever put it here didn't take people with a prybar into account."

With a low grunt, he pushed down on the curved hook, putting his weight on it. The refrigerator lifted slowly in response, tilting to the side on the opposite corner. An angled gap appeared, growing to a hand-span wide, a foot, then two at the top, until the hook rested on the floor.

"You're gonna have to squeeze through and hold it up...," he instructed in a tight voice. The tendons on the back of his hands stood out. They quivered under the strain of holding the crowbar on the floor.

Olivia slipped off her backpack, then stepped in front of him and tossed it through the opening where it landed among a jumble of chair legs. Her backside was in Peter's face, but there was no way around it—he appeared preoccupied, in any case. She stuck one leg through the gap, then shimmied through into the stairwell, pulling her other leg after her.

The space was cramped. Between the refrigerator and all the junk piled around it, there was very little room to stand, much less push. She propped her rifle in the corner, then braced herself against the wall and shoved on the refrigerator as high up as she could manage.

"You're gonna have to push a little harder than that, 'Livia," Peter directed from down low. "I can't get the crowbar out."

She pushed harder, throwing her weight into it, getting a little leverage from the wall behind her. Her elbows popped in protest.  _Why are these things so incredibly heavy?_  she thought, straining harder against it. There was just no room to maneuver. Blood pounded in her ears. Her arms ached from her palms to her shoulders.

Ever so slowly, the refrigerator moved. An inch. Then two inches. That was it. She wasn't going to be able to hold it long.

"Peter," she started, "I don't think I can—"

"I got it," he said. His voice was at head level. "I'm coming through. Don't let it fall, or you can kiss your consultant's ass goodbye."

Olivia stifled a sudden giggle, snorting harshly through her nose. The refrigerator fell back toward her slightly, and she had to redoubled her efforts to hold it in place. "Making me laugh is a good way to get cut in two, Peter," she warned him, eyeing his dark hair through the narrow gap.

His bag flew through the opening, followed by one leg, an arm, and then his head, just underneath where she was pushing. "Tight fit, huh..." he muttered, ducking below her arms. "I'm not sure I can get through here..."

"In or out, Peter," she ordered. Fire ran the length of her arms. Her palm was sweating, her grip on the refrigerator getting slippery. "You've got about five seconds before I can't hold this anymore." She wasn't sure where he was going to fit anyway—there was barely any room for her as it was.

"I guess that means hurry," he said.

Olivia felt him wiggling and thrashing beneath her, heard the rip of tearing cloth, and then he was through. His headlamp popped up between her arms, inches from her face. She jerked back, letting go of the refrigerator in her surprise. It crashed back to the floor with a deafening boom that echoed up the stairwell. The displaced appliance shoved Peter forward when it fell. His crowbar clanged on the concrete floor, and she found herself face to face with him, pushed up against the wall behind her.

His beard was on her cheek, rough and prickly. The smell of him filled her nose. The same one from earlier, by the river. His heart thudded against her chest...or was that her own? She wasn't sure. She'd never been so close to him, not in such a personal way. The hard lines of his taller frame were pressed against her, his hands had a tight grip on her waist, just below her ribs. His muscles were stiff, frozen, she suspected, with the same shock as herself. She realized she'd grabbed him out of instinct, had fistfuls of his jacket over his shoulders. His grip on her waist shifted, and she gasped, inhaling a sharp breath.

"Sorry...," he breathed in her ear, then pulled his hands away like he'd been burned. "I...that was an accident, I swear. You know I wouldn't—"

Olivia wasn't sure if he was referring to his hands, or to the situation in general, and didn't ask for clarification. She released his jacket, then turned away and cleared her throat.

"Forget it," she interrupted. "Let's just...just get upstairs." She scooted to her left until she was clear of their unfortunate circumstance, then did her best to put it out of her mind. "Pass me the rifle, Peter."

He handed it over without comment, eyes on the floor.

She grabbed her pack and tossed the chairs blocking her path upwards out of the way. They clattered loudly in the darkness. Compared to the refrigerator, however, the noise was quiet and ineffectual. If there was anything waiting up the stairs, they or it, were already well aware of them. The entire block, and possibly the city, were aware of them.

Without stopping to wait for Peter, she charged up the steps once the way was clear. The door to her floor stood open, propped back by an innocent-looking door stop. The little rubbery wedge was light-brown in color. She started past it, then stopped and turned back. Her breath caught in her throat.

The door stop. She recognized it. She knew it.

She'd bought it to hold open one of the French doors to her bedroom. The door had been hung improperly, and was always swinging closed when she wanted it open. She'd bought it from  _Bed Bath & Beyond—_online, of course; the one they'd had in the store was decorative, but too flimsy-looking.

It was hers.

A tingle raced up and down her spine, but she forced down her excitement. Nothing was certain. Yet.

Olivia crept through down the hall toward her apartment door. Her silhouette was outlined in a silvery shaft of moonlight from the corridor's only window. The red beam of her light fell on her neighbor's door, centered in the short wall at the end of the corridor. The brass  _2B_  affixed to the front glittered reddishly. The door had been forced open.

The creaky spot in the floor creaked when she stepped on it, just like it always had. She stopped and listened, then inched her way toward the trio of doors. There were no sounds. Nothing to indicate anyone was in her apartment, or in any of them. The door straight across from hers,  _2C_ , was wide open. The apartment was looted and vacant, as was  _2B_.

She'd been avoiding letting the light fall on her own door. Would it be splintered as all the others had been? Empty? The red cone of her headlamp beam crossed the neighbor's crumpled welcome mat, the wooden floor planks, then rose up the bottom half of her door to the knob.

Her stomach did a somersault. An out-of-place blemish marred the door's surface. But then she saw that it was only the air bubble in whatever Peter had used to make the red filter—and that she'd been seeing it all along.

The paneled door's painted surface was clean. In perfect condition.

She gasped and lifted the light to the  _2A_  emblazoned proudly on the door at eye level, right below the peephole. It was her door! Of course it was. Whose else would it be? It was her floor. Her building. It was her apartment.

The door was still whole.

Olivia crossed the hall in two long strides. She held her breath and put her ear to the door. She prayed for movement, a quiet whisper, a little girl's laugh—anything at all.

Only the rushing of blood filled her ears.

 _It doesn't mean anything_ , she told herself. The refrigerator had been loud enough to wake the dead, or her sister—who slept like one. They could be hiding in a closet, under a bed. She turned the knob.

It was locked. She leaned her head against the door-frame and regulated her breathing. Her heart was working overtime, thumping with anxiety.

Peter's absence was suddenly glaring, and she glanced toward the stairwell impatiently.  _Where the hell is he?_  she thought.  _I'm not waiting for you, Peter._

Her keys were a lead weight in her pocket. She fished around for the right one, then slid it home in the dead-bolt's keyhole. The lock's action was fluidal, and the bolt drew back with a metallic snick.

One lock remained.

Her hands were a trembling mess, jangling the keyring. She fumbled for the knob, tried for the keyhole and failed, then failed again. The key might as well have been a foreign object, unsuited for the task she required of it.

 _How many FBI agents does it take to unlock a door?_ a sarcastic voice echoed in her head. It was something Peter might have said. She looked for him at the other end of the corridor, but he was still hiding out in the stairwell.

She took a shallow breath, then turned the key over. Of course it hadn't fit. A nervous anticipation hung thick in the air, clouding her thoughts.  _You've done this a million times_ , she reminded herself.  _It's just a door._ She inserted the key.

_Now open it._

It was just a door, but never had the stakes been so high. What if they weren't in there? Or worse, what if they were, and they'd been bitten? Could she do what would have to be done? To her sister? To Ella? She quailed at the thought, retreated from it like fire from water.

_Do it!_

Olivia opened the door.


	6. Where The Heart Is

**-October, 2008**

Darkness greeted her across the threshold. It billowed outward into the moonlit hallway, like fog rolling in. Olivia frowned at its unnatural intensity, then moved inside deliberately, resisting the urge to call out. She wasn't sure why her anonymity was important, but her instincts were giving her strong signals that it was so.

Her red light cut a swathe across the living room, over her mail table next to the door, her comfortable couch and chair centered in the space, and the narrow coffee table that sat askew between them. She moved further inside the apartment, turning her light on the windows facing the street. The blinds were covered by thick blankets someone—presumably her sister, or her husband—had hung from the valance above that she recognized as being from her linen closet. More blankets lay across the couch in a clump, along with a pillow she'd seen last in her spare bedroom. Next to the pillow was Ella's scruffy Burlap Bear—a present she'd received on her fourth birthday the year prior. The little girl loved the bear dearly, and took it everywhere. She picked the bear up, and gave its thready fabric a tremulous squeeze before replacing it on the couch. She let her backpack fall from her shoulders, and dropped it next to the stuffed animal.

Across the room, the glass-paned French doors to her bedroom were closed, the white curtains on the inside of the room drawn shut. To the left of her bedroom, the entryway to the kitchen was veiled in shadow, as was the hallway that led to the spare bedroom and bathroom.

Olivia hesitated and sniffed at a familiar aroma. Candle wax, with vanilla. She knew the smell—it was from the scented candle on the mantle above the fireplace in her bedroom. Was the odor fresh? She couldn't tell. There was an undercurrent of something else—something...unpleasant, other than vanilla and melted wax. Something foul. Rotten food? Meat?

She moved to the kitchen, squeezing the rifle in a crushing grip. The foul odor grew stronger. Her refrigerator was closed. The countertops were covered in dishes, opened and unopened canned goods in neat towers and messy piles. More dishes peeked over the edge of the sink. The table was covered in a medley of crayons and markers sitting atop a scattered stack of Ella's artwork. Her niece had inherited her own love of drawing, and had surprised her with new portraits daily on her arrival home from the office or lab.

Olivia turned away from the artwork, and approached the double doors to her bedroom. She pushed one open, holding her breath as her bedroom's interior was slowly revealed in red.

The bedroom was empty.

Her bed had been slept in, the comforter and sheets thrown back. Clothing she recognized as Rachel's and Ella's, as well as her own, were strewn about the floor on either side of the bed. The vanilla scented candle was missing from the mantle, and she found it next to the bed on the nightstand. The vanilla scent was stronger, but not overly so. The candle had not been lit recently.

From the doorway, she could see into the master bathroom. It was dark and unoccupied, so she headed toward the spare bedroom, the only room remaining besides the hall bath, which was also vacant as she passed it by.

On her way past the living room, she saw Peter's red light moving in the hallway outside her door, but he had yet to enter the apartment. She wondered what he'd been doing, what had taken him so long. She shoved thoughts of him aside, and approached the spare bedroom.

The door was closed, and locked when she tried the knob. She swallowed thickly, then reached up for the key that she'd always left on top of the trim. Her fingertips located the key almost at once. In what was a small victory, she managed to unlock the door on her first attempt.

Olivia started to turn the knob, but froze at a sudden sound.

There was movement. A thump, like a heavy footfall on the hardwood. She pressed her ear to the door. There was silence, then she heard it again. Another thump, similar to the first, then a rattle, as if someone had bumped something unintentionally. She ran through an inventory of items in the room, and determined the sound had most likely been from the dresser, and the mirror mounted to its back. The screws had worked their way loose and the mirror would rebound against the wall when the drawers below were opened or closed. Or if the dresser was merely brushed up against. She'd heard Rachel nagging Greg to tighten it for her since they'd arrived. Clearly he never had.

She turned the knob slowly and silently, then pushed open the door.

A figure stood across the room, outlined against the window, shoulders slumped. It was a man, tall, with broad shoulders and a muscular build. He swayed slightly as he looked out the window, and his fingers twitched rhythmically at his side. His back was to her, but she knew him and his shaved head at once.

Her sister's husband.

She glanced over at the bed. It was empty. There was no sign of her sister, or Ella.  _Where are they?_  Her throat was suddenly full of sawdust, and she found herself unable to breathe.  _How can he be here and not them?_  she thought in a daze.

"Greg..." she choked out. He turned at her voice. "Greg, where are Rachel and Ella?" Her voice began to rise. "Where are th—" The words died on her lips.

His eyes were burnished gold.

He was infected.

The skin of his face was pale, almost pure white.  _Fresh_.

She drew in a quick breath, taking an involuntary step back into the hallway. A low growl emanated from across the room. Her former brother-in-law's teeth were drawn back into a ferocious grin. The growl increased to a snarl, wet and full of spittle, then it lunged across the room, clawing at her face.

Olivia raised the rifle and fired without thought. The discharge was ear-splitting in the tiny hallway, deafening. To her horror, only Greg's ear disintegrated in a red spray. The infected's gait was uneven and off-balance, and somehow she'd only grazed it.

She'd missed.

Greg's corpse charged, mouth gaping. Everything was silent, other than a piercing ring that came from everywhere at once. She couldn't hear.

In a panic, she squeezed the trigger again, but felt only a hollow metallic click in response. Desperate, she tried again, then again.

_Click. Click._

The rifle was empty.  _Shit!_ Ripples of fear raced down her spine, sapping her strength. She'd never reloaded it after crossing I-90!

The thought and its implications were just registering when the infected crashed into her, impaling itself on the bayonet through the shoulder. Its momentum forced her backwards down the hallway, while its teeth snapped dangerously close to her head. Greg had been a big man—her sister had always preferred that type—and his much greater weight was as immovable as the refrigerator had been. She struggled against it, pushing back desperately with the rifle to keep it a bay. Her feet slid on the wooden flooring.

Fingers curled into hooks clawed at her face, then became tangled in her hair. She screamed as a large clump was torn free, shooting fire along her scalp above her ear. Her head was yanked forward toward its open mouth. Its rancid breath caressed her forehead.

It had her.

Her pistol and knife were useless. If she let go of the rifle to reach either one of them, she was dead. If she didn't, she was dead. She fought against its grip anyway, pulling back with all her strength. Her scalp burned from the pressure. She pulled harder, hoping more of her hair would come free. It was the only way.

Abruptly, her hearing returned, little-by-little, then all at once.

Peter was bellowing her name. He didn't know where she was. Behind his voice, was shrill screaming, coming from another room. The shrieks were high-pitched, and terrified. A young girl's.

 _Ella!_ Ella was alive. She was there.

Olivia felt a renewal, a surge of energy. "Peter!" she shouted, and ignoring the fire on her scalp, ripped her head free of the creature's grasp.

The rending sound of her hair tearing loose was stomach-turning, but it meant freedom so she welcomed it and the pain. The infected pressed forward, and instead of resisting, she fell back on her rear, pulling upwards on the rifle. She kicked up with her legs, using its own momentum to lift it up and over her, and out into the living room. Greg's leering face zoomed in close, and then it landed on its back, knocking over a floor lamp with its flailing feet.

The screaming continued unabated in the background. Was there another voice also? She couldn't tell. Red light flashed all around her.

Chest heaving, she scrambled to her knees. Her own headlamp had come off at some point, and lay against the wall, casting its crimson beam downward on the floor. Peter was there, and before she could do more than draw her pistol, he crashed the hook of his crowbar down on the infected's head. As stubborn in undeath as in life, Greg's body continued to thrash about, and Peter brought his weapon down again with a wet smack, and then another, final blow, that caved in the ruined face. The corpse went still.

Blood splattered her cheeks and the wall next to her, and Olivia looked away, repulsed, stomach heaving. That had been her sister's husband, no matter how much she'd despised the man. Ella's father. In the end, he'd done as she asked. She re-holstered her pistol.

"You okay?" Peter asked in a tired voice, letting the crowbar slip from his fingers. It fell to the floor with a solid thunk. "Olivia?"

She gazed up at him, still dazed by the suddenness of the attack, and its abrupt end. "Yeah. I...yeah," she panted, then fell back against the wall to catch her breath. She felt gingerly at her scalp where the hair was torn free, but couldn't tell if she were bleeding or not from the feel of it. After a moment, she let him pull her upright, then brushed past him. "Where's Ella?" she said, looking around the apartment. "Ella?" she called out. "Rachel!"

The shrill crying turned off like a switch. "Liv?" came a weak and muffled reply from her bedroom.

She glanced back at Peter. "We should do something with that," she said, and motioned toward the body. "They don't need to see him like that..."

Peter nodded quickly. "I'll take care of it," he offered, reaching for an arm. He nodded toward the bedroom. "Go to your family. They sound like they need you."

Olivia smiled, and reached for her fallen light. "Thanks, Peter."

She left him in the hallway and returned to her bedroom. A yellow light shone from underneath her closet door, the one door she hadn't opened. The light moved, and she heard whispers, then a sniffle from inside the closet.

They were in there.

She grinned and wiped at her streaming eyes, then threw open the door. A small body came crashing through her suits.

"Aunt Liv!" Ella cried. She wrapped her arms around Olivia's legs and burrowed into her waist. "I knew you'd come!"

A tear-streaked Rachel parted the suits after her, and pushed her way out of the closet after her daughter. Her blond hair was tangled and dirty, but it was her little sister. "Oh my god, Liv...," she uttered, gazing with wide eyes. "You came. You're really here."

Olivia nodded, unable to speak. They stared at each other, tears flowing freely down both of their faces. They were both okay. She picked up Ella and hugged her tight, then reached for her sister and sandwiched the little girl between them.

"I'm so sorry you guys," she whispered into Ella's hair. "I'm so sorry I couldn't get here sooner. I tried...but, we just couldn't get here."

"You're here now," Rachel replied, returning her fierce embrace. "That's all that matters."

They stayed like that for a while, without speaking, soaking in one another's presence. In spite of the horror of the situation, Olivia couldn't recall ever being so happy and relieved as she was in that moment. Her family was safe. Against every odd, she'd reached them in time. Nothing else mattered. Even John's death receded blissfully into the background.

Eventually, Ella started squirming between the two sisters. She lifted her head from Olivia's shoulder.

"Aunt Liv, is Peter your boyfriend?"

Olivia gasped at hearing Peter's name on her niece's lips. How in the world had she known his name? She'd never mentioned Peter or his father to either of them before.

"What?" Rachel frowned, pulling away from the group embrace. "Ella, who is Peter?"

"There's a man in Aunt Liv's living room, Mommy," Ella explained calmly, pointing out the open bedroom door. "And I heard her say his name earlier. Is he your boyfriend, Aunt Liv? 'Cause I thought your boyfriend's name was John."

"You're right, baby girl," Olivia confirmed, turning to face the open French door. Peter was standing near the windows in the living room, staring down at the street below. His back was to them. "That is Peter."

"Is he your new boyfriend?"

"No," Olivia replied, smiling at her niece's persistence. "He's just a friend who's a boy. We worked together."

"Can I talk to him?" Ella asked shyly.

"Of course," she encouraged Ella, setting her back on the floor. "He's nice, and kind of funny, sometimes."

 _When he isn't being a jackass._  The thought was unusually fond. She supposed it was natural after everything they'd been through together over the last day.

Ella watched him from the doorway for a moment, before walking boldly up to him and introducing herself. Peter glanced into the bedroom, then squatted down in front of her.

Rachel watched their interaction, squinting through the dim light at Peter's outline. After a moment, she lit the vanilla candle on the nightstand.

"Where is John?" she asked.

"He...he didn't make it," Olivia said, and then swallowed. She pulled off the headlamp and turned it over in her hands. "Look Rach, about Greg." She stopped, and examined her sister's features in the flickering candlelight. "You know...what he was, don't you?"

Rachel's face turned glum. "I know...," she said. "He came back from getting us food a few days ago and locked himself in there. He warned us not to let him out. After a little while, he just...stopped talking back to us..." She scrubbed at her eyes. "Is he...is he gone now? All the way gone?"

Olivia nodded. "He's gone." There was no need to provide any of the gruesome details. "I'm sorry, Rach."

Rachel lifted her hand and gazed down at the wedding ring on her finger. "When he stopped talking...I just kind of assumed the worst," she admitted quietly after an intervening silence. "I'm just glad it's over with—that I know for sure. I don't think I would have ever opened that door." She scrubbed the back of her hand across her eyes, then sniffled, before going on. "God, I'm a mess. I'm sorry so about John, Liv. When did it happen?"

"...Yesterday."

"Yesterday? Jesus, Liv..." Her sister's voice was horrified. Olivia let herself be pulled into another hug. "I'm so sorry, honey."

"I'm okay...," she said with a shrug. "I'm just glad you're safe, you and Ella both. I was so worried about you guys. I wasn't sure you'd stay here, I thought you might have left. And then there were all the fires...and the infected."

"Greg wanted to leave," Rachel reported. "But I wouldn't let him. Neither would Ella. She kept saying we couldn't leave without you. It got pretty ugly." She shook her head slowly, gaze turned inward. "Then the military showed up, and when we saw what they were doing, leaving wasn't an option. They were killing people in the streets, Liv—people that weren't...changed yet. The only reason they didn't kill us was because something hit the building before they reached our side of the street. I think they thought it was going to burn anyway. I still can't believe it didn't."

"How's Ella doing?" she asked, glancing over at her young niece. She was having an animated discussion with Peter, who was nodding his head patiently. "Does she know about Greg?"

Rachel nodded, eyeing her daughter. "She cried for a while, but hasn't said much about it since. I don't know if that's a good sign or not."

"Well, Ella's a tough girl," Olivia told her. "And she's young. She'll get through it."

"I hope you're right, Liv. Do you remember when Dad died? I was only a baby."

"Only...bits and pieces," Olivia lied. "I was even younger than Ella."

Rachel picked up the lit candle and moved to the doorway. Out in the living room, Ella was giggling at something Peter had said. They watched the two interact silently for several moments. "So who is this Peter?" she asked softly, squinting at him in the dim light. "And why haven't you mentioned him before?"

Olivia shrugged, and fingered her ponytail. "You remember when I got promoted a while back?" she started. "I've been working with him since then."

"So he's FBI?"

"Not...exactly," she evaded, thinking how best to describe Peter Bishop. Keeping it simple seemed the best option. "He was more of a...consultant."

Rachel gave her a knowing look. "What aren't you telling me, Liv?"

"Nothing. We worked together, that's all," she said. "I don't tell you about everyone I work with, Rach."

"Yeah, but you told me about Charlie, and John, after he got sick. But I never heard of him before now," her sister prodded, then narrowed her eyes. "Is he cute?" she whispered.

"What?" Olivia hissed, pulling her back from the doorway. "Is that a joke?"

"Is he?"

"You are aware that the world has ended, right?"

"What does that matter?" Rachel said. "And yes, I am aware. It's a simple question, Liv."

She was going to insist on an answer. Olivia cleared her throat. "He's...cute enough, I suppose," she admitted, and looked over at Peter. "I don't think he's your type though," she added without thinking.

"Uh huh..." Rachel said, nodding sagely. "I guess I should meet him then."

Olivia followed her sister to the living room. Peter was seated on one end of the couch, with Ella perched on the arm next to him.

"Peter, this is my little sister, Rachel," Olivia began, pushing her sister forward. She wondered what he was going to make of her. "And I see you've already met my niece, Ella."

Peter rose to his feet. "Peter Bishop," he introduced himself, giving Rachel one his toothy grins. He held out his hand, and she took it with a matching smile. "It's nice to finally meet another of the Dunham tribe. I would say I'd heard a lot about you, but...I haven't." He glanced Olivia's way, and she fixed him with a stern glare, which only widened his grin as he went on, if that were possible. "Your big sister hasn't been very forthcoming about you, or this little munchkin."

Rachel gave Olivia a pointed look. "What else is new?" she commented, and rolled her eyes. "It's nice to meet you too...Peter. So you've been working with Liv? Part of some secret government division you can't talk about either, I suppose?"

"Something like that," he replied. "My father and I have both been consulting for your sister and the FBI for the last few months."

"Your father?" Rachel queried with a frown. She set the candle down on the coffee table and curled up on the arm chair next to him.

Ella was bouncing with excitement, and leapt into her mother's arms. "Mommy, did you know that Peter has a real live cow?" she said. "In a real lab, too!"

"A...cow?" Rachel repeated.

"The cow is actually Walter's." Olivia grinned at Ella's reaction. She was going to love the cow. It would be a shame when they finally had to eat the poor girl—assuming Walter would allow it.

"Walter?"

"My father," Peter chuckled. "Mad scientist extraordinaire."

"Her name is Gene, too, and I can feed her when we get there!" Ella told her mother. "Peter said so."

"He did, did he?" Rachel asked, "What is she talking about, Liv? You're staying here with us, right?"

Olivia exchanged glances with Peter, then sat down on the couch next to him. She had meant to break this part to her sister in private, but maybe it would be better with both Ella and Peter in the room. It was going to take some convincing to get Rachel to leave the seemingly relative safety of the apartment with Ella. Her sister could be as stubborn as a mule when it came to her daughter.

"I want you and Ella to come back to the lab with us," she said, then waited for the inevitable explosion. It came a moment later, right on cue.

"You what?" Rachel said. "You want us to go out there to those things? You want to take Ella out there? Are you crazy? We're staying right here until things are back to normal."

"Rachel, I know you feel like you're safe here, but you're not," Olivia reasoned. "Things aren't going to get back to normal—at least not anytime soon, and maybe never. We have an entire building to ourselves in Cambridge. The fires weren't as bad across the river. It's safer there."

"Safe? Look at you two," her sister countered, gesturing between them. "You're both covered in blood. You're both injured. How long do you think Ella and I will last out there? I don't have any training—I've never even fired a gun before!"

"Mommy, I want to go with Aunt Liv," Ella spoke up. "I'm a big girl. I'm almost six."

"Ella, go back to sleep in your aunt's bed," Rachel ordered. "I'll be in there soon."

"But, Mom—"

"Now, Ella." Rachel's tone brooked no arguments.

Ella's lips puckered into a pout. "All right..." The little girl slipped off her mother's lap. "Good night, Aunt Liv," she said.

"Good night, baby girl," Olivia replied, pulling her onto her lap. She placed several well-aimed kissed on Ella's forehead. "I'll see you in the morning, okay sweetie?"

"Okay..." she grumbled, and pulled away from her. "I'm glad you didn't die, Aunt Liv, and turn into a monster like my Dad did." She turned to Peter. "Good night, Peter," she said, giving him a one-armed hug around his knee. "My Mommy won't let me visit your cow, but it was still nice meeting you."

"It was nice meeting you too, kid," Peter agreed, ruffling her hair.

"Ella..." Rachel warned. "To bed."

"I'm going...," she pouted, then moped into the bedroom.

After she was gone, Rachel regarded them both in thorny silence. Olivia met her stare without blinking. Her sister might be stubborn when it came to Ella, but her own stubbornness was without limit when it came to those she loved. She felt Peter's gaze on her, but he wisely kept his mouth shut. This was between them—sister to sister.

The standoff lasted several minutes, maybe as many as ten, but she wasn't counting. Finally, Rachel lowered her head with a sigh. She picked at her striped pajama pants—they were her own, Olivia realized—before looking up again with eyes wide with fear.

"Tell me why I should risk taking Ella out there," she whispered. "Why can't we stay here?"

"Because back at Harvard," Olivia started to explain, "back at the lab where I—where we, work—we're trying to figure it out. I have to be there to help Peter's father, and so does he. More him than me, but we both have to be there. Charlie's there, and his wife, and Astrid, my assistant. There's strength in numbers, Rachel. Ella will be protected."

Rachel shook her head. "There's dead people walking around, Olivia," she said, and gave a sad laugh, "My husband was one of them. How can you possibly figure that out?"

"My father's working on it," Peter interjected. "And as much as it scares the shit out of me to say it, if anyone can figure this out, it's him."

"Who is your father? God?"

Peter chuckled, and scratched his beard. "No. Walter's just a man—a scientist."

"So are you a scientist, too?" Rachel asked, eyeing him up and down. "Honestly, you don't look like one."

Olivia stepped on Peter's foot with increasing pressure. Telling Rachel anything about his past was out of the question. She would never agree if she knew he was only a couple of months removed from being a criminal. He moved his foot out from under hers.

"My talents are...a little less specific than that," he said modestly. "But I know my way around a lab. Enough to help out."

Rachel twirled her lengthy bangs around a finger, and turned to Olivia. Gears were turning behind her eyes. "I have questions...," she said, watching them both. "You said he was a consultant. Your promotion, all the secrecy... What kind of cases were you working on? Why is an FBI agent working in a secret lab with civilian scientists? At Harvard, of all places. I'm not agreeing to anything until I understand why it's so important that you're there."

Olivia exchanged glances with Peter, who shrugged.

"I don't think confidentiality applies after the end of the world, Olivia," he said. "Just tell her. Anyone that would've cared is dead."

He wasn't wrong. As far as she knew, she was the highest ranking agent of the FBI still alive. There was no reason not to tell Rachel everything, or almost everything. Walter's being in an insane asylum was just as off limits as Peter's criminal past. Either would preclude her sister from agreeing, though knowing Walter, she would find out about his past soon after meeting him.

"All right...," she consented. "What do you know about Flight 627?"

Rachel frowned. "That plane from Germany a while back? Just that there was some kind of disease on board. The passengers were quarantined, a lot of them died, I think."

"There was no disease," Peter revealed. "And they all died, including the pilots."

"There wasn't...? All of them?" Rachel said, glancing between them. "What was it?"

Olivia spied a hair brush on the coffee table—her favorite hair brush. She leaned forward and picked it up, then ran her fingertips and palm over the stiff bristles. The prickles were pleasing on the surface of her skin. The brush would be coming back with her, along with her heavy coat. Winter was coming, just a month away.

"It was an attack...," she began, catching Rachel's eye.

#

#

They told her sister the story from the beginning, leaving out nothing except the details of Walter's incarceration, and Peter's initial refusal to help her when she'd found him in Iraq—and what he'd been doing there. Everything else was fair game.

The truth about what had happened to John, and how Walter and Peter had saved his life. Of their first case together, with the old-man-baby, as Peter had called it, and the women with missing pituitary glands. How Walter had shown them an image frozen in a dead victim's optic nerve with technology supplied by Massive Dynamic. How she herself had seen a man age fifty years in mere minutes—had watched a young man die of old age.

The attack on the city bus, and how the passengers had been frozen inside a gas turned solid—like bugs trapped in amber. Of the man who could predict disasters, Roy McComb. How Walter had re-wired his brain, and the voices had led them to those responsible for the bus attack.

And finally of the Pattern, as Broyles had called it, referring to the unexplained and unnatural events world-wide they'd become aware of. How Agent Broyles had assigned her the task of investigating them, with Peter and Walter's help. And how the newly-formed task force had only just been getting started when the world had ended. How the world ending was their final case.

Rachel was wide-eyed and gaping by the end. She'd remained silent for most of the tale, then fled to Olivia's bedroom, claiming she needed to think. Olivia didn't question her or press her further on leaving. She'd seen her sister's resistance wither visibly during their telling. They were at the center of the event. If there was a path to survival, it was through them, and the work Walter was doing at the lab.

"Do you think she'll agree?" Peter wanted to know, after the door had closed behind Rachel.

Olivia leaned her head back against the cushion, and gazed up at the dancing light on the ceiling. "I think so...," she answered. "I think she understands what's at stake, why we have to go back."

She heard Peter yawn and felt him shift on the couch next to her. Then he was reaching across her chest. "What are you doing, Peter?" she asked, stiffening as he brushed up against her chest.

He grabbed her backpack off the other end of the couch. "You know, I think this might've been the longest day in the history of long days," he said, and pulled out the bottle of scotch she'd confiscated. Thankfully, it was still whole after all the mishaps that had befallen them. "I think it calls for a drink or three. What do you think?"

She eyed the bottle, then Peter's profile. Candlelight flickered across his features, filtered through the short hair of his beard. His eyes were dark and unreadable, their blue hidden in shadow. He gave the almost-full bottle a little shake. She had to admit, a drink did sound nice after the day they'd had. Maybe one or two wouldn't hurt.

"I think I'll go get some glasses," she told him, and then pushed off the couch.

Her body protested, and she fell back with a silent gasp. Sitting down had been a mistake. If there was a place on her body that wasn't sore, she wouldn't know how to find it. In the spring of her first year in Boston, she'd run in the Marathon, or had tried to. She'd finished the race, eventually, but nowhere close to the front of the pack. Her body felt similar now to the way it had that day, after stumbling and wheezing across the finish line. She thought she'd been a runner before that day, but she'd been wrong.

"You know what, forget the glasses," Peter said.

He tilted his head back and took a swallow, his face scrunching as it went down, then passed her the bottle. Olivia followed suit, sighing as the alcoholic glow suffused her insides. The scotch was excellent, better than the whiskey she had in her pantry.

She let her head fall back again, and her eyes slid shut. She focused on the feel of it. The warmth traveled along her limbs, down her arms and legs, and out to her fingers and toes. The sensation was divine. Only a steaming bubble bath would have been better, and that was no longer an option.

John had tolerated whiskey, but had been more of a beer drinker, or wine depending on the occasion. Strictly red, though. No whites allowed at the Scott residence. He'd joked once that she drank enough whiskey for the both of them. She hadn't found it very amusing at the time, but in hindsight, she could admit that he might have been right. Maybe. Her thoughts lingered on him, and the times they'd spent together.

God, she missed him.

His laugh, his self-satisfied grin and his confidence in the field, in himself and in her. His bad jokes and even worse deliveries. He would never say them again. She missed the way he'd drag the back of his fingers along her cheek after they'd made love. The feel of his skin sliding hard against hers. How he'd stare at her so intently afterward, like he was drinking in her soul, and could never get enough. And she would do the same for him.

A lump formed in her throat, large and painful, and full of bottomless despair. He was gone. Salt was on her lips, and she raised the bottle to wash it all away. The burn dulled the pain and the despair, but not the memories. They sped past with perfect clarity and precision—open wounds hemorrhaging under the surface of her thoughts. She raised the bottle again. Her cheeks were wet, the spill of tears constant. The well from which they flowed seemed never-ending, an infinite pool of loss.

But the well did end. Time passed, and she let the spring run dry. The tears evaporated on her cheeks, until only traces of their salt remained, reminders of what was gone forever. Eventually the salt would be gone as well, and she knew there would be no more.

John was gone.

He would be remembered with love, always, but her focus was on the living. It had to be on the living. On her family, and on surviving. On her duty.

#

#

She opened her eyes.

Peter was standing across the room, next to the window. He was staring down at the street between the narrow gap on the edge of the blanket that blotted out the moonlight. In the midst of her ordeal, she'd forgotten he was there. He'd left the couch at some point, had respectfully given her what privacy he could.

She wondered what he thought of her breaking down in front of him. The bottle of scotch was upright between her legs. She'd been rather selfish with it. The alcohol had dulled her physical pain, along with everything else, and she clambered to her feet without much difficulty.

He looked back at her approach. With the candle at her back, her face was hidden in shadow. His gaze traveled the length of her at a glance, before coming to rest at eye level. His scrutiny lasted a mere moment, and then the corner of his mouth lifted.

"Hey."

"Hey," Olivia said. "Here, I've been hogging your alcohol."

Peter's grin widened, showing a hint of teeth. "Our alcohol, Olivia," he corrected her, and then took a long pull that forced his eyes closed. She expected him to ask how she was doing, but he merely returned his attention to the view outside.

"What do you see out there?" she asked, moving to the opposite side of the window. She pulled back the blanket and peered outside. "Infected?" The street below was still and empty, and altogether uninteresting.

"No. Look west, away from the city," he instructed, then looked down at his watch. "Do you see it? Wait for it, it should be any second."

She looked west, down Strathmore toward the black horizon. As her apartment was only on the second floor, she couldn't see much besides other taller buildings. The street below was still. The sky was clear though, the moon a pale crescent hanging by an invisible thread high above to the south. The stars were out in force, visible in numbers not seen in Boston since the advent of the electricity and the light bulb.

"Peter, I don't see anythi—"

A thin shaft of bluish-white light shot upwards above the apartment buildings to the west. It cut through the night like a razor, blinked once, then disappeared. The light left behind a faint purple bar in her vision that faded away almost immediately.

Olivia gasped, and waited for it to appear again, but the sky remained dark. "What was that?" she said. "A searchlight? Where did it go?"

"A searchlight," Peter agreed with a nod. "I've been watching it for the last ten minutes or so. I just happened to see it in the corner of my eye. It flashes about every two minutes, as near as I can tell."

"So it's a signal," she stated, keeping her gaze on the spot. "Does it ever move, or vary in the number of flashes?"

"No. And the length of each flash is consistent. Just the two. I thought it might be Morse code at first, but it never changes."

"Damn," she muttered. That had been her first thought also. "I thought it might be some kind of message, too. What do you think it means? Who do you think it is?"

"Other than, 'Here I am', I've no idea what it means," Peter replied. "And honestly, I'm not too eager to find out who it is."

Olivia met his gaze through the space between the blanket and the window. "Why is that?" she asked. "It's gotta be other survivors, Peter. They have power."

"I don't know...," he disagreed. "A feeling, I guess. One I've come to trust in my...former life. It could be some remnant of the military, and after what we saw today, their kind of hospitality doesn't sound too enticing. Or it could be someone else just as unsavory. Think of the kind of people most likely to have survived. What if it's just a honey-pot?"

"A honey-pot?" she echoed. "Why would someone go through the effort?"

"I don't know," he repeated. "It's just a feeling. Maybe it's nothing."

The shaft of light burst into existence again a moment later, blinked, then faded away—just as it had before. After what Peter had said about it being a trap, its appearance suddenly seemed ominous and foreboding. She let the blanket fall back into place and turned away from the window.

"How far away do you think that is?" she asked. "Could we see it from Cambridge?"

Peter took a drink, then passed her back the bottle. "From our elevation and vantage...," he considered, wincing as he gingerly felt at the wound above his hairline. "It's hard to say. It's over the horizon, which is five or six miles away. Maybe twenty or thirty miles? That would put it somewhere between Worcester and Marlborough, depending on how many candelas the light is. As for seeing it from across the Charles—I think so, from someplace tall, like that bell—" He stopped, and gave her an apologetic look. "Sorry to bring that up."

"Don't be," she told him. "John's gone. Avoiding the place where he died isn't going to change that. That's what got us into the mess crossing the river. I won't make that mistake again."

Olivia took a sip of the scotch, then sighed and set it down for the time being. The strange light was a problem for another time—if it showed up again. Their wounds needed tending, preferably while they both could still stand. Her head was already pleasantly loose on her shoulders, her mood becoming more relaxed by the minute. It had been too long—weeks since she'd had anything to drink, other than the shot she'd taken outside of Harvard Square earlier that morning.

She grabbed her first-aid kit from the bathroom and opened it up on the coffee table. "Come here, Peter," she said. "I want to take a look at your head."

Peter's eyes narrowed. "I'm fine, Olivia."

She snorted, then patted the cushion next to her. "That's my line," she retorted. "Now get over here, Bishop. I don't bite, I promise."

"You don't bite, huh?" he chuckled, and then gave her a serious look. "As long as you'll let me take another look at that knee when you're done. Deal?"

Olivia rolled her eyes. "Fine. Now sit."

Peter did as she asked without further protest, and sat down next to her looking somewhat disgruntled and uneasy. She pulled his head down and parted his hair, smiling faintly to herself at his compliance. Maybe a firm tone was all that was needed to keep Peter Bishop in line.  _Or a little alcohol_ , she added to herself.  _Or both_.

His dark hair was as thick and as coarse as it looked, unlike John, whose hair had been thin, and getting thinner by the year. She suspected baldness was not in Peter's future, if Walter's hair was anything to go by. There was an oily, gritty feel to it, but that was all their realities. Everyone was in need of a shower, her especially, with the length of her hair. She'd considered cutting it short for convenience, but had yet to summon the will to do so. Her desperation had not yet peaked. She pulled his head closer to the candle, almost onto her lap.

"Hey, that's my head," he complained, and tried to pull away from her.

"Hold still, Peter," she said, "I need the light."

He relaxed, but the position was awkward, and she felt his hands on her thighs, supporting his weight. She ignored the pressure of his fingers, and leaned in close.

There was a painful-looking scrape along with a freakish bump to match several inches above his hairline. Gravel, and bits of dirt and sand had made their home in the cut's shallow grooves.

"Don't move," she instructed, reaching for the peroxide from the first-aid kit. "I need to wash this out."

"Excellent," Peter muttered.

She twisted off the lid. "You might feel a slight sting," she couldn't help saying. "But I'm sure you'll be fine."

"You're getting a kick out of this, aren't you?" he said to her lap. "I wouldn't have pegged you for a revenge-seeker, Dunham."

"There's a lot about me you don't know, Peter..." Olivia smiled to herself, then dribbled the peroxide over his head.

He hissed and increased the pressure on her thighs at the contact. The disinfectant foamed and bubbled angrily. She wiped the wound clean as best she could—without cutting his hair any sort of bandaging was impossible—and then dabbed it dry. The injury bled a little, but didn't appear in danger of gushing. She released his head, and he pulled away from her.

"There. That wasn't so bad, was it?" she asked.

Peter grunted and touched at the wound. "No comment," he answered, and then swung off the couch and knelt down in front of her. "Now let me see your knee. That was the deal."

She sighed, but let him take his look. While he went about it, she let her mind drift back over the events of the day, and nursed the bottle of scotch. It had been one of the longest days in recent memory. Had she really suggested they go down into the subway station? Clearly, she hadn't been thinking. At all. She had to be smarter—stupid, spur-of-the-moment decisions like that would only get them killed. Then there was the insanity outside the boathouse. Their bike ride. The accident. She'd been distracted.

She'd seen someone.

"Did you see him?" she blurted, sitting up straight as it came back to her.

Peter paused in the re-wrapping of her knee and glanced up at her. "See who?"

"The man in the suit, right before I crashed on the bike," she explained. "He distracted me. Did you see him?"

"A guy wearing a suit?" He shook his head. "No. Was he one of the dead?"

"I don't know...," she replied, and revisited the memory. "I don't think so. He was standing still...just watching us. He—he was wearing one of those old hats... A fedora."

"A fedora?" Peter frowned. "Are you sure? Where'd you see this guy?"

"Yeah...I'm sure," Olivia confirmed. "There's more...but it's gonna sound crazy."

"Can't be any crazier than the dead walking, can it? After that, I'm pretty much open to anything."

He had a point. When the dead could rise, just about anything seemed possible, including a man who could appear and disappear at will. So she told him how she'd seen the man in the alley, just standing there, watching. And then again in a different alley. It had been the same man. And he'd been watching them...or was it just her? His skin had been pale, almost like an albino. He'd seemed to glow in the twilight. She was sure of it. Peter listened without interruption while finishing his work on her knee.

"You're right, that does sound crazy," he agreed when she was done with her tale. He sat down next to her and reached for the scotch.

"You don't believe me?" she asked.

He took a sip, then held out the bottle. "I didn't say that." He relaxed back on the cushion and stared up at the ceiling. "On the contrary, I'm sure you saw what you think you saw. I just don't know what we can do about it until we know more. Here."

Olivia studied his profile, then grabbed the bottle. "Good," she told him, "'Cause I did see him. He was why I didn't notice that group of infected right before the accident."

Peter grunted, and eyed her sideways. "Maybe biking isn't our thing." He hesitated, then went on. "Have you thought about how we're going to get back to Cambridge with Rachel and your niece? That's a long walk for a five-year old, Olivia, even without the zombies. ...And I don't think we can ride."

She didn't answer right away. The alcohol warmed her insides, took the edge off her worried thoughts. She'd already come to the same conclusion that he was hinting at; walking and riding were both out of the question. "You want to drive, don't you?" she asked.

"I don't think we have a choice, Olivia," he said, leaning in closer. "We can't walk. We can't ride. And we sure as hell can't call a taxi. Back when this all started—they were all fresh. I don't think the majority of them are quick enough to surround a vehicle like they could before. There's got to be an open route north to the Weeks Bridge. We just have to find it. Then we can walk the rest of the way from there to the lab, or find another car. It's not that far." He rolled his head to the side and met her gaze. "What do you think?"

"I think I agree," she said.

"You're not going to argue?"

She arched an eyebrow at his insinuation that she might not always be agreeable to his suggestions—sometimes they were just plain ridiculous. But not this time.

"Not when you're talking sense," she replied.

"Is that a fact?" he said, and then prodded her with his elbow. "'Cause I distinctly remember suggesting we don't go down into the subway station—and then we went down into the subway station..."

Olivia's cheeks burned, but she kept her chin up. "That was different," she insisted. "You had already used the lights. I needed to see how well they worked before we had to do something like ride bicycles in the dark."

"Really."

"Uh huh..."

She lifted the scotch to her lips, then passed it back. Peter set the bottle on the table after taking his drink, and relaxed into his cushion, propping his feet up on the coffee table. He seemed content with silence, so she obliged, and let her head fall back next to his.

The light flickered feebly, having sunk low into the base of the candle. Melted wax bubbled and hissed. Her breath, and Peter's next to her were loud in her ears. He sounded like he was getting a cold. The building creaked and groaned occasionally, and the noise was different than she remembered, like something had changed structurally. Which it had, she supposed, what with the aircraft that had struck the top floor. The change was enough for the apartment to feel foreign, like it had belonged to someone else—despite it being filled with things that were hers. Part of her was aware that after they left in the morning, odds were that she would never step foot inside it again. The thought was strange, and unexpectedly exciting. She wondered if Peter had felt that way with all the places he'd been, never to return. Had it been a spur for his wandering? She'd been a military brat in her youth, moving about frequently, but she'd been young then, the relocations not of her own will.

Her head swam pleasantly. She tip-toed the fine line between a soothing buzz and slipping headlong into drunkenness. Another shot would probably do the trick, and tip the scales toward oblivion. She glanced over at Peter, and found his eyes on her—like she had so often in the lab before everything had gone to hell. She met his gaze without looking away, and waited for him to break the silence. He always did. It was his nature.

The moment drew out, a mounting tension stretching between the distance separating them. Her eyelids grew heavy, her vision blurred, but remained focused on Peter's face. She wondered what thoughts were running through his head at that moment, and what he saw when he looked at her.

After a while, the candle fluttered and went out.


	7. Brighton, and What Happened There, Part 2

**-October, 2008**

.

Olivia came awake all at once. Some indeterminate sound, something foreign and out of place echoed silently. Her pistol was in her hand before she was aware of drawing it. She held it up near her face, surveying her surroundings for a moment before re-holstering.

She was in her apartment. A whitish glow emanating from underneath the thick blankets covering the windows provided meager light. It was her couch. There was a blanket covering her, up to her neck. She couldn't remember falling asleep. Had she passed out?

_Peter._

Her thoughts were confused and hazy, the memories of the moment before sleep like an unfinished drawing—only the barest outlines present, the rest up to the imagination to fill in. She'd been waiting for him to speak. He never had. She must have fallen asleep not long after.

Where was he? The expensive bottle of scotch was where they'd left it on the coffee table. Uncapped. Had they both passed out? Where had the blanket come from then? And the pillow. No, she had passed out, and he had done the rest. The thought of him tucking her in was not as unpleasant as she would have imagined not so long ago, though still somewhat unnerving.

She swung her legs off the couch and sat up. Her head throbbed at the sudden movement. He was not in the living room. Or the kitchen. She pushed open one of the French doors to her bedroom. Rachel and Ella lay intertwined under a clump of blankets. One of them was snoring softly. She watched them for a moment, then shut the door. Her spare bedroom door was closed, but unlocked. The room was empty. The smell of blood hung in the air, along with stale urine and shit. The full-size bed's sheets were covered in dark stains—most likely the source of the stench. In her mind's eye, she saw Greg collapse on the bed after being bitten. He had died there. Her gaze didn't linger on the bed. She looked out the window and saw the twisted form of Greg's body in the alley below. It seemed Peter had taken her request to do something with it seriously.

Where was he?

Olivia found his backpack in the living room, sitting next to the door. Her throat was full of cotton-balls, so she grabbed a bottle of water from inside it. The water was room-temperature and stale-tasting, but it was water, and she drank it down while chewing methodically on some of the dried fruit she'd brought along.

She returned to the kitchen. Her refrigerator was empty, save for the few bottles of condiments she'd kept on hand. On the floor next to it was a case of bottled water she didn't recognize—obviously scavenged. Only a few of the bottles remained. She grabbed them, and shoved them in her pack. Her pantry was nearly bare. She found several boxes of macaroni that she'd bought in preparation for Ella's visit, and two cereal boxes with only crumbs remaining. The bottle of whiskey was missing also. Anything edible that hadn't required cooking was gone. She shut the pantry door without taking any of it. What her sister had been planning on eating if she had let them stay was a mystery.

A floorboard creaked behind her.

She spun at the sound, dropping her hand to the gun at her waist.

Ella froze mid-step, halfway in, halfway out of the kitchen doorway. Her eyes were dark saucers. "Aunt Liv…?" she asked. Her voice was tremulous, full of sleep and confusion.

Olivia relaxed and moved her hand away from her gun. "Hey there, baby girl," she greeted her niece, who charged into her outstretched arms. She held her tight, and kissed the top of her head.

Ella pulled her head away. "I wasn't sure you'd really got here last night, Aunt Liv," she said. "It might have been a dream. They can be vivid, you know. I have dreams, sometimes. Scary ones."

"Vivid, huh," Olivia grinned. "That's an interesting word. Where'd you learn that? In preschool?"

The little girl shook her head. "Mommy said it," Ella explained, and then her voice dropped to a whisper. "It means intense…"

"You're right, it does mean intense," she confirmed. "Why are you up so early? Is your mom awake?"

Ella shook her head. "She's sleepy. Mommy sleeps a lot since Daddy locked himself in the bedroom. And cries." She lowered her head. Her voice became somber. "Is Daddy dead now? Did you shoot him?"

Olivia pulled her close again, and smoothed back her hair. She squeezed her eyes shut, and cursed whatever god or force it was that had decided to change the rules of the game at such a late date. Such questions should not be coming from the mouth of a five-year old girl. Or from anyone, for that matter.

She cupped her niece's cheeks. They were soft, and crusted with dried tears. "Ella, your father…he wasn't himself, you know that right?" she asked gently. "He was sick, but now he's at peace. Do you understand?"

Ella nodded, and put on a brave face. "I know he turned into one of the monsters," she said. "But he's dead now, right? He went to heaven?"

Olivia swallowed through a painful lump and then nodded. "Yeah. He's in heaven now."

"Good…," Ella whispered and scrubbed at her eyes. "Can we leave yet, Aunt Liv?" she asked. "I don't want to stay here anymore. Will Mommy let us leave? I want to go with you…"

 _She had better_ , Olivia thought, and smiled at her niece. "Let's go find out. Should we go wake her up?"

Ella nodded excitedly. "Mommy gets grumpy when I wake her up," she said, and grabbed Olivia's hand. "I'm glad you're here, Aunt Liv." She scampered for the bedroom, pulling her close behind.

Olivia glanced into the living room as they passed it by. There was still no sign of Peter. Where was he? She hoped he hadn't done anything foolish without her.

She stopped and leaned against the door-frame, grinning as Ella climbed on top of the lump of blankets that was her sister. She had been woken several mornings herself by the little girl in much the same way. Rachel seemed less than amused.

"Oof! Ella!" Rachel's voice was tired and muffled by her daughter, who was sitting across her chest. "How many times have I told you not to do that? What are you doing?"

"Wake up, Mommy!" Ella commanded, bouncing up and down. "It's time to go with Aunt Liv. Can we go? Can we?"

Rachel turned her head toward the open door. Their eyes met and dueled for a moment before she sighed and sat up, then pulled Ella onto her lap. "Good morning," she said.

Olivia crossed her arms under her breasts. "Hey."

"How'd you sleep?" Rachel asked, nuzzling her daughter's hair. "Sorry for taking your bed last night. We've kind of been using it ever since Greg…"

"Rachel…" Olivia shook her head. "Don't. I understand completely. The couch was fine." She paused, and tried to get a bead on her sister's mood. "So. Now that you've slept on it, how you feel about it?" There was no need to specify what 'it' was.

Rachel sighed and hugged Ella close. "I guess we don't really have a choice, do we?" she said, resting her chin on Ella's head. We're almost out of food here anyway, and I wasn't strong enough to move that refrigerator. Believe me, I tried. I don't know how Greg even got it down there." Her gaze went past Olivia, out into the living room. "Where's your friend?"

"Out. He'll be back soon," she said, and hoped Peter wouldn't prove her wrong. "You should get dressed while he's gone. We need to be ready to go. It took us all day to get here." She opened the closet and grabbed an old backpack of hers from the back. She tossed it on the bed. "Here. Take only what you can't bear to lose, Rachel, for both you and Ella. Anything else—including clothes—we can find later."

Rachel seemed unhappy at the instructions, but nodded and climbed out off the bed. She peeled off her borrowed pajamas, and reached for a pair of jeans.

"Can I take my Burlap Bear, Aunt Liv?" Ella wanted to know. Her eyes were wide with concern. "I don't think he'll like it here all alone. He needs me to sleep with him, you know."

"Of course, baby girl," Olivia assured her, and sat down on the bed next to the little girl. Ella climbed into her lap, and wrapped her tiny arms around her neck. "What would we do without him? It's a long way to go, so you're gonna have to make sure you keep him safe, okay? Can you be brave today, sweetie? You might see some things out there that'll scare you, but I won't let them hurt you, I promise."

"I can be brave, Aunt Liv," Ella said after a moment. "I know you'll keep me and Mommy safe." She extricated herself, and then let loose with a tirade of questions. "Can I pet the cow when get there? Is it a nice cow? What color is she? Can I ride on her? Has she ever bit anyone? Can cows get rabies? What about—"

"Ella…," Rachel sighed, and popped her head through the neck of a striped sweater. "Go get dressed. We can worry about this cow later."

"But Mom, I just wanna know about—"

"Dressed. Now, Ella." Rachel insisted, dropping her hands to her hips. "Your clothes are in Aunt Liv's bathroom." She pointed toward the open bathroom door, and Ella hopped off the bed and disappeared inside without another word.

Olivia waited for the door to close behind her. "You're pretty tough on her, Rach," she said, reaching for her box of keepsakes on the top shelf of her closet. "She was just curious…"

Rachel brushed her fingers through her hair, then pulled it back into a ponytail with a holder from her wrist. "She's developing a mind of her own, Liv," she told her, and then dropped her voice. "It's terrible. Next thing you know, she's gonna realize that I can't always tell when she's lying. Then I'm gonna be in trouble."

"Lying? Really?" Olivia questioned.

"Believe it," her sister replied, looking up from her shoelaces. "Try telling her to brush her teeth, and see what happens."

She set the box on the bed and opened it. Inside were pictures of her mother and father, herself and Rachel, Ella as a baby, along with other trinkets from her youth. Her grades from high school, a painful letter from her mother written not long before her death, the journal she'd written while at Quantico, her diplomas, and a few things she'd kept her hands on over the years. She frowned at how little there was, at how there was nothing current in it—other than Ella's baby pictures.

Was her life truly that empty? Had the Bureau consumed everything after she'd signed on?

"What is all that?" Rachel queried. She picked up the pile of photos and flipped through them before stopping on one. "Is that Dad?"

Olivia glanced over at the man in the photo and nodded. The picture was old, taken before she was born, sometime before or during the Vietnam War era. Her father was wearing green fatigues, and looked young—probably younger than she was now. She tried to place his face in her memories, but could only summon his laugh and the sound of his voice. Her mother's shrieks when the news of his death arrived were still loud in her ears. She heard them whenever she thought of her real father.

She grabbed the stack of photos and the letter, and shoved them in one of the smaller pockets of her backpack. On the bright-side, there was one advantage that a lack of life gave her; when the world ended, it sure made for light packing.

"There's no signature on any of these…" Rachel had picked up a stack of birthday cards from the bottom of the box and was flipping through them. "Thinking of you…" she read out loud. "Who are these from, Liv?"

Olivia reached for the first explanation that came to her. "Uh…no one," she said quickly. She pulled the cards from her sister's hands and dropped them back in the box. "They're just…extras, trash, you know. I'm not taking them. "

Rachel gave her a searching look, but shrugged. "All right…," she gave in with a shrug. "They just didn't seem like your type." She glanced at Ella, who had just stepped out of the bathroom and was moving rapidly toward the living room. "Hold it right there, missy. Did you put socks on, Ella?"

Ella's expression turned innocent. "Um…yeah…" she said with a nod.

"Ella…"

Her shoulders dropped into a defeated slump, and she shook her head. "No…" she admitted in a small voice. "But my socks are all dirty, Mommy. And they smell bad. Do I have to wear them?"

Rachel shook her head. "Ella, you have to wear socks," she said firmly. "Maybe we can find some cleaner ones in the spare bedroom, now that…" She met Olivia's eyes. "Is it…safe, to go in there with her?"

"Yeah," she nodded, "Peter took care of…it."

"C'mon, sweetheart," Rachel said, taking Ella by the shoulder. "Let's see what we can find."

Olivia waited for them to leave the room, then stared down at the birthday cards. Her stepfather would have a hard time sending her one this year. She wondered where he was, whether or not he'd made it through the initial wave of infections that had swept across the country by storm. With any luck, he had not, and was a rotting corpse somewhere, either dead or undead—she didn't care. Either suited her just fine.

 _Good riddance, you sadistic son-of-a-bitch_ , she thought, then closed the box. It had taken the end of the world to finally rid herself of the man and his fucking cards. The realization brought a tiny smile to her face. She almost felt happy.

She left the box on the bed, and turned to her dresser. Her instructions to Rachel to take only what she needed were large in her mind as she opened her underwear drawer. She needed new underwear in a bad way, and stuffed as many pairs in her pack as would fit without being too obvious. She grabbed several more bras for good measure, then decided she might as well change her clothes altogether while she had the chance. Who knew when she might have another? She pulled a fresh pair of jeans and a thick sweater from her dresser, then shut her bedroom door and slipped into them, along with fresh underwear. When she was finished, she felt like a new woman. It was amazing how something as simple as a change of clothes could change one's outlook. She shoved several shirts and jeans into her pack.

Olivia glanced around the room for anything else she might need—or for anything that she might regret leaving behind. The spare pistol she'd told Greg about would have to come, of course. It was sitting on the nightstand next to her bed, along with a box of ammo. She doubted Rachel had touched it any more than required to place it there—and never since, knowing her. Her reluctance regarding guns was going to have to change. They would all need to be armed eventually, even Ella, once she was a little older. The pistol and ammo went in her pack.

A stack of books on forensics she'd meant to read caught her eye. It was hard to leave them, but they had no place in the world anymore. What good were advanced forensic techniques? They had more worth as fuel for heat. She took a cursory glance in her jewelry box, but shut it almost immediately. None of it was nice, or had much attached sentimentality. The only piece she owned that did—she'd already lost.

In her closet, she found her heavy coat—a black pea-coat that had served her well during Boston winters in the past—and laid it out on the bed. She gazed with melancholy at the rows of dark suits and white blouses neatly arranged across the front. They would be staying. For years they had been her armor, her shield—how she had defined herself. Leaving them behind was like leaving a part of herself behind. Yet it had to be done.

She would never wear them again. Ever.

Olivia swallowed painfully, then closed the door. The latch clicking shut made her heart hurt. The ache was real, and to the bone. Like she was betraying an old friend, a family member—however necessary the betrayal was, it still hurt like hell.

The sound of Ella giggling caught her attention. With an effort, she spun away from the closet and pulled open her bedroom door. She had to blink at what she found on the other side, just to make sure she wasn't hallucinating. She wasn't.

Peter was back from wherever he'd been.

Ella was in his lap, bouncing up and down on his knees and clapping as he chanted out a rhyming game. He caught her eye over her niece's head and nodded, but finished out the game without pause while she watched in shock from the doorway.

The phrase, 'wolf in sheep's clothes' came to mind at the display, but that wasn't it exactly. The possibility that he might actually like children—that he might be good with them had never crossed her mind. Not even for an instant. How could it? With his past…the man had been a criminal. At the moment, Peter looked like nothing more than a babysitter—and a fairly good one at that.

"Aunt Liv!" Ella beamed when it was over. "I found your friend Peter! He was playing a game with me. Did you see?"

Olivia smiled at her niece's exuberance. "I did see," she confirmed. "That looked pretty fun."

"Do you want to try?" Ella asked, and climbed off his lap. "I'm sure he'll let you, won't you, Peter?"

The former conman blinked, then lowered his eyes to his lap. His lips curled with amusement, and he suddenly seemed very interested in one of his fingernails, wisely keeping his mouth shut.

"Oh…" She coughed, and covered up a grin. She'd forgotten how outspoken her niece could be. "Um…I think that game is only for little munchkins like you," she evaded, and moved toward the pair. "I…I'm probably too big for that, don't you think?"

Ella shook her head. "No, I saw my Mommy playing the game with Daddy once," she told them. "Mommy sounded like she was having fun. And she was naked. You don't have to be naked though, Aunt Liv."

Peter chuckled wickedly, and met her gaze. "Yeah, how about that, Agent Dunham?" he asked, pushing off the couch. He crossed over to this window and pulled the curtain aside.

Olivia's cheeks burned. Several different unfortunate images flashed through her mind, which only acerbated the condition. Where did her niece come up with these things? She was going to have a talk with her sister about being a little more discreet in the future. Then she remembered her husband was dead, and thought better of it.

"What's wrong, Aunt Liv?" Ella said, glancing between them. "Are you okay?

"Ella, why don't you go see if your mother's ready to go?" she deflected, putting a hand on her head. "I'm fine. Go find your mom."

"Okay…," Ella said with disappointment. "Mom!"

She watched her niece disappear down the hallway. It was going to be an adventure having her in the lab. The five-year old was going to have a field day with Walter. Her glance shifted to Peter, who still had his back to the room. She walked over to him and cleared her throat.

"So…that was a little awkward," Peter started, glancing back over his shoulder. "Something tells me we might not want to mention that conversation to your sister."

"Let's not," she agreed. A conversation like that might put ideas in Rachel's head, and that was something she certainly didn't need at the moment. "Hey…thanks for the blanket and pillow last night, by the way. I guess I fell asleep."

He shrugged uncomfortably, as if it were of no consequence. "We both fell asleep." His gazed shifted to a spot over her shoulder. "I…uh, put the blanket over you before I left this morning. How's your knee?"

"It's a little better," she answered, watching him closely. "How's your head? You still need those painkillers?" He was keeping something from her. She wondered if she'd said or done something while she was out. Whatever it was, he didn't appear interested in telling her about it. She'd get back to that later.

"It's all right," he said, touching at the spot above his hairline with two fingers. "I'm good, but you might want to grab them anyway if you have them. Just in case, you know?"

Olivia nodded. She should have thought of that herself. "Where'd you go this morning? Please tell me you were doing something useful."

"As a matter of fact, I was," he said, sounding proud of himself. He pulled the curtain aside and nodded at the street below. "Take a look."

A camouflaged Humvee was parked diagonally across the street, complete with a machine gun mounted on a swivel in the back. She was impressed. Several infected stood in the vehicle's vicinity, obviously drawn to the area by its engine noise. It was a recurring problem with driving anywhere these days.

"Where did you find that?" she wanted to know, keeping her attention on the wandering infected. There were five of them—all of the slow-moving, ancient variety. Dispatching them shouldn't prove a problem for the two of them together. "Did you have to go far?"

"Just a couple of blocks to the east," he replied. "There's no ammo for that gun, so don't get your hopes up…" He started to say something else, and then stopped.

"What is it?" she queried, frowning at his uncertainty.

Peter glanced toward the hallway, then lowered his voice. "We got lucky last night, Olivia," he began, "There are a lot of infected around here. I saw at least five or six herds, each nearly as big as the one in front of the boathouse, and that was just in our immediate vicinity. They seemed unusually…active. I don't know if that damn refrigerator stirred them up, or if they were this close all along, but if they're like this the whole way, we might have have problems when it comes time to ditch the truck."

Olivia glanced back down at the Humvee. "We'll just have to be careful then, won't we?" she said. "It's not like we have any choice, Peter. The sooner we get out of here, the better. I'll get my sister."

Peter nodded, and shouldered his backpack. "Did you get everything you needed?" he asked, running his eyes over her apartment.

"Everything that's important," she said. "Everything that can't be replaced. As for the rest…" She swallowed, and met his gaze, forcing a stoic mask into place. "…I don't think I'll be coming back here."

She looked away from the pity in his eyes. It hurt to say it out loud, but it was true. She was never coming back. There was no reason to. Her life—this part of it at least—was for all intents and purposes, over and done with.

"…I'll wait for you down below," Peter said quietly, and then snatched up his backpack and crowbar on the way to the door. He stopped in the open doorway and glanced back at her. His mouth opened, but instead of speaking, he gave her a nod, and then disappeared into the corridor.

Olivia stared at the spot he'd vacated for a moment, then retrieved what medicine she had in the vanity above her bathroom sink. There wasn't much—a bottle of ibuprofen, and prescription of vicadin that was nearly empty. Neither would last long if someone were truly hurt. She tucked them bottles in her pack, then went in search of her sister.

She found her in the spare bedroom staring blankly into her open bag. Tears spilled down her cheeks, and a green sweater was twisted in her grip. Ella stood at her side, tugging on her sleeve.

"Mom…?" Ella was saying.

"Rach?" she asked cautiously, taking a step into the room. "We have to go…"

Rachel blinked and looked up. "I…I don't know if I can do this, Liv."

 _Not now, Rachel_ , she thought, and moved to her sister's side. "You have to, Rachel," she whispered in her ear. "We're not staying here. There's a truck waiting outside. We have to go. Now." She pulled the sweater from Rachel's hands and shoved it in the bag. "Peter's waiting downstairs."

Rachel shook her head and clutched Olivia's arm. "I'm so scared…I…I can't even think… How do you expect me to do this?"

Olivia pulled her into an embrace, including Ella between them. "I'm scared, too," she told her. "But we have to go. I'm not going to let anything happen to either of you, I promise. Do you trust me?"

"Mommy, Aunt Liv will keep us safe," Ella said between them. She wrapped her arms around her mother's waist. "I trust her, Mommy. You should too, you know."

Rachel sniffled, and glanced down at her daughter with a weak smile. "How can I argue against that?" She let out a shaky laugh and wiped the tears from her eyes. "My five-year old is braver than I am."

"I'm almost six, Mommy," Ella informed her.

Olivia sighed. A surge of relief coursed through her veins.  _Thank you, baby girl_ , she thought, wanting to pick her young niece up and hug her. She glanced in the backpack. It was mostly empty, which made sense, she supposed. All of her sister's important possessions were back in Chicago. She would never see them again, in all likelihood.  _I'm sorry, Rach._  "Do you have everything for you and Ella?"

"I think so," Rachel said.

Her sister made no move to pick up the bag, so Olivia did it for her. She pushed it against Rachel's chest and held it there until she grabbed it.

"Then let's get out of here." She took Ella's hand and moved toward the door.

Rachel followed them to the living room with clear reluctance in every step, but she followed, and that was enough for the present. Olivia reminded herself to be patient with her sister—she'd been a housewife before it all started, after all. She had no self-defense mechanisms ingrained through years of training. Olivia had received hers first in the Marines, then later in the FBI, and with all the cases she'd worked and horrific things she'd seen since then, her skin had only grown thicker.

It was a wonder Rachel was doing as well as she was. There had been a battle right outside the building. A fire storm. She'd seen and heard civilians being gunned down, murdered in the street. Olivia thought of Charlie's wife, and how her experiences on the way to the lab had scarred her, perhaps permanently. That wasn't going to happen to Rachel, or Ella.

Olivia grabbed her own backpack, stuffed to the brim with her heavy coat, and threw it over her shoulders. Rachel flinched at the rifle, and at the bayonet jutting out from underneath the barrel—they were both spattered with dried blood—but made no comment on either.

She waited for them to grab their coats—a stylish tan leather coat for her sister, and pink hoodie for Ella—then bent down in front of her niece. She would have knelt, but the stiffness in her knee wouldn't allow it. "Are you ready, baby girl?" she asked, running her fingers through her dark hair. "You have to be brave now, okay? You're gonna see things, terrible things…and I'm going to do have to do other things that are going to look scary, but it's still me, okay? I'll only be doing them to protect you and your mom. Do you understand?"

Ella nodded with wide eyes. "I'll be brave, Aunt Liv."

"Good. Just stay close to your mom," she instructed, and then glanced at Rachel. "You ready?"

Rachel's face was pale, but she nodded, and shrugged into her backpack. "I'm as ready as I'll ever be."

"All right," she said, then led them out into the hallway.

Olivia took one last look into her apartment, noticing with vague amusement that the bottle of scotch was gone from the coffee table, then shut the door behind her. She locked it afterward, turned the dead-bolt in its housing as she had a thousand times before. It was a meaningless gesture, but she did it anyway for reasons that weren't entirely clear. Perhaps a tiny part of her was clinging to the minute hope that she might return someday—that someday the world might stop ending. She didn't expect it to.

She led them down the stairwell, and through the mound of chairs and furniture that Greg had placed on the steps to the first floor. Peter had cleared a space around the refrigerator, and pushed it out of the doorway. They found him lounging against the wall just inside the building's entrance, staring out into the sunlight. He heard them exiting the stairwell, and glanced back over his shoulder.

"How's it look out there?" she wanted to know, moving to his side.

"About the same," he reported. "Just the ones around the truck. I saw some others farther down the street, but I don't think we need to worry about them. None of them looked like they were fresh."

"Okay." Olivia looked back to Ella and Rachel. "There are a few of the infected near the truck. Remember what I said about having to do things that might look scary?" she asked. Ella nodded, and she went on. "Peter and I are going to get rid of them. Remember, it's still me…" She met Rachel's terrified eyes. "When we give the signal to come, you take her and run to the truck. Don't stop for anything. You got it?"

Rachel swallowed, and then nodded. She looked as if she might faint.

Olivia grabbed her hand and squeezed it hard. "You can do this, Rachel," she encouraged her softly. "I know you can. You're stronger than you think." Her sister nodded again, and she turned back to Peter. "Let's go."

She followed Peter out into the morning sun, squinting at the brightness and stepping carefully over the rubble and broken glass littering the steps down to the sidewalk. In the daylight, the damage done to her building was readily apparent. The fifth floor had a gaping wound where it met the adjacent building, and the tail of a helicopter hung over the edge of the building, crumpled like an accordion from the force of the crash. The rotor was a mangled snarl of twisted metal that squeaked and shifted with the occasional gust of wind. Instead of the drab green of a military chopper, a satiny-blue paint reflected the craft's civilian origin. She thought it might have been the color of one of the local news channel's birds, but without seeing the cabin it was impossible to say for sure.

What had caused the crash? An infected pilot or crew member? Or had it been shot down by the same military that had dropped firebombs on neighborhoods and preemptively eliminated civilians on the chance that they might become infected. She caught whiffs of fuel, on the sidewalk and on the street as they moved toward the truck. Had the pilot had the time and sense to jettison the helicopter's fuel when he or she had realized they were going down? If so, they had probably saved her family. She wished she could've thanked them.

They drew closer to the truck, and Olivia returned her attention to the task at hand. The infected were standing in separate groups on either side of the camouflaged Humvee. Gravel crunched under their feet, and the infected stopped their meandering. Fevered eyes turned in their sockets, and then the undead lurched toward them.

Olivia hefted the rifle. "You take the ones on the left," she hissed. "I'll get the others."

Peter nodded in agreement, and crossed in front of her, readying his weapon. Of the two groups of infected, his was slightly closer than hers. In her peripheral vision, she saw him approach the first without hesitation—an old, wizened man with stringy black hair—and nearly take his head off with the hook of his crowbar. The fleshy impact was dull and insignificant sounding, belying the viciousness of the blow and the crimson chunks of gore that sprayed in all directions. The old man collapsed to the side, falling to the pavement like a rag doll. Peter reversed his grip fluidly, and drove the slanted end through the cheek of another man wearing a filthy long-sleeve shirt, with  _Let's Play Ball!_  stenciled across the front in red. She had time to note that he was becoming rather proficient with his weapon of choice, and then had her own snapping teeth to occupy her attention.

She stepped within reach of the first pair of clawing fingers, and thrust the bayonet between a pair of blood-stained lips curled back in a leer. The infected scratched at the barrel of the rifle while gargling on the knife for an instant, then she shoved it aside and repeated the process with the two remaining. They went down as easily as the first, and she wiped the blade clean on the navy-colored uniform of the last—a woman who looked like she might have been about her own age. She shook her head at the badge on the woman's breast.

The street in their immediate vicinity was clear. About a block away from them, the other infected Peter had referred to were moseying about, looking like nothing more than drunkards stumbling about in the distance. They were of no consequence.

She glanced back at her building. Rachel and Ella were watching from the doorway, and Olivia motioned urgently for them to come. Rachel appeared to have overcome her fear, and the two of them darted out of the building and raced across the pavement. Her sister gagged and looked green when she passed by the fallen infected, while Ella eyed them with wide-eyed fascination—until Olivia picked her up and set her in the back seat of the truck. Peter was already in the driver's seat, watching them in the rear view mirror.

"You don't need to look at that, honey," she told Ella, securing the little girl in place with the thick strap that served as a lap belt. "Are you okay? Did that scare you? It's okay if you're scared."

Ella nodded. "I—I'm okay, Aunt Liv," she said, and then glanced out her window at the undead Peter had taken care of. She stared at them silently, then hugged her Burlap Bear close. She said something into the rough texture of its head, and closed her eyes.

"Jesus, Liv…" Rachel whispered, climbing in after her daughter. "That…that was a cop. How can you be so nonchalant about…doing that?"

"What choice do I have?" she asked. "Once they're bitten, they become something…else. There's nothing left of who they were before."

Peter twisted in his seat. "I take it you haven't been outside your sister's apartment much lately," he said. "Those aren't people, no matter what they look like."

Rachel paled and looked taken aback by his bluntness. Olivia caught Peter's eye. She shook her head minutely, and he shrugged, then pushed the truck's ignition button. The engine roared to life, and she tossed her backpack inside, then swung into the passenger seat.

Peter eyed her sideways. "You know, it's about time I get to drive," he said with a grin. "It's too bad this thing doesn't have a siren."

Olivia snorted and rolled her eyes. "Just find a way to the Weeks Bridge, Peter," she commanded. "If you can do that, I'll buy you a drink when this is all over."

"You'll by me a drink, huh? Excellent." He rubbed his palms together, then put the Humvee in gear. "I'm gonna hold you to that, you know."

"Just drive, Peter," she said, giving him a flat stare. "Or I'm going to."

"As you wish," he replied, and put his foot on the gas.

#

#

The truck creaked and skidded to a stop, almost touching the bumper of the last car in the line. It was another impassable intersection, with cars and trucks sitting askew at odd angles. Beyond the wreckage at the front of the jam, was the bridge over I-90. So tantalizingly close but just out of reach. Unless they left the safety of the truck, of course, but it was too soon for that.

"Shit…" Peter muttered, and threw the truck in reverse.

Olivia exchanged glances with him as he turned the truck around and then gunned the engine. From the tight set of his jaw, she suspected he was beginning to get worried by their lack of progress. Infected trudged out from behind bushes and from the narrow spaces between buildings. The truck was a beacon in an ocean of silence, and they were leaving a trail of alert undead in their wake.

The streets of Brighton and of neighboring Allston to the east were a labyrinthine wilderness of blocked off roads and impassable intersections. Concrete barricades similar to the one near her apartment were popping up with greater frequency the further east and north they traveled. Between road blocks and the random traffic jams such as the one they'd just encountered, and all the rubble from collapsed buildings, it was proving difficult to find the route they needed. To make matters worse, infected roamed the maze freely, in large herds ranging anywhere from twenty to one-hundred or more in rare cases, or all alone, singular wanderers out on a walkabout. There was no rhyme or reason to the chaos, no sign of why one traffic jam would suddenly come to an abrupt end, while others would continue into the horizon.

She remembered the conflicting news reports at the beginning, and pictured the disorganized panic as it must have unfolded. Questionable orders had been sent out over the air waves before the power had gone out, instructions that were often at odds with one another, depending on the channel or station one listened to or watched. Mandatory orders for civilians to stay in their homes, followed by desperate pleas to stay away from major population centers. There had been riots and looting for a short while until the full extent of the disaster was realized. It had taken less than two weeks for everything to fall apart before their eyes.

Peter spun the wheel and the truck leaned hard to the right, pulling Olivia back to the present, and their precarious circumstance. His driving had taken on a desperate edge during her musings of the past. In the backseat, Rachel was doing her best to brace herself and Ella at the same time. Her sister looked ill, though Ella appeared to be having fun and was smiling merrily while chewing a granola bar, as if they were on an amusement park ride.

"What's wrong?" she asked Peter over the roar of the engine.

He gave her a sideways glance, and then tapped one of the circular gauges on the dashboard. She leaned across the center console and took a look. It was the fuel gauge, and the orange needle was hovering above empty.  _Goddamnit, Peter_. For a supposed genius, he could be remarkably thickheaded at times.

"Did you not check that before you took this?" she accused him through clenched teeth. "'Cause it seems kind of important."

"Of course I checked it," he snapped, keeping his eyes on the road. "It should have been more than enough to get us there. What I didn't take into account was how much backtracking we were going to have to do, or how atrocious this thing's gas mileage is. We must be getting less than three miles a gallon…" He swerved the truck around a cratered pockmark in the middle of the street. Tires squealed as the truck righted itself. "It's no wonder the federal defense budget was enough to feed several mid-sized countries."

"Can you get us there or not?" She bent forward in her seat, eying the street ahead.

"We'll get there," he assured her, and increased their speed.

They were heading more south than north, moving parallel to I-90. The highway was several blocks to the north, as much good as it did them. Every overpass they'd approached was either clogged with traffic, or had been blocked off by the military, and sometimes both. She was beginning to have doubts that they would be able to find an open bridge over the highway at all, no matter how much fuel they had left. Blackened buildings flew past on either side of the street. She hardly noticed them. At some point they had become commonplace, like a tree or a bush. Background noise.

They reached a wide, sloping curve in the road, and a number of infected slid into view as they rounded the corner. It was a medium-sized bunch, more than fifty but less than one-hundred by Olivia's estimate. Apprehension filled her at the sight of them, and she glanced over at Peter to see his reaction. They would have to find another way, yet again.

His eyes were locked on the fast-approaching herd, lips pressed together in a thin line. She looked for a side-street they could turn onto, but there were none. Peter reaffirmed his grip on the steering wheel. Olivia eyed the movement, and then his face. He wasn't going to stop.

She grabbed his forearm. "What the hell are you doing?"

"I know where we have to go," he said. "And, it's through that. We don't have enough gas to find another open path." He glanced across at her, then down at her hand before shifting his gaze back to the road. "Now hold on." He pressed the gas pedal to the floor.

Olivia shifted her gaze between the grim look on his face and the fast-approaching infected blocking the street ahead. If he truly had a plan, then there was nothing more to be said. She let go of his arm and shrank back in her seat.

The combination of the truck's racing engine and the bassy rumble of the tires on the asphalt filled the interior. The military did little in the way of soundproofing their vehicles, and the humvee was no exception. In the backseat, Ella had her hands over her ears, and Rachel was shouting something, but it was all lost beneath the roar.

The mass of infected bore down on the truck, closing the distance in exponential increments that grew larger with every second. Olivia pressed herself back in her seat, bracing herself with her feet under the dash. Peter drifted the truck to the left side of the street, where their numbers appeared to be fewest. Just before they reached the wall of walking corpses, she noticed a slow grin appear on his face.

He was enjoying this. She could have slapped him, and fully intended to if they made it out alive. It was her last thought before they struck the wall of squirming undead.

Body parts exploded over the hood and windshield, gruesomely silent amid the roar of the engine. The heavy truck plowed through the line, barely slowing down. She felt the slight bumps each of the corpses made, one after another, like dominoes falling. The impacts were gentle with their lack of solidity. The windshield was washed in blood and bits of hair and other particles that it was better not to dwell on too closely. She turned her head and made eye contact with one of the lucky infected outside the passenger window for an instant, and then they were through. Peter flipped on the wipers, and the rotating arms squeegeed a bloody path across windshield.

He made a hard left turn—sending them north again—that threw her against the passenger door, then he pushed the pedal to the floor once again, jerking her back against her seat. The sour odor of stomach bile wafted to the front of the cab, and she twisted around in her seat.

Ella had buried her face in her Burlap Bear's torso, while Rachel's head was between her knees. There was a pool of milky vomit on the floorboard between her shoes. She heaved again at the violence of Peter's driving, depositing another payload at her feet.

There was nothing Olivia could do to help her sister at the moment, so she spun back to the front. The wipers thwacked back and forth, leaving faint streaks of red behind. They were in another residential area, with a mix of apartment buildings and old single-dwelling homes. Infected loitered on the sidewalk and in the front yards, and more than a few on the street ahead of them.

Peter ran them all down. It was as if a switch had been thrown, like he'd decided that enough was enough. Where they had been avoiding them before, now he was going out of his way. She analyzed his profile as he did so, to give her eyes something more pleasant to rest on, and more importantly, to gauge his reaction to the violence.

Was he truly enjoying it? Had he slipped into some kind of fatalistic madness that might prove harmful to her family?

To Olivia's relief, there was a greenish tint to his cheeks, like he might be joining her sister at the toilet bowl at any moment. He wasn't enjoying it at all, and unlike herself, he couldn't look away.

"You can slow down now, Peter," she shouted, maintaining her grip on the armrest. The street ahead was clear of infected. "Slow down!"

He shook his head. "Not yet," he replied without looking in her direction. He tapped the fuel gauge again and frowned at what he saw. "We're almost there. I need to keep the speed up to make it over."

 _Over what?_  she wondered, peering ahead of them.

The street they were on ended with a tee, and the eastbound lanes of I-90 were visible through a chain-linked fence—the same fence they had cut their way through on the way south. Peter braked for a moment to make a right turn, then accelerated toward a gate at the far end of the street. The metal appeared to guard the entrance to a large industrial complex.

"Where are—" she started.

Peter spun the steering wheel hard to the left, turning without warning into an alley Olivia hadn't noticed. After he completed the turn, it was apparent that it was more a driveway than an alley, and ended with another chain-link fence. A blue pickup truck was parked up against a house, with its front end blocking a portion of the narrow drive. Peter smashed into the truck without slowing, spinning it out of their way with metallic shrieks and grinds. Rachel and Ella cried out, and Olivia's head rebounded against the passenger window at the collision, sending sparks floating momentarily across her vision.

"You okay?" Peter asked, shooting worried glances her way, and toward the back seat.

Olivia blinked the stars away and then nodded. "I'm fine."

"Everybody, hang on," he said. "It's gonna get a bit rough for a few minutes."

He aimed them straight at the fence, and his odd statement about needing to maintain their speed suddenly made much more sense.

The humvee skipped and bounced over the curb, then struck the fence with a grinding impact. The wire mesh and metal posts folded under the front end, and the truck passed over them with as much ease as it had the infected. There was a horrific knocking sound from the undercarriage, and a long, continuous scrape of metal on metal that she could feel through the floor boards. Then they were over the fence, and climbing up a steep, grassy embankment.

Blue sky was all that was visible through the windshield for a moment until they reached the top of the slope, and the humvee's front end came crashing down, not on I-90 as she'd expected, but on loose gravel…and rusted railroad tracks.

Olivia frowned and glanced over at Peter. He'd led them into a rail yard. She consulted her internal map of Boston, and realized it was the same one she'd seen from the highway on her way downtown every morning, only viewed from the south. The yard was at least a dozen sets of rails wide at its broadest point—rails that were mostly empty, other than several lines of boxcars that were parked on the far tracks, doomed to rust there forever without engines to pull them. Beyond the train cars was a large paved area full of cargo boxes, and then a thin line of trees with what she thought was I-90 on the other side. Not a single infected was in sight.

Peter turned the truck parallel to the tracks, and sped east along the fence-line. Their speed had dropped off a bit, reducing the engine noise to a tolerable level.

"How did you know that was the right driveway to turn down?" she asked.

"I grew up around here," he replied with a shrug, then looked up at the mirror. "You guys okay back there?"

Olivia looked back at her sister and Ella. Both of their faces were white, though Ella seemed to be doing a little better than her mother. There was a semblance of a smile on the little girl's face.

"Mommy threw up, Aunt Liv…," Ella informed them calmly, and pinched her nose. "It smells really gross." Her Burlap Bear was shielded between her arms, as if she thought it might be in danger of catching her mother's sickness.

"Thanks, Ella," Rachel said, then wiped her mouth with the sleeve of her coat. Her blond hair was tangled, going in all directions, and her dark eyes were glassy. "Was that really necessary? You could have killed us all…"

Peter glanced up at the rear-view mirror. "Not likely in this thing," he denied. "We're perfectly safe in here. And like I said before. Those aren't people." His voice lowered, and only Olivia heard what he added under his breath. "It's when we have to get out that's the problem."

Olivia handed her sister a water bottle from her pack. "Are you okay?" she asked.

Rachel took a drink and then nodded. Some of the color had come back into her face. "I…I don't know how you do it, either of you," she said, "I'm not made for this. How are we supposed to live…like this?"

"We do what we have to do to survive, Rachel," she explained. "It doesn't mean we like it, or let it change who we are. Peter is right. No matter how much they may have looked like people, those weren't people. You can't forget that, ever, either of you…"

"Olivia…," Peter tried to get her attention.

Tears were forming in her sister's eyes, but Olivia had no time for them. She turned to Peter, and he directed her gaze to the fuel gauge. The light was on, and the needle was buried below the empty line. The humvee was running on fumes, vapors. It was a wonder they'd made it as far as they had. Even as she watched the gauge, the engine hiccuped and faltered for a moment before taking another gasping breath and struggling on.

"We don't have much time," she said, looking ahead of them. The train yard was narrowing, rails merging together, going from the dozen or so tracks, down to five or six, and then finally down to a pair that disappeared…underneath I-90. The highway was elevated over the end of the tracks, and the sparkling water of the Charles was visible through the space underneath.

Olivia gazed at the river, and the far bank with longing. He'd done it. The way underneath the highway was clear. She could have kissed him, if that wouldn't have made their already somewhat awkward relationship even more murky and confusing.

"How far are we from the Weeks Bridge?" she asked instead.

"A mile-and-half or so, maybe less," Peter replied, eyeing the highway ahead. He frowned, and looked uneasy all of a sudden. "I don't think we're gonna make it that far, though. We'll be lucky if we make it under I-90. I think there's another fence, and then we'll hit Soldier Field Road. We can take it north along the Charles to the Weeks—assuming its clear, and we haven't run out of gas by then."

"And if it's not clear?" she said. "That's the Business School campus right there, isn't it?"

Peter nodded, glancing between her and the approaching fence. He took his foot off the gas and let the truck idle as it would. They rolled forward slowly, moving over the dips and valleys of rail yard in slow motion. "What are you thinking?"

"Are there many dormitories there?"

He peered out his window to the north, as if trying to see the campus through intervening structures. "Yeah," he replied. "Quite a few of them, I think…"

Their eyes locked for several heartbeats, and then his brow furrowed. She could feel uncertainty pouring off him in waves, combining with her own. Dormitories were full of people, or had been. Several near the lab were hotbeds of infected activity—places to be avoided at all costs. Yet it might be necessary to venture on to the campus. The area was very close to where she'd witnessed the soldier being killed from the bell tower. Were there more soldiers in the area?

After what they'd seen in Harvard Square, she'd decided that they would be avoiding any contact with anyone sporting military fatigues. There was no way she could risk taking Ella or her sister anywhere near them. Not after the wholesale slaughter they'd seen at every turn.

"Hold on," Peter said suddenly, pulling her from her thoughts.

The fence that bordered the rail yard was imminent. He accelerated again, and angled the truck for a space between two of the fence-posts. The humvee rattled and shook violently as it crossed over the few remaining pairs of tracks. The vibration bounced and tossed them around in their seats. Rachel hissed an un-motherly curse, and threw a steadying hand out for Ella.

They tore through the fence without difficulty, ripping the chain-linked mesh free of its posts. It dragged along behind them as they moved into the shade under the highway, then finally came free when they passed between a pair of rectangular concrete columns. The terrain was rough dirt and chunks of rock, and textured with divots and trenches from rainwater run-off.

The humvee's engine sputtered, and the truck struggled to climb out of a miniature canyon, and up a short rise to another set of train tracks that ran under the highway. Beyond the tracks was another fence, a final barrier to their freedom, then a sunlit strip of green grass and the road they would be taking north to the Weeks Bridge. The street followed the Charles winding path as it bisected the city. It was a scenic drive she'd taken many times. The engine died as the humvee reached the top of the small rise, and the truck coasted forward silently before coming to a stop with its front bumper bowing the fence outward.

"What's wrong?" Rachel asked from the back seat. "Why are we stopping?"

"We're out of gas," Peter replied.

"Out of gas? How can we be out of gas?" She grabbed the back of Olivia's seat. "What are we going to do now? Will you find another car for us to take?"

"We walk from here, Rachel," Olivia said, looking back at her sister and Ella. "We wouldn't have been able to drive much farther anyway. All of the vehicle bridges over the river are blocked off. There's a foot bridge that we should be able to take about a mile from here."

"We should get moving," Peter urged quietly, peering up and down the street on the other side of the fence.

"A mile?" Rachel protested without hearing him. "Ella can't walk for—"

"We don't have a choice, Rachel…" Olivia interrupted, raising her voice. "Why do you think it took me so long to get to you? The streets aren't clear. We were lucky we made it this far. We were always going to have to walk at some point. We have to go. Now. Get your stuff."

Rachel stared at her with panicky eyes, lips trembling. She was on the verge of breaking down, of falling into hysterics. Olivia looked away from her. There was no time for this. The humvee had been far from quiet. There could be infected heading toward their location at that moment. Or soldiers. She wasn't sure what would be worse.

"Your Dad ever give you shoulder rides, Ella?" Peter wanted to know, turning in his seat.

Ella's face brightened and she nodded with excitement. "Uh huh, back when I was a kid," she said. "He hasn't in a long time, though. Why hasn't he, Mommy?"

"I…he…uh…," Rachel stammered uncomfortably. She seemed dazed by the question, which was better than her previous state of mind, in Olivia's opinion. "Ella…your Dad, he was just…busy, that's all."

"Back when you were a kid, huh…," Peter repeated. "Well, today's your lucky day then, because you've just won a shoulder ride on the Peter Bishop express. You want to come?"

"Mommy can I?" Ella said, bouncing in her seat. "Can I?"

Rachel eyed Peter warily, looking between him and her daughter before replying. "I guess so…" she consented. "As long as it's okay with him. And he promises not to drop you."

"Do you promise not to drop me, Mister Peter?" Ella said, giving him a shrewd look.

Peter chuckled. "It's just Peter, Ella. And yes, I promise not to drop you."

"Cross your heart?"

He made an exaggerated sign of the cross on his chest. "Cross my heart," he confirmed. "Will that suffice?"

"Suffice…" Ella echoed. Her brows furrowed and then she repeated the word. "Suffice… Mommy, what does suffice mean?"

Olivia listened to her sister's explanation for a moment, then touched Peter's arm. "Are you sure?" she said. His offer had taken her by complete surprise. Again she wondered whose children he'd been around enough to grow as comfortable with them as he seemed to be. "It's a long walk with a weight on your back. She's not that light."

Peter lifted his shoulders indifferently. "I'll be fine. She can't be more than what, thirty or forty pounds? Piece of cake."

"You put her down at the first sign of trouble, Peter," she instructed, lowering her voice and leaning in close. "The very first sign."

"Of course…," he agreed, and held her gaze with his own. "If there's trouble, one of us will have to be on offense. I'll do it. You stick with them."

She shook her head. "No. If there's trouble, we avoid it."

"What if we can't?"

"We have to," Olivia insisted, then pushed open her door. "C'mon. We've been sitting here too long already. Rachel, Ella. It's time to go." She slipped off her seat, then grabbed her backpack and the rifle, and pulled open her sister's door.

Rachel hesitated, then ducked her head and climbed out of the truck. She pulled her backpack out behind her and let if fall to the ground while shooting nervous glances in all directions. Ella followed close behind her mother, making an icky face at the pool of vomit as she passed it by. Olivia lifted her out and set her down on the uneven terrain.

"You ready, baby girl?" she said.

Ella looked up and nodded, then watched Peter toss his bag and crowbar over the fence. "Is it a long walk, Aunt Liv?" she asked, holding her bear under one arm. "I've never walked a mile before. What's a mile?"

"It's a little long, but you're a big girl, aren't you? And Peter's going to carry you some of the way. You're gonna have to make sure your mother doesn't fall behind. Can you do that?"

"I don't think falling behind is going to be a problem, Liv," Rachel interrupted, dragging her backpack over one shoulder. "If we're gonna go, let's go."

Olivia nodded, and led them to the front of the truck. It was a relief that Rachel had finally accepted the reality of the situation. She usually would, once she'd had her pout. Her little sister had always been that way.

#

#

Olivia trailed behind Peter and Ella, watching and listening as the two of them had animated discussions about everything from Gene the cow, to what it would be like at the lab, to the cut on Peter's head—which Ella seemed particularly interested in. Rachel trudged at her side on the edge of the pavement, listening and watching also, and shaking her head at her daughter's never-ending stream of questions. Ella glanced back at them occasionally, smiling from atop her lofty perch.

A chilly wind had kicked up, blowing in from the northeast in constant puffs that tickled her cheeks, numbing them with their constancy. The sun hung in a cloudless sky directly overhead and beat down with rays that lacked their usual heat. The Charles streamed silently past beyond a thin copse of trees to their right, traveling on its winding journey to Boston Harbor and then the Atlantic Ocean. The wind carried with it a faint aroma of rotting fish. The odor was unpleasant, but not unbearably so. It was a natural smell, common near rivers and bodies of water. Dead fish were far from the worst things she'd smelled since leaving the lab.

The road north had intermittent pockets of abandoned cars, in both the north and south lanes. Driving would have been problematic at best. At least the cars had been empty of humans and undead, for Ella's sake—and Rachel's. She had spied several of their hunched forms in the distance, though. On both sides of the river. None had been close enough to pose any sort of threat. She wasn't sure whether Rachel had seen them or not—she hadn't mentioned them if she had.

Taken altogether, their trek since leaving the truck was going smoothly. Too smoothly. The other shoe had yet to drop. And some tickle in the back of her mind told her that it would—it always did. So she kept her eyes open, her senses on high alert. The first of two vehicle bridges over the river that stood between them and Weeks Bridge were just around a bend ahead of them, and would be sliding into view any moment. If either of them were clear, she intended to cross over, no matter that it would leave them far to the southeast of the lab.

She pulled back the ejection port cover on her rifle and double-checked that there was a round chambered. It was her third time since they'd left the truck. Reloading the weapon had been the first thing she did once they'd gotten in the truck outside her apartment. There could be no more mistakes like she'd had with her encounter with Greg. Only seventeen rounds remained—all loaded in the magazine—and then the rifle's only use would be as melee weapon. She was undecided whether or not to trade it in for something a little less cumbersome when it finally was out of ammo. She pushed the ejection port closed. The feel of the interlocking parts was oily and mechanical, and pleasing to her ears in the silence.

Ella twisted around on Peter's shoulders at the sound. She surveyed the distance between them, then grinned and gave them both a little wave. Olivia smiled at her niece and waggled her fingers in return.

"She's taking her job seriously," Rachel commented, amused by her daughter's antics. "And I think she likes your friend."

"I think the feeling might be mutual," Olivia said, and watched as Peter bounced his shoulders up and down while zig-zagging through stopped vehicles. Ella giggled at the motion and encouraged him to continue. Was she pulling on his ears? It was difficult to make out. "Peter Bishop, the playmate," she muttered, shaking her head at the two of them. He was a man of many layers. She wondered how deep they went, and whether they were true silhouettes of the man underneath. "Who would've thought…"

Rachel glanced over at her. "What do you mean?" she asked in a low voice. "Does he have any kids of his own?"

 _Kids of his own?_  She had trouble forming that image. It was like forcing a square peg into a round hole. Yet the evidence was there before her, now and the night before in her apartment.

"Kids? No. Definitely not," she answered. "None that I'm aware of, at least." She was certain that she was correct in this. His file had mentioned nothing, and his lifestyle before coming back to Iraq certainly hadn't been conducive. And she thought he would have told her.

"Why do you say it like that?" Rachel said. "He's really good with her, better than…others. It'll be good for Ella to have a man around. One that's not useless, at least."

Olivia frowned and gave her sister a sharp look. There had been something in her voice. A yearning? Rachel's husband, Ella's father, had just died, and she'd known Peter less than twenty-four hours. Surely she wasn't implying… Her gaze was locked on Peter's broad shoulders. There was a predatory gleam in Rachel's eyes.

She was.

It made an uncomfortable sort of sense, for her. Before her marriage to Greg, Rachel had always been fickle with men. She'd lined them up like bowling pins, and knocked them down one after another, and occasionally simultaneously until the wind blew one direction or the other. Why would it be any different now? Their marriage had not been one with strong foundations, and it was over. It might have been over for a long time.

Olivia hadn't been kidding when she'd said they weren't alike. "I…didn't mean anything by it," she said. "I was just…surprised, that's all. I've never seen him around children before."

Rachel nodded thoughtfully, keeping her attention on him and Ella. The gleam in her eyes remained.

Olivia pictured the two of them together, and was shocked at how intensely she disliked the image. She poked and prodded at the feeling, searching for its source. Why should she care? It wasn't like she had any kind of claim on Peter. They were just friends. Her own status of being relationship-less was even more recent than her sister's, and she hadn't given it much thought. Why would she? Entering into another so soon was out of the question, even if she had a willing partner—even if they weren't dealing with the end of civilization.

Her gaze lingered on Peter's back.

They were just friends, true, but hadn't their friendship been oddly intense from the start? From the very first day in the lab there had been a kind of…tension between them, despite John being the reason for their association. He'd never been like that with Astrid. Only herself. The too-long, lingering glances. She had been just as guilty as he. The bench inside the lab, when he'd brought her coffee. Then the bench outside the lab when he'd touched her hand, offering comfort. She hadn't protested. And more recently, when he'd refused to play her Bach on the lab's old piano, and instead had played her something of his own choosing. A jazzy piece that had been strangely touching and personal, and hauntingly beautiful. She'd known exactly what he was playing, in spite of her denying it to his face when he'd finished. From an outside view, she supposed their…flirting, if it could be called that, might have looked anything but innocent. But from the inside, it had all felt surprisingly natural, almost easy, even.

All that had gone to the wayside after John and Charlie had made it to the lab, though. Had she missed their banter? No. She couldn't have. Missing it would mean acknowledging it. And there was nothing to acknowledge. There was nothing between them, and there never had been. They were friends, and he was a massive pain in the ass, so she couldn't be feeling territorial, couldn't be feeling…

She pulled her ponytail over her shoulder and dragged her fingers through its tangles. No. She wasn't even going to name the emotion. It was absurd. Her sister and he had just met in any case.

Abruptly, Olivia was aware that Peter had stopped in front of them, and was lifting Ella from his shoulders. Useless thoughts of men and relationships receded to the farthest corner of her mind, and she berated herself for letting them form and distract her in the first place. He set Ella down behind a maroon van and waited for them to join him.

The first bridge was in sight, a low masonry bridge, like all of the smaller bridges over the Charles into Cambridge. Almost a perfect mirror of the Anderson Bridge. Right down to the clog of vehicles and infected swarming over its endpoint on the far bank. On their side of the river, more infected roamed. Their numbers were less than on the eastern bank of the river—nearly three dozen in view by her count—and spread out over a fairly wide area. Most were congregated on the overpass before the bridge.

"I guess that counts as trouble," Peter said as they reached the van. "We may be able to slip past them under the Cambridge Street overpass, though. I don't see any moving underneath. Or we can try to go around. Head west a few blocks and then north again."

Ella peeked around the rear of the van, then jerked her head back. "Are those more of the monsters?" she asked with wide eyes. "Do we have to go there, Mommy?"

"Ella, come over here," Rachel said. Perhaps sensing the seriousness of the situation, Ella obeyed at once, and moved inside the circle of her mother's arms.

Olivia scrutinized the figures wandering the overpass, then the dark shadow that lay underneath. She could make out vague shapes and lumpy protrusions in the darkness—more abandoned vehicles. She was tired of seeing them at every turn. Just before the overpass on the west side of the street, a tall hotel building towered overhead, next door to what had been a night club, before. A jazz piano bar, she thought it might've been. She recalled seeing the squat structure's neon lights on many occasions, and had always wanted to go there, though she'd never found the time. She wondered if Peter had been there, after the song he'd played for her. Behind the bar was an industrial park, with a great, circular rail yard and rows of locomotives and cargo cars, along with large warehouses with even larger parking lots. The area had a tall fence with a gate, and appeared vacant of the living and unliving. The Harvard Business School campus lay directly to the north of the warehouses, if her memory of the area was accurate. Neither of their options were particularly good.

They were so tantalizingly close. Going around the infected would only take them further from their destination—and it was by no means certain that conditions would be any better. And they could be worse, much worse if some of the dorms near the lab were anything to go by.

"What are you thinking?" Peter asked.

She glanced at her sister, whose gaze was glued to the bridge, then directed him to the front of the van with a pointed look. "I know I said we needed to avoid trouble, Peter, but…"

"But we're so close," he finished for her.

"Uh huh…," she admitted. "The Weeks Bridge is right around the corner. We could be there in less than half an hour." She gazed at the shadow under the overpass, trying to pierce the darkness below. "Dammit. I wish I still had my binoculars," she muttered crossly. It was impossible to make out anything underneath.

"What happened to them?"

"I lost them the day that John died…," she told him, keeping her eyes on the overpass. She was proud of herself for saying the words out loud without stumbling over them. It was a triumph, but a small one. "They were in my other backpack, the one I lost."

"They were?"

Olivia frowned at the confusion in his tone. "Yeah. Where else would they have been?" she asked, then went on before he could reply. "When we get to the overpass, you and I will have to go under first…and make sure it's clear."

Peter's brow furrowed as he examined the hook of his crowbar. Bits of gray flesh clung to crevasse between the forked edge. "I guess there's no way around it," he said, grimacing with distaste. "There was no way we were gonna make it back to Cambridge without any encounters with the natives. It just couldn't be that easy."

"Not with our luck," she agreed, and then hesitated. "…Peter, keep an eye on my sister and Ella…in case anything happens to—"

"Olivia…nothing's going to happen to you," he interrupted, leaning in close. "You're the heroine of this story, sweetheart. Didn't you know?" He gave her a self-deprecating smile. "Me however, I'm the guy on Star Trek wearing the red shirt."

"The…red shirt?"

She had no idea what he was talking about—Star Trek had not been a show she'd ever been remotely interested in, not as a child or as an adult. But even without knowing the reference, she thought she understood its meaning, and he couldn't have been more wrong. No matter what he'd done before, he wasn't expendable. No one was. And she was no heroine—just another woman trying to survive in a world gone mad. No one special.

"It's not important," he said with a shrug. "All I'm saying, is that we'll be fine."

"What are you two whispering about?" Rachel wanted to know. She moved closer with Ella in tow. "We're not going near that overpass are we? Cause…I'm not sure that's a good idea, Liv."

Olivia exchanged glances with Peter, who gave her a minute nod. She turned to her sister. "I'm afraid we're going to have to," she said. "It's the most direct route, and Peter's right—we should be able to sneak underneath without drawing too much attention…"

#

#

Olivia pulled the bayonet from the unmoving corpse. "How you doing over there, Peter?" she inquired, glancing over where she'd heard the wet thud of his crowbar striking flesh. "Are there any more?"

"Oh, I'm just peachy," Peter replied. He moved out from behind a black SUV. "And I think that's the last of them." He squinted through the back window of the truck and then shook his head. "Well, almost all of them," he corrected himself, tapping the truck's tinted window. The silhouette of a face pressed up against the glass, clawing and biting to no effect.

She moved to his side and stared in at the infected. From the shape of its wild hair, it appeared to have been a female, once. It was all a shame, all so useless.

"Hey, sorry about upsetting your sister back in the truck." Peter said shortly. "I probably should have been a little more subtle."

Olivia looked away from the infected and shrugged. "I told you, she and I aren't too alike." She thought of the gleam in Rachel's eye. "…What do you think of her? And Ella," she added quickly. He didn't answer at once, and the shade under the overpass made it hard to gauge his expression.

"She's…a bit high-strung, isn't she?" His tone was guarded, careful. She wasn't sure what to make of it. "But she seems nice. A good mom." He chuckled and glanced back where Rachel and Ella were crouched down between a stopped car and the concrete wall of the on-ramp up to the street above. "Ella's a cute kid, though. And you're right, she is a smart girl. I take it her intelligence and good looks come from your side of the equation."

"…My side?" Olivia lifted an eyebrow.

Peter cleared his throat. "The Dunham side…," he clarified, rubbing at the scruff along his neck. "You know what I mean."

"Oh… You might say that," she said, and looked away, feeling out of sorts. She wondered what Ella had told him about Greg when she'd been on his shoulders. "Greg is…was, difficult sometimes—a lot of times. In truth, he was kind of a bastard." She could have gone on all day with the Greg Blake undesirables, but bastard summed them up succinctly.

"So Ella told me."

"She told you that?"

"Well, not in so many words, but enough to make a picture," he explained, then touched her hand briefly. "I'm glad they're okay, Olivia. Your family, I mean. It must be a huge relief."

"You have no idea…," she said, smiling internally. The weight of a mountain had been lifted off her back. She felt better than she had in weeks, since before the event. "And thank you. We should…get moving though. There's still another overpass, and then the bridge. C'mon."

She stepped out of the shadows and motioned for Rachel and Ella to join them. They came forward at once, casting nervous looks upward where the infected roamed the street above.

"Is it safe under here?" Rachel whispered, as they moved together toward the sunlight on the other side of the overpass. She turned her head constantly, searching the deeper shadows along the concrete walls.

Olivia steered them away from the few infected they had killed. "It's safe enough, Rach," she said. "There's still one alive in the back of that truck over there, but it's trapped, and not a threat."

Rachel walked over to the SUV and peered inside. She flinched back when it launched itself against the window, then made a determined effort to study it. "So you'll just leave it in there?" she asked. "You don't…put them out of their misery or anything?"

"We did at first," Peter explained, moving next to her. "But, there are just too many. I guess you just get used to them after a while…"

"I'm not sure I can get used to that," Rachel countered. She touched the glass over the infected's snapping teeth and shivered.

Olivia watched the two of them talking for a moment, then felt a tug on her hand. She found Ella at her side, staring up with wide eyes.

"Aunt Liv, why are there monsters now?"

She gazed down at her niece's innocent face. "I don't know, Ella." She brushed a thumb across her soft cheek. "I wish I did. When we get to where we're going, to that lab Peter told you about, we're trying to find out why it's happening."

"You and Peter?" Ella questioned.

"And his father," she amended, "Along with my friend Charlie and his wife, and also my assistant, Astrid. You'll like her."

"And Gene the cow? Does she help too?"

Olivia grinned at her curiosity. "You're right, Gene does help," she nodded. "She's sort of like a mascot. Do you know what a mascot is?"

Ella nodded excitedly. "Like Southpaw?" she said. "My Daddy didn't like him. He used to call him bad words… Aunt Liv, can I help, too?"

"I don't know…," she said, stroking her chin. "Are you a scientist, Miss Blake? What are your credentials?"

"No, but you aren't either, Aunt Liv." Ella crossed her arms and tilted her head. It was a pose Olivia had seen on Rachel on many occasions. "You catch bad guys, and you have a  _crazy_  job. That's what Mom says. What's…credentials?"

Olivia chuckled and shook her head. "Don't worry about it, sweetie," she said, picking up the little girl with one arm. "You've got all the credentials you need." She turned to the others and frowned.

Rachel had finished her appraisal of the trapped infected, and was leaning against the SUV's front fender, still talking with Peter. Her sister was giggling, covering her mouth. No doubt he'd said something witty, from the broad smile curving his lips. She moved toward them, narrowing her eyes on Rachel's ponytail. Her platinum locks glowed in the shade under the overpass. Apparently, the two of them were on friendly terms already, despite Peter's bluntness back in the humvee. It shouldn't have been a surprise that they would hit it off, knowing both of their personalities.

She stepped past them out into the sunlight, squinting at the brightness until her eyes adjusted. There wasn't much to see. The road had dipped below the overpass, and concrete walls rose up on either side. The only sight-line that wasn't gray cement was to the north, where the street climbed out of the canyon in a gentle rise.

Olivia headed up the hill with Ella in one arm, the assault rifle in the other. "You guys coming?" she called back at her sister and Peter. "We're not there yet."

A backward glance a moment later revealed Peter and Rachel following behind, striding quickly to catch up. Peter's crowbar sat lazily on his shoulder. He frowned and gave her a quizzical look, but she turned away before he could speak.

Her out-of-sorts feeling hadn't dissipated—it had only grown more convoluted after witnessing Rachel and Peter's interactions away from her under the bridge. Parts of her life she'd always striven to keep separate were coming together. It was an aspect of bringing Rachel and Ella to the lab she hadn't considered before—not that it would have made any difference if she had. She would just have to adapt. With that thought in mind, she locked the bristly feeling away, for later contemplation and focused on the view in front of her.

A massive factory or manufacturing plant faced with glass panels on its southern end stood close to the street. The structure was situated at the corner of the block, adjacent to the next overpass. She'd driven past it daily on her morning commute. Many of the glass panels were shattered, giving the building exterior a chessboard-like appearance. She reached the top of the hill and moved into its shadow, keeping one eye on the patches of the interior visible through the broken glass looming overhead, and the other on the infected wandering atop the next overpass.

 _Where are the other survivors?_  she wondered.

Other than the gunfire they'd heard on the way south, they'd not come across a single sign that there was anyone left alive in the city besides themselves. She wasn't sure Peter was correct in in his assumptions and statistics. Maybe everyone else had died. Either that, or they had all simply left the city. She thought of the strange light they'd seen in the sky. Someone out there had survived, to the west. Worcester or Marlboro, he'd said. It was a problem for another time.

"Why are the buildings all blowed up, Aunt Liv?" Ella spoke up, staring up at the glass structure. "Was it bombs, like at your house?"

Olivia stopped and set her niece down on the pavement. "I don't know." She stretched out the muscles in her arm and wrist. Ella was heavier than she appeared. Her birth seemed like it was yesterday, and somehow, at the same time—like it had taken place in another universe altogether. "I suppose so," she said, and tucked Ella's bangs behind her ear for her.

"But why?"

"I don't know, baby girl," she repeated. "I guess whoever did it was scared."

"Of the monsters?"

"Yeah, of the monsters. Sometimes people do things that don't make a lot of sense when they're scared, Ella. Even grownups. Especially when they don't understand something. I think we're built that way…," she mused, more to herself than to her niece.

"But you're a grownup, Aunt Liv. Are you scared of them, too?" Ella asked in small voice. "They scare me a lot…and Mommy."

She looked back at Peter and Rachel. The two of them had nearly caught up. "Of course they scare me, sweetheart," she said, turning back to Ella. "Those creatures would scare anyone, adults included."

"And Mister Peter too?" Ella continued, watching him approach.

"…Uh huh," she said, amused by her fascination with him. "And Peter too."

Peter broke away from Rachel and climbed up one of the concrete guardrails on the edge of the street. He looked through the trees that ran along the bank of the Charles. "Looks like the bridge on Western Avenue is out, just like what happened on the Eliot Street," he said after a moment, then dropped back down to the street. "We won't be crossing here. It's going to have to be the Weeks, or nowhere at all, Olivia."

"What do you mean it's out?" Rachel asked, shifting her gaze between them. "What happened?

"They military collapsed the bridge," Olivia said. "Don't ask me why, because I don't know."

"What if this other bridge you're taking us to is destroyed also?" her sister asked in a rising tone. She smoothed back her hair with both hands. "What are we going to do then? Is there another way across? Are you saying we could be trapped on this side of the river?"

"It's not destroyed, Rach," Olivia answered calmly. "And we're not trapped. I saw it myself, two days ago. It's right on the other side of those trees." She pointed out a clump of trees on the horizon, beyond the overpass, where the Charles started its curve to the east. The church bell tower rose in the distance, the steeple just visible from their vantage point. She looked away from the memory. "And it's not getting any closer standing here. You and Ella stay back like before, and let Peter and I check it before we cross under, okay?"

Rachel's lips trembled, but she nodded, and took Ella's hand. It was amazing how she could go from a quivering mess, to giggling at Peter's jokes, and back to a quivering mess within such a short span of time. It had to be some sort of record.

Olivia felt guilty at once for thinking such thoughts, and reprimanded herself for having them.  _Rachel's not you_ , s _he's never been in real danger before_. Rachel had been too young to remember what had happened, before  _he_  had left them—had been forced to leave them. Rachel was still an innocent. Not so much for herself, she thought darkly. She tried to remember a time when she hadn't felt in danger to some extent or another, and came up short.

Olivia started down the slope toward the shadow under the overpass. Unlike at the previous cross-street, the road ahead was jammed with cars and trucks, with the rear of the line emerging from the shadow on the southern side of the overpass, and extending up the hill beyond to the north. She went to ask Peter what he and her sister had been so thick about, but he hadn't followed her. He was standing back where she'd left him, only staring intently to the south.

There was a wariness to his stance that set her on edge. "Peter, what's wrong?" she asked sharply. "Do you see something?"

He hesitated, then shook his head. "No, I…I thought I heard…something," he said, glancing uneasily at Rachel, then herself. Deep creases ran across his brow. "I guess it was nothing, the wind, maybe. I don't hear anything now."

"Are you sure?" she asked with a frown. There was no wind at that moment, the air almost crystalline in its stillness.

"…Yeah, I think so," he repeated. Their eyes met, and his gaze told a different story with their blue intensity.

A chill ran through her from head to toe, a premonition, maybe, of things to come.

He'd heard something.

Something that was out of place. Something  _human_.

"Rachel, Ella…" Olivia motioned them toward her with her free hand. "On second thought, why don't you two stick a little closer this time? I think it looks safe enough."

They moved together as a group down the slope toward the overpass, with her in the lead, followed by Peter, then Rachel holding Ella close. The infected roamed about the cross-street above, wandering close to the green guardrails, but never lowering their gaze to the street below. Their intelligence or awareness seemed limited to line of sight. Whatever process they went through to rise from the dead, it left them little in the way of peripheral vision.

She stopped at the bumper of a yellow Beetle several cars from the back of the traffic jam, and scoured the gloomy underside of the bridge for any movement. There was nothing. The road ahead was clear. Nothing stirred, undead or otherwise. Peter stooped down beside her, eyeing the rows of cars in shadow.

"Are you sure you didn't hear something back there?" she asked, keeping her voice low. "You did, didn't you?"

"Maybe…I'm not certain," he replied, running a hand through his wavy hair. "But for a second, I thought I heard an engine to the south, possibly back where we left the humvee. But now…I'm not so sure, maybe it was just my imagination."

Olivia ground the rifle's stock into the pavement and looked past him toward her sister and Ella waiting at the back of the line, and then beyond them to the south. She had heard nothing, but if there was even the slightest chance that he had… It wasn't a risk she was prepared to take. The time for hesitation had come and gone. From what she had seen, other survivors were a far greater danger than the infected themselves.

"C'mon…," she said, "I'd rather not wait around and find out if you were right or not." She started forward again, moving into the overpass's shadow. "You take the next aisle over, I'll take this one. No stopping for chit-chat with my sister, Peter."

He snorted and rolled his eyes. "I think I can control myself, Agent Dunham," he said, and moved around the Beetle's bumper to the space between the car and one of the concrete walls of the elevated on-ramps that formed a narrow canyon.

The smell of rotting flesh was pungent under the second overpass. A pair of yellow eyes down low on the pavement blinked in the meager light. Olivia froze, and leveled the rifle at the glowing orbs. She took a step closer, and the eyes vanished amid a flurry of scratching claws and an animal's indignant hiss.

"What was that?" Peter whispered over the hood of the sedan between them. "And where is that pleasant odor coming from? You see anything?"

"There was an animal of some kind…raccoon, maybe." She moved toward the spot where she'd seen the animal. A crumpled figure was sprawled between vehicles, face down on the pavement. She poked it with the bayonet, and then nudged the body onto its back with the toe of her boot when there was no response to her prodding. "Well, I found the smell," she reported, glancing over at Peter's outline. "There's a dead body over here."

"Dead as in undead, or dead as in a bona-fide corpse from a living person?"

"I can't tell…hold on." She removed a light from her pack and illuminated the corpse's face. It had been a woman once upon a time, though no longer. The animal that had been feasting on her flesh had gnawed away most of her lips and nose, along with one eye. The remaining eye was a sickly-yellow around the iris, striated with exploded veins. "Infected…," she announced. A yawning gunshot wound marred its forehead above the missing eye. Old habits kicked in, and she squatted down, examining the wound with a critical eye. Abrasions around its perimeter indicated the shot had been taken at point-blank range. "It's been shot in the head. Close range, from high-caliber weapon from the diameter of the entry wound."

"Can you tell how recently?" Peter queried, casting an uneasy glance southward.

"No, though from the smell, I'd say it's been here a while," she asserted, and rose from her crouch. She replaced the light, then motioned for Rachel and Ella to move forward behind Peter. "Let's keep moving. Whoever killed it is long gone by now."

"Ugh… What is that awful smell?" Rachel said as she moved underneath the concrete arches of the overpass. She gagged audibly, then covered her mouth. "Ella, hold your nose, sweetie. Did something die under here?"

"Pretty much…" Peter said with a grin. "You kind of get used to it after a while. Took me almost a solid week, unlike your big sister, who's impervious to everything and anything."

"I'm okay, Mommy," Ella said, peering about bravely in the shadows. "It's only a little bad."

"That's not true, Peter," Olivia scowled, annoyed at his insinuation. She wasn't made of stone. Each and everyone one of them affected her—they always had. She'd just grown proficient at masking her discomfort. It had been a requirement for her job. "I was around dead bodies for years before any of this started, Rachel. And I'm no more impervious to it than anyone el—"

A low rumble to the south stopped the words in her mouth. The rumble changed pitch, lowering frequency, then rose again slowly. The sound sent an icy shiver down her spine. It was moving, and toward them.

"Shit…," Peter hissed, spinning on his heels toward the source of the noise. "Somebody's coming…I knew I heard something. We have to hide, Olivia." His gaze darted around them, along the lines of cars and the concrete walls that rose up to either side.

"No, we have to run," Olivia opposed, shaking her head. "Rachel, you're gonna have to carry Ella, just in case Peter and I need to…defend us. Can you do it?"

Rachel nodded, and scooped Ella up in a bear hug. The little girl buried her face in her mother's neck and held on with fierce grip. The stuffed burlap bear dangled from one hand. "I—I can do it…I have to do it," she said as if she were convincing herself. She cast her gaze southward. The engine changed pitch again, and continued to grow louder with every passing moment. "Where's this bridge?"

"Take us there," Olivia gave the order, catching Peter's eye and giving him an intent look. "Don't stop, for anything, Peter, and I mean anything. I'll cover us if need be."

Peter nodded without hesitation. "Follow me and stay close," he instructed Rachel, then led them out into the daylight.

#

#

They rushed northward through the lines of stopped cars and trucks. Peter's pace was slower than an all out sprint, but faster than a jog, and Rachel did an admirable job of keeping up in spite of her burden. Ella bounced in her arms, legs locked in vise-grip around her mother's waist. Olivia trailed behind them, casting backward glances to the south ever so often. She expected to see the approaching vehicle at any moment.

The road sloped upward out of the concrete gully under the overpass, then made a wide turn ahead of them, following the river's course as it turned westward. On their left, the Harvard Business School campus came into view over the receding concrete walls, with tall apartment buildings and dormitories hugging the street. Infected in large numbers staggered slowly along the paths between the buildings, among the trees and on the sidewalks running parallel to the street. The undead were oblivious to their presence, but Olivia kept one eye on them anyway as she followed her sister. Luck was on their side, for once—circling around through the campus would have been a grave error, perhaps even a fatal one.

The pursuing vehicle came over the hill between overpasses as they reached the top of the next hill, before the wide, westward turn of the river. The tan paint and distinct, rectangular windshields were easily recognizable, even from a distance. Another humvee, similar—perhaps even identical—to the one they'd left behind. A lance of sunlight reflected off the dual windshields as it descended the hill, weaving its way slowly through the scatter of cars and trucks toward the overpass they'd just left behind. A figure stood in the rear turret—whether a man or a woman, she couldn't tell from the distance. They were holding up an indiscernible object, pivoting from side to side as if searching the area. Sunlight sparkled in the distant figure's hands for an instant.

A lens.

Binoculars. Or a rifle scope…

Three people running amid all the stopped vehicles would stand out clearly in either—easy targets for someone at all proficient with a high-powered rifle. She recalled watching John pick off infected with ease from distances longer than the space between their group and the truck—and that had been without the use of a scope. She imagined a set of cross-hairs on her back. The following shiver that ran down her spine had nothing to do with the chill in the air.

"Peter, get down!" she shouted hoarsely. "Quick, find somewhere to hide."

Ahead of her, Peter threw a glance back over his shoulder. His gaze flickered from her to the truck and he let out a silent curse. He ducked between a silver sedan and a rusted station wagon, not dissimilar from Walter's old wagon, and pulled Rachel and Ella down behind him. She reached the hiding place and crouched down next to Peter, casting a sideways glance at her sister. Rachel was breathing hard, leaning back against the wagon's bumper. Her face was pale, her grip on Ella white-knuckled. A shudder racked her lower jaw, and she squeezed her eyes shut.

Olivia gave her sister's hand a squeeze, and she opened her eyes. "You're doing fine, Rach," she assured her. "We're gonna be okay. It's just a little farther. Both of you just stay put for a moment and catch your breath." Rachel nodded, then smiled gratefully and relaxed her grip on Ella, if only slightly. It was enough.

She turned to Peter and found him hunched over the sedan's hood, staring intently toward the military truck. Having noticed the blockage under the overpass, the driver had taken the off-ramp, up to the street above. The truck reached the intersection, then turned away from the collapsed bridge. It lumbered west toward the campus onto the overpass, then rolled to a stop in its center. The infected on the bridge approached the truck, and pawed at it to no effect. More were moving in from the west, streaming off of the nearby campus in a slow-moving flood. The truck was closer now, close enough for her to see that the person manning the machine gun was a man.

He had black shoulder-length hair pulled back in a ponytail. He swiveled the turret until his back was facing them, the gun's barrel pointed to the south. Instead of fatigues, the man was wearing a black leather jacket that glinted in the sunlight. A colorful patch was sewn on the back.

"Who the hell is that?" Peter muttered. "Definitely not military. Not with hair like that. Or that jacket."

"I'm sure we're not the only ones who've commandeered military vehicles, Peter," Olivia said. "He was looking through something with a lens—I saw the light reflecting off it when they were coming over the hill. Whether it was binoculars or a rifle scope…I couldn't say for sure."

"Excellent…" he mumbled, offering her a thin smile. "Do you think they saw us?"

She grunted, and met his gaze. "We were the only things moving on the street," she said. "If he was looking past the bridge…I don't see how he could have missed us. They must have heard our truck before we ran out of gas, and came to investigate. I wonder where their safe-house is…"

"I don't care where it is," Peter stated, squinting toward the distant truck. "Let's hope that guy's attention was occupied by all the…" He stopped as the truck started forward again, rolling slowly toward the wall of undead careening toward them in slow-motion. "What are they doing now? There's too many of them…"

Olivia snuck an amused glance at Peter. He was hardly one to talk, with all the infected he'd run down on their way north. Before she could tell him so, automatic weapon fire filled the air. The man in the turret cut a broad swathe through the infected, decimating their ranks in a long, controlled burst. When the gunfire ended, the road in front of the truck was blanketed with bodies. More were filing off of the campus grounds, but the street was clear in front of them, at least for a few minutes.

"I guess that answers that," Peter said grimly. "It makes you wonder how the military was overrun in the first place."

"They were all fresh in the beginning, Peter," Olivia mused, watching to see what the truck would do next. "That's how…"

The man in the turret ducked down for a moment, then straightened, holding something black. He raised his hands, holding the object in front of his eyes. Binoculars. The man turned in a slow circle, gazing south, then west toward the campus. When he turned north toward their position, Olivia tensed, and felt Peter do likewise beside her. They ducked lower, leaving only their eyes exposed over the sedan's hood. She could almost feel the man's gaze on her, like an oily film on the surface of her skin, of her thoughts. The feeling lingered as the man kept his binoculars trained in their direction, then intensified.

Malevolence washed over her.

Whoever the man was, his intentions were less than wholesome. How she could be certain, she had no idea—but certain she was. The man lowered the binoculars, then looked down into the cab of the humvee and thrust a hand to the north. He was speaking with the driver.

 _He's seen us._  Again, Olivia had no idea how she could possibly know it, but it was true. Every fiber of her being screamed it. "We should go…," she whispered urgently to Peter. The man in the truck gestured again in their direction, pointing emphatically. "They know we're here, Peter. Go. Now!"

Peter started to reply, but the driver gunned the truck's engine, silencing whatever objection he'd been about to offer. The humvee lurched forward, crunching through the mound of fallen infected. It headed toward the on-ramp back down to the street they were on, where there was a partially-blocked lane that could take them north with a little bit of creative driving.

They scrambled from their hiding spot, and pounded down the shoulder along the outer lane of cars nearest the Charles. The river's bank was dotted with trees, bereft of leaves at the moment, but thick enough to block the view of the river ahead. Olivia ran beside her sister, matching her pace. Peter was out in front, blazing a trail toward the street's westward bend, and the Weeks Bridge that lay just beyond. The race was going to be close, down to wire. A photo-finish as it were, if only there were living spectators to see it.

The truck grew steadily louder behind them. It had dipped out of view momentarily, but it was still coming, and faster than Olivia would have liked. There was a metallic crunch, and the grumble of the engine faltered for an instant before roaring anew accompanied by the grinding screech of metal tearing under pressure.

On their left, undead in the hundreds roamed the grassy commons area in front of a stately dormitory building that sat adjacent to the street. The infected were active and agitated, aware of their surroundings—most likely by the gunfire from moments ago and the constant roar of the truck's diesel engine growing ever-louder. Olivia spied wide gaps in the traffic jam ahead, gaps that would provide the numerous infected unhindered access to their side of the street. Already the horde was moving across the quad, moving toward the tree-line that bordered the campus grounds.

"We have to…go faster…Rachel," she panted between breaths, eyeing the infected's progress toward the break.

Rachel nodded in response, gasping in ragged sucks of air. Sweat ran in rivers down her red cheeks, but she gritted her teeth and bore down, forcing Olivia to run faster. Whatever happened, she was proud of her sister, proud of the effort she was putting forth.

They reached the westward bend. On the far side of the street was the red hatchback she'd seen from the bell tower. The body in the driver's seat was still moving. Not far away were the lumpy remains of the soldier who'd been overwhelmed by his own stupidity. The river pulled away from the shoulder, the narrow strip of grass widening to become the small park with benches and picnic areas that surrounded the southwestern base of the Weeks Bridge. She'd driven past it daily. It was picturesque—or had been—and had often been populated with runners and bikers, students sitting on the benches and on the river bank studying, alone and in groups. Now, only the dead would walk its grounds. Already the grass was long, its final cutting of the year long since passed.

 _A year from now this is all going to be a jungle_ , she thought absently, picturing waist-high grass that would only grow taller with every passing year.  _It's all going wild again. Untamed._

White arches and reddish masonry peeked through the gaps between the trees lining the river bank. The Weeks Bridge. More of the bridge revealed itself, and then there was a break in the trees, and Olivia could see across its expanse. It was clear, blessedly clear of any living thing from bank to bank. The bridge appeared to be barricaded, with the now-familiar concrete blocks on the Allston side, and an interlocking metal fence of the sort used for crowd control on the far bank. A narrow walking bridge rose overhead, crossing over the street and then descending in a series of steps to the once-idyllic park.

"There it is," she gasped, ignoring the burning sensation building in her lungs. "I told you it was still whole… We're going to make it, Rach, just…a little farther…"

No sooner than she'd finished her prognostication, when gunshots split the air, frighteningly close. Olivia almost stumbled in her surprise. Ella let out a piercing shriek and pointed frantically behind them. Two long bursts reverberated across the quad, echoing through the passageways between buildings on the nearby campus. When they died away, all that remained was the pounding of their feet, and the combined rasp of hundreds, maybe thousands of infected, grotesque in volume and individual intricacies.

She looked back and saw the man in the machine gun turret, coming over the hill on the campus side of the street. Many stopped vehicles were between them and the humvee, but he surely must have been able to see them, be able to put them in his sights if he was looking far enough ahead. They couldn't hide, however, their only chance was to run, to hope the man was focused on the infected and reach the bridge before he spotted them.

Peter glanced back, catching her eye. "Faster, Peter!" she cried, abandoning any attempts at being stealthy. Ella's continuous screaming had made stealth redundant in any case. "Keep going!"

The bridge was in sight, and the familiar shapes of Cambridge on the other side. The bell tower rose above the buildings. Despite her personal tragedy that had happened in its shadow, it was a beacon of hope soaring toward the sky. They were going to make it.

An infected mob of former students and faculty poured through the trees onto the street ahead, blocking off any further northward progress. The horde rushed toward them, drawn by the gunfire and the screaming and shouting. Their arms were outstretched with claws for hands, teeth exposed for the ensuing feast below yellow gazes filled with exquisite lust.

"This way!" Peter shouted back to them, leaping the guardrail running along the shoulder. He angled across the grass and windblown leaves toward the bridge's base, his long strides carrying him out ahead of them. A single infected who'd been wandering the park crossed his path. He crushed its skull without slowing or stopping.

She jumped the rail after him, then waited for Rachel to hop over, careful with her burden. She almost reached for a still-distraught Ella, but chose not to at the last moment. Free hands would be required if any of the horde were to reach them.

Olivia and Rachel sprinted across the grass toward the bridge, across a paved running path and then through a copse of leafless shade trees. The terrain began to slope upward, toward a set of stairs just before a pair of white marble pointed stanchions shortly before the bridge abutment.

Behind them, infected swarmed over the low guardrail, stumbled down the steps from the walking bridge over the street, they crashed through the trees and bushes, oblivious to the low-hanging branches. Many tripped and fell over unnoticed obstacles, and many more labored onward, always reaching and grinning their insane grins. Ella's terrified squeals spurred them onward, both themselves and their undead pursuers, who funneled at them from all sides, like water spiraling down a drain.

Olivia's lungs were aflame as they reached the bottom of the steps. She bounded up the wide treads behind Peter, matching him step for step. At the top, he raced toward the chest-high concrete barrier just past the stanchions. Her heart soared at the wall blocking their path.

They'd made it—and with time to spare. She glanced back at the onrushing mob, and her elation turned to unmitigated horror.

Paralyzing dread sucked the air from her lungs. She was frozen in place, unable to move, unable to breathe, barely able to form a complete thought.

_Nononononono…_

Rachel had tripped and fallen on the steps. She was on her side, several steps from the bottom. Ella lay still on the steps next to her. Her eyes were closed. The little girl would have looked peaceful if it weren't for the blood gushing from a gash on her forehead. A pool was forming beneath her face onto the pavement.

"Ella!" Rachel sat up, tears streaming down her face. She reached for her daughter and cried out, her wail filled with pain. "Ahhhh…Ella! My baby!" Her right hand dangled limply, obviously broken at the wrist. She clutched it to her chest, whimpering, while fumbling with her left for Ella's face.

A wordless howl crept up Olivia's throat. The first of the infected had almost reached the steps up to the bridge. Its teeth were bared, eyes greedy with hunger. It would be on them in mere seconds.

As if she were the one on the brink of death, her life flashed before her eyes in an instant. Memories of them together, her sister when they were young, hiding in the closet, under the bed. Screams. Gunfire. Ella, her birth, giving her a bottle, crawling in bed with her. The two of them were all she had left. Her life.

Millions of miles away, Peter was shouting, cursing. His voice brought her back to the present, back to herself. Less than a second appeared to have passed.

There was still time to save them.

"Rachel. ELLAAAAA!" The scream that ripped through her larynx was raw, and never-ending.

She leapt down the steps, landing next to Rachel and intercepting the infected lunging toward her dazed sister with a vicious swing of her bayonet. Its head tilted backward, partially decapitated from the force of the blow. Foul, brackish blood fountained from the stump of its neck, splattering across her face and clothes. She shoved the still-standing body aside, then stabbed the next through one of its blazing eyes. It slipped free of the blade, and she quailed at the sheer number that followed. Undead visages filled her vision, as far as she could see. Too many. She lunged for the next in line.

Peter was suddenly beside her, wreaking havoc with his crowbar, swinging it with a murderous fury. His lips were twisted in a snarl that matched the savagery of his swings. Together, they finished off half-a-dozen more, and then there were no more within range. They'd been granted a short reprieve, a small gap in the columns of infected lurching toward them from all sides.

Tossing the rifle aside, she turned and lifted Ella's limp body. "Help Rachel, Peter. Hurry!" she said, but the instruction proved to be unnecessary—he was already moving to do just that.

He pulled Rachel to her feet and half-carried her up the steps. Her sister cried out with every step taken, cradling her right hand, holding it against her chest. Olivia followed behind them with Ella, who began to move and let out a confused moan.

She tossed a glance back at the infected rapidly closing the gap separating them.  _So they can climb steps after all_ , she noted _._ The undead were right behind them, including a number of the recently-infected, who were breaking away from the pack. It was going to be close, very close.

"…Mommy?" Ella said faintly, moving in Olivia's arms.

 _Oh thank god…_ she thought. Relief flooded her veins, filled here with bubbling energy. "I've got you, baby girl."

"Aunt Liv? Where's Mommy?" The little girl began to squirm, twisting her head about. "Where's my Mommy?" Her voice started to rise, panic setting in.

Peter let go of Rachel and vaulted up onto the wall "Hand her to me, Olivia," he said, reaching down for Ella with impatient fingers. His gaze shifted behind her, to the infected closing in. "Quick!"

Olivia passed her niece up to him, and he dropped out of view on the far side, cradling Ella in his arms. She turned to her sister, who was struggling to pull herself up on the chest-high barricade, unable to use her right hand.

"Oh god…I'm gonna die…I'm gonna die…" Rachel whimpered over and over. She tried to pull herself up on the wall and then fall back to the pavement, unable to make the climb with only one hand. She saw the infected rushing up the steps and screamed, then sobbed something unintelligible. Her eyes remained locked on the horde, wide-open and unblinking. Her good hand dropped loosely to her side, as if she were giving up, accepting what was to come.

"Rachel…" Olivia snapped. "Rachel!" She slapped her across the face, hoping to wake her up, to bring her back from the brink. The effect was instantaneous, though not exactly what she'd been hoping for.

Rachel blinked, and then her eyes rolled back in her head. She slumped back against the concrete barricade, then toppled sideways. Olivia caught her before her head hit the ground. She lifted her upright, holding her dead weight up against the concrete as Peter pulled himself back up on the wall.

His gaze flickered between the infected and herself, and then Rachel. The undead were clearing the top step. There was no time. She thought of Charlie, and the choice he'd made to save Sonya over Agent Rodriguez. He had to make the right choice. Before she could tell him to forget about herself, to grab her sister, he dropped back down to her side of the barricade.

"What the hell are you doing, Peter?" Olivia shouted.

At least one of them had to make it, had to get Ella to safety. He ignored her outrage and swept Rachel off her feet, then heaved her on top of the wall with a grunt of effort.

The first infected reached them, and lunged toward Peter's unprotected back. Olivia drew her sidearm and stepped in front of the pale-faced horror. The range was close enough to see the spittle dripping from its pale lips. Its sickly gaze shifted from Peter to herself, zeroing in on her throat. Her shot took it through the cheek, just below one sagging eye. The back of its head exploded outward, and the creature dropped face-first at her feet. More followed behind it, just as eager for her flesh as the first.

Her focus tightened, intensified, turned inward. The gun was a part of her hand—an extension of her will. Despite him being behind her, she was aware of Peter pulling himself up on the wall, of his hand reaching toward her. She felt an odd tingle running down her spine, originating in the base of her skull. Energy filled her to the brim, terrible in its intensity.  _Adrenalin_ e, she supposed, from somewhere distant in the back of her mind, though it had never felt so pure before, so…unadulterated. Was her hair standing on end? The air seemed charged with electricity.

Olivia squeezed the trigger repeatedly, aiming without thought, without even making a conscious decision to do so. The sound of each discharge was warbled, thin and echoey in her ears. She could almost feel the bullets arrive at their destinations, as if she were directing their trajectory through the strange focus that connected her with everything else.

Infected collapsed all around her, first those nearest, then those farther out, all the way back to the top of the steps. A single bullet-hole decorated each forehead, perfectly centered between their eyes.

Behind her, Peter was reaching for her shoulder. His touch pricked her focus like a needle. He was yelling. "Olivia!"

She gasped, and exhaled the breath she'd been holding. The strange tunnel vision faded, and with it, the odd energy, leaving her drained and empty. She blinked, and her awareness returned, of herself, and of her purpose. Her shooting spree had been a drop in the bucket, a tiny percentage out of the whole, and the rest were rushing straight toward her.

The wall. Rachel. Ella. "Right," she said out loud, then spun around and let him pull her up.

Peter regarded her strangely for a moment, then his lips curled into a broad grin, exposing all his teeth. "That was some shooting, Dunham," he acknowledged, gazing down at the corpses littering the pavement at the base of the barricade. "Thanks for watching my back. Now I know why you're the one that always carries the gun."

A shadow of a smile crossed her lips at his praise. Her marksmanship was something of a surprise to herself as well. She'd never been that accurate, not on her best day at the range. "No, thank you, Peter," she told him, reaching for his hand. "For helping my sister over the wall. I…I don't think I could have gotten her over without your help. She fainted."

"So I noticed. Her wrist doesn't look so good." He smiled again briefly, then lowered his eyes. "In any case, that's what you pay me for, right?" He glanced down at the infected rushing the barrier and hooked a thumb in their direction. "We should get off this wall before those things—"

Machine gun fire erupted on the street directly opposite the bridge, cutting off whatever he'd been about to say. A hail of bullets ripped a bloody line through the charging infected, then across the concrete barrier below their feet. Dust and chips of rock and cement exploded in all directions. The truck. She'd forgotten all about it in the commotion. How could she have been so foolish? A bullet whizzed by her head, another grazed her cheek, leaving a burning trail behind.

Olivia was just starting to duck, preparing to leap down from top of the wall when something wet splattered across her face, hot and sticky. Tasting blood on her lips, she turned and saw Peter stagger sideways, his expression shocked and confused. He gasped, then stumbled and pitched head-first off the barricade, grabbing at his neck or shoulder.

"Peter!" Olivia shouted, lunging toward him desperately, scraping her knees and elbows on the barricade's rough edges.

His jacket pulled toward her outstretched hand, but slipped from her grasp, slippery like ice. He glanced off the bridge's concrete handrail, then tumbled into the Charles below with a great splash.

She dropped behind the wall, then rushed to the edge looked over, terrified of what she might see. "Peter!" she shouted again.

_NO…_

The current had him, was already carrying him downriver. She dug her fingernails into the concrete hand rail. A red smear marked the spot where his head had struck the edge on his way down. Her gaze darted around the bridge, searching for something she could throw him, but there was nothing.  _Peter…oh god…_ Her heart sank, shattered into a million pieces all over again.

The machine gun faltered for a moment, then resumed firing. She peeked around the edge of the barricade and got a good look at the man who'd shot—and possibly killed Peter—for the first time. He was firing the gun wildly into the crowd of infected surrounding the humvee.

She studied his face coldly, memorizing it. The man had a thick, black beard and a swarthy complexion beneath black sunglasses. A lit cigarette hung limply from his lips. The tip glowed red briefly, and he exhaled dual jets of smoke from an overly wide nose. The bastard appeared to be smiling, smirking, enjoying the messy work.

 _You're dead, you son of a bitch_. Olivia quivered with rage. Fury consumed her from the inside out, white-hot in an instant. Her vision tinted red, and she had to forcibly restrain herself from leaping over the barrier, from charging him gun blazing. Doing so would have been suicide—infected were crashing against the opposite side of the barricade like water against a dam—and would have doomed her sister and Ella as well.

The humvee's driver appeared to have had enough, and the engine roared to life. The truck plowed a path through the infected, moving slower than its screaming engine would have indicated, as it were having trouble pushing through the sheer number of undead surrounding it. He made a wide turn through the mass of bodies, then jumped the curb and accelerated through the business school commons area before returning to the street heading south into Allston.

Olivia glanced down at her sister and niece, sitting against the base of the barricade, then back to Peter in the water. He was far out in the river, either floating on his back, or face down in the water—she couldn't be sure which, or if he was moving or if she was seeing ripples in the water around him. She covered her face, squeezed her eyes shut against a rising flood.

She couldn't save him.

It was either him or her family—she couldn't save both. The realization was sickening.  _Oh god…I'm so sorry, Peter. I'm so sorry._  How many more of her people had to die? First John, now Peter. And for what? She pulled her hands away from her face and stared down at them, feeling sick to her stomach. They were wet with his blood along with her tears. The two intermingled.

"Goddamnit…" she whispered, struggling to regain her composure. They had to get off the bridge, had to keep moving. She had to get them to the lab, somehow.

Peter would have understood. She was sure of it. Mostly sure, at least. She'd observed his discussion with his father in the office before they'd left, saw the comfort he offered Walter—in spite of their long estrangement. It was her family. He had to understand.

His body was nearly out of sight, a clump in the water.  _I'm sorry, Peter._  She pushed the apology outward, across the distance separating them, then spun away from the handrail.

Rachel's face was blank, drained of blood. Her mouth was moving, but no sound issued from her lips. Ella appeared to be shell-shocked and listless, her head lolled against the concrete. Blood still trickled from the wound on her forehead, covering her face in a grisly mask. Between them on the pavement was Peter's backpack, and his crowbar. He had dropped them at some point during the struggle—probably right before he'd saved her sister's life.

"Rachel…" she probed softly, crouching down in front of her. "Rachel, look at me."

Rachel's eyelids fluttered, her dark eyes darted around the bridge, then settled on Olivia's face. "Liv…?" she murmured, then sat up straight. "Where's Ella? Ella!" She tried to get up, then cried out. "Ahhh…my hand! It hurts, it hurts…," she moaned, clutching the injured wrist and falling back against the concrete.

"You broke your wrist, Rach," Olivia informed her. In the back of her mind, she saw Walter's face. What was she going to tell him? "Ella's right here next to you. Do you remember what happened?"

"I…I tripped on the steps…," she panted, wincing at the pain. "Ella…I think she hit her head when I fell. Is she okay?"

Olivia nodded. "I think so…" She turned to her niece. "Ella? Baby girl?" She cupped her cheek, turning her face toward her mother. Rachel gasped at the blood dripping from her forehead. "It's just a superficial cut, Rach, not as bad as it looks." She didn't comment on rather large bump forming underneath the cut, or the possibility of her having a concussion.

"Mommy…" Ella said, focusing on her mother. "My head hurts…"

"I know, sweetie," Rachel told her. "It got bumped. How are you feeling?"

Ella lower lip puckered. "It hurts, Mommy…really bad," she said, fighting off tears. "My face feels funny. Is there blood on it?"

"Only a little…" Olivia answered, stopping her hand before it could touch her blood-covered cheek. "Hardly any at all. Don't touch it though."

"So it won't get infected?"

"Uh huh, so it won't get infected," she agreed. "You are a smart girl."

"…Am I gonna turn into a monster, Aunt Liv?" Ella asked suddenly, eyes fearful. "When Daddy came back, he had a cut too." Her voice lowered to a whisper. "…And then he turned into a monster."

"No," Olivia assured her, cupping her cheek again. "That's not going to happen to you, sweetheart. I promise." She glanced at Rachel, and judged her fit enough to walk. "We have to keep moving, though. The lab's not too far from here. We have to be extra careful now. Can you do that?"

Ella nodded, and climbed unsteadily to her feet. She walked over to the rail and looked out over the river. She seemed unaware of the infected reaching over the barricade. Olivia wasn't sure if that was good sign or not.

"Liv?" Rachel voice was quiet, confused. Her gaze went to the backpack sitting next to her, then the crowbar. She looked up. "…Where did Peter go? I think I heard you shouting his name earlier…"

Olivia stood, and turned away from her. Her eyes watered and she pinched her nose, trying to forestall the inevitable. The salty sting encouraged her onward. "He…uh…he…" She stopped, and swallowed the lump expanding in her throat.  _What am I going to tell Walter? This is going to break him._  "They…they shot him in the back," she whispered, spinning back to her sister.

"Oh my god…" Rachel sighed, and looked down at his backpack again. "Is he…is he dead?"

"I-I don't know. We were on the barricade." She saw his face, the surprise that had flickered across it when the bullet struck. "He fell into the river. He's gone. I…couldn't help him. And now I have to tell his father."

"I'm sorry, Liv," Rachel said after moment. "He seemed like a nice guy."

"Yeah. He was…is," Olivia replied woodenly. She picked up Peter's crowbar, then slung his backpack over her shoulder.

"What should I tell Ella when she asks?"

"The truth," she said, then held her out her hand. "Now we have to go."

She pulled Rachel to her feet, unaware of the tears spilling down her cheeks.


	8. Homecoming

**-October 2008**

 

Charlie Francis shivered on his perch atop the barricade. He tugged his jacket tighter and blew into his free hand. His breath provided a paltry warmth that was fleeting, and he shoved his hand into his pocket instead.

The wind gusting in from the east across the campus grounds was brisk and carried with it the tang of saltwater, faint but just noticeable every so often. An especially strong flurry grabbed the few leaves that still remained on their branches, and yanked them free. They spun and tumbled toward the outer row of the barricade before settling on the ground, adding to the already-large drifts piled up against the vehicles.

He glanced to his left, over the top of the van Peter had turned into a gate, as he had a hundred times already since waking that morning. The street outside the compound was empty in both directions.  _Come on, Liv. Where are you?_ They should have been back already. Brighton wasn't  _that_  far away.

 _Damn it_.

Should he go look for them? He had considered doing so already, but was uneasy about leaving the lab undefended. Or to leave Sonia alone, not with the progress she was making. Nearly thirty-six hours had passed since they'd left, since Liv had left with Bishop.

Charlie sighed and mopped his brow.  _Fuck..._ Olivia was impetuous and stubborn—she'd always been that way, almost since the day he'd met her. She needed someone to rein her in occasionally, to remind her she wasn't invincible. In his opinion, Bishop wasn't that person. From what he'd observed, the guy was just as reckless as she, if not more so. And he was a criminal to boot. In his experience, the old saying held true, always: the tigers never changed their stripes—no matter how docile they might appear in captivity.

Yet Liv trusted him, for some reason. He had yet to figure out why. He pictured her the first time he'd seen her. It had been on a multi-agency sting operation—drugs, guns, the usual. She'd been green as hell. He'd noticed her from across the garage, seen her pale face, the fear radiating off her in waves. She had just needed a little reassurance, and she'd soldiered through. That was the last time he'd seen her afraid—of anything. At least until John's accident. And even then, that had been fear of a different sort.

Uneven footsteps crunched through the fallen leaves to his right. The tall dead man he'd seen earlier limped back into view from around the corner of the Kresge Building. The man's grimy suit jacket whipped in the wind, exposing its untucked shirt, filthy with dark discolorations, and its bulbous gut protruding from underneath.

He'd been seeing a lot of the fellow lately. He followed its progress along the barrier. The dead man tottered toward his elevated position, unaware of his observation. The creature slowed occasionally, and mussed about with a car window or a mirror, as if it were seeing its reflection. Its attention span was short-lived, however, and it never stayed long in one place.

The things were mindless simpletons. Doctor Bishop had assured him they had no intelligence, as had Liv and Peter—and even his own experiences had told him so. But he couldn't help getting the impression that it was testing the barricade for weaknesses. A systematic search for a way in. It was a silly idea, ridiculous even, yet he couldn't help but wonder. He had seen this particular corpse before, always following the same path around the perimeter.

Its face was distinctive—even among undead. The corpse's cheek and most of one side of its face was torn away, eaten it looked like. The disfigurement gave it an uncanny resemblance to the district attorney in the Batman movie that was released not long before the dead stopped staying dead. It had taken some doing, but he'd finally convinced Sonia to go see it with him. To his surprise, she had actually liked it.

Charlie shook his head. That had been the last movie they'd seen together—the last movie they would ever see. He dropped his gaze to the jet-black handgun resting on his lap, and fought off another wave of bleakness. The fits of depression came upon him suddenly and without warning since they'd made it back to the lab. When were they going to stop? When was he going to start feeling like himself again? It wasn't like he could call a therapist, or have his head shrunk, though Dr. Bishop could probably give him something that might distract him, if nothing else. But he'd never been fond of drugs, prescribed or recreational.

The last time he had experienced such mood swings was right after he'd taken a bullet in the chest. Right after his first partner had been killed on a routine domestic disturbance call. He'd just lost one more. Did he have it in him to lose another?

 _You've got the touch, Charlie,_  he thought darkly.  _Two out of three ain't bad. Olivia would complete the trick. I shouldn't have let her go with him._

Two-Face lurched closer, rubbing up against the sides of vehicles as it stumbled along. It would move past him as it did every morning, until it reached the wrought-iron fence, and then work its way around the fence before somehow again ending up behind the building the lab was housed in.

He speculated on who the fellow had been. From his clothes, his lack of physique, someone who'd been working behind a desk, most likely. An accountant? A programmer? Maybe a professor, the guy was on the university grounds, after all. And now he was an  _it_. A thing. A gold wedding band stood out against the grime covering its fingers. The thing had had a spouse, possibly a family. Where were they? Probably dead.

 _Or out there_ , he amended the thought.  _One of them._

Like Rodriguez.

In his mind's eye, Charlie saw the agent's face, heard his screams again, the agony. They were feasting on him. His screams echoed behind his eyes, reverberated between his ears. He heard it all again; Sonia's insane shrieks, John shouting, yanking them both away from the edge of the truck. He saw it all when he closed his eyes. When he dreamed, he relived every moment. His choice was always the same. It was his fault. He could have saved them both, if only he'd tried. He'd killed him—might as well have pulled the trigger. Rodriguez's voice murmured in his ear—full of pain and accusations.

"I had no choice...," he whispered to the wind. "It was my wife. I had to save her. Don't you get it? I had no choice..."

He screwed his eyes shut against the voices, and the roaring wind's chilly response. The only succor it offered was howling cruelty. The voices closed in, uttering their madness, their cries for atonement. They pulsed and wriggled, maggots burrowing through his consciousness.

Invisible bands of barb-wire settled over him like a crown. They sank inward slowly, with mounting pressure that sent sharp spikes of pain shooting through his skull. Charlie clutched his head, oblivious to the handgun's sight gouging a track across his temple. The pain was never-ending, until it suddenly dwindled, leaving him gasping at phantom pains.

His breath whistled in his ears. A shudder racked him from head to toe, then dissipated little-by-little, until he was still. When his breathing evened out, he pried his eyes open.

And jerked back, nearly toppling his chair off the cab of the truck. The tall infected with the eaten-away face stood below, gazing up with voracious eyes. He waited for it to move on, to reach for him futilely, to do anything but just stand there. Serene. If serene was a word that could ever be used to describe the wild insanity its existence represented. The creature's lips twitched, but the eyes never blinked, never wavered from his face.

He leaned forward, and the wooden chair groaned loudly beneath him. The tall infected remained still despite the sound. Its arms were loose at its side. What was it doing?

"What the fuck are you looking at?" he said softly. Predictably, there was no response, and he leveled his gun on its forehead. "Hey. I'm talking to you, pal."

The undead man's eyes seemed to glow. Its teeth ground together, the exposed muscles flexed. Yet it remained complacent. The wind dropped off, leaving empty silence behind.

Charlie heard a whisper then, a murmur. The sound was low enough to make him doubt he was hearing anything. He swallowed, then glanced around for the source, out across the quad, behind him, inside the perimeter. There was no one. His gaze returned to the undead man below. The murmuring continued.

Could it be trying to communicate? Impossible. They were walking meat-bags, incapable of anything but honing in a live flesh—and then eating it. Could it be something new, some as of yet unseen type that still had some kind of vague intelligence?

The low muttering went on in waves, rising for a moment, then falling below the threshold of his hearing. The whisperings seemed cyclical, a word or a phrase repeating. He cupped his ear and leaned even closer, to the very edge of his seat.

And then he heard it, like puzzle pieces falling into place to form a whole.

_CharlesCharlesCharlesCharlesCharlesCharlesCharles..._

His throat went dry, his mouth full of dust. It was his name. His own fucking name. Nobody called him Charles, except his mother, and she'd been in the ground for years. Wasn't she? How the hell could it be...

The infected's yellow orbs pulsed. They beckoned him forward.  _Come closer, Charles._  The voice was pleasant. Caressing to his senses. Matronly, yet hoary. It begged obedience—and offered atonement. His atonement. He only need listen. _Come. Closer. Closer. Charles._

The mangled face was right in front of him, close enough to make out individual strands of tissue, the bone underneath. One of its molars, capped with silver caught his eye. It sparkled, screamed to be touched. He reached for it.

#

#

_"Charlie...?"_

Charlie blinked, flinched at the intrusion. The voice was muddled, like hearing sound underwater. His head felt full of cotton-balls, his thoughts sluggish and thread-bare. The Harvard quad lay spread out before him, though from a lower vantage point than it had been. Infected stalked its grounds, wandered through the trees. None were close by.

"Charlie? Are you out here?"

Sonia.

He looked down...and found himself on the outer barrier, crouching on top of the silver sedan's hood. His Glock lay next to his knee, inches from sliding off into the tall grass and leaves below. The undead in the suit was moving along the wrought-iron fence to his left, far away from him.  _But it was right here...wasn't it?_  A wave dizziness tilted the world around him drunkenly. He threw a hand out, steadying himself from tipping off, outside the perimeter.

What the hell had he been doing? Hallucinating? He'd had one of those splitting headaches again—the worst yet. He'd never had migraines before. Whispering voices? Calling his name? He had been about to touch...it.  _Jesus,_   _I'm going as crazy as Doctor Bishop._

The wooden chair that John had positioned on the roof of the truck for keeping watch remained where it had been. He had no memory of climbing down to the sedan's roof. No memory of dropping his gun, of kneeling down, of...

"Charlie?" Sonia called out from nearby. "Where are you?"

She sounded close, right on the other side of the barricade. He mopped his brow and his hand came away dripping, despite the chill. A harsh spasm worked its way down his spine and out through his limbs. He ran his fingers through his hair, encountering more sweat.  _Fuck me..._

"Charlie...!"

The frantic edge in his wife's tone brought him up short. He could worry about himself later. He snatched up his gun and holstered it, then climbed back up onto the truck and dropped down in the grass on the other side. His wife was rushing back toward the lab entrance, her shoulders hunched, arms crossed under her breasts. She was wearing the same clothes she'd slept in, an old flannel shirt and faded blue jeans. Her feet were bare. She must have just woken.

"Sonia!" he called out.

She spun around, her hand flying to her mouth, then smiled in relief. His throat tightened at her appearance. He'd always found her a bit exotic, almost elfin in her exquisiteness.  _God, you're beautiful. Beautiful and alive._  Her short hair was askew with bed-head. Dark, puffy bags stood out underneath the slight tilt of her blue eyes. They matched his own when he'd looked in the mirror that morning. Her sleep had been restless, tossing and turning, muttering about blood and death. She had her own nightmares—almost every night since they'd arrived at the lab. Neither of them slept much anymore.

He hurried to her side. "Hey you...," he said, pulling her into his arms. She wrapped her arms around his waist and burrowed in close. She was a slight thing, thinner than she had been before. They all were. He nuzzled her hair, inhaling her raw scent. The flowery smell he'd come to associate with it was long gone, but it mattered little. She was here, and she was safe—and that was all he needed. "What's wrong? You sleep okay?"

"No, nothing's wrong. I just...didn't know where you were, that's all."

"How are you feeling this morning? Any better?"

Sonia sighed and nodded against his chest. "A little," she told him after a moment. "I was a little freaked when you weren't there, but after that, I just felt...different somehow. It's kind of hard to describe. You know what I mean?"

"Sure," he said, and rested his chin on top her head. "Like you've been waiting to feel like yourself again, and then you finally do. A little bit, at least." Should he tell her about his ordeal? The headaches that he'd been having? That he was hallucinating?  _It's gotta be the stress... Some kind of PTSD or something. It's gotta be._ He couldn't tell her. Not yet. Not when she seemed to have turned a corner.  _If it happens again, maybe then._ "I told you it would just take some time."

"Yes, you did..." she confirmed, and her arms tightened about his waist.

Charlie slid his hands into her back pockets and pressed her even closer. He waited for the faint tremors that had plagued her after their harrowing journey, but they never manifested. It was the first time since they'd arrived at the lab that she'd felt relaxed and pliable in his arms. Like her old self.

After a moment, she pulled away and peered up at him, then frowned and turned his face to the side. "What happened to your head, Charlie? Did you tear open your stitches?"

"What? What do you mean?"

"There's blood on your face." She traced a path up his cheek to his temple, and pinched her lips with disapproval. "It's not from your stitches..."

Charlie dabbed at the spot. His fingers touched sticky wetness, and came away red. He rubbed the blood between his thumb and forefinger, searching for an explanation. Nothing came to him. He must have done it to himself during his...fit. "I'm not sure...," he evaded with a shrug. "Must've bumped it on something..." He wiped the blood on his jeans and feigned a smile. "Don't worry about it. I'm fine. How's it going in there?" He nodded toward the building entrance. "Is Dr. Bishop awake yet? Or Astrid?"

The doctor had been acting very strangely the night before, talking to himself, staring at nothing, and searching frantically through the boxes in his storage room. All before locking himself in the bathroom. When he'd finally emerged, the cow was the only one of them with whom he'd speak—not even Agent Farnsworth had been able to coax him out of his funk.

His wife and the junior agent seemed to be getting a little closer—he'd found them talking softly on more than one occasion lately. Sonia had actually let out a quiet laugh at something the younger woman had said. It gave him hope that she might be herself again, sometime sooner than later. If only he was, too.

"They both are," Sonia replied, plucking at his jacket. "Dr. Bishop—he's such a...strange man."

Charlie snorted and threw and arm around her shoulder. "You don't know the half of it, babe," he said with a chuckle. "Let's get you inside and you can tell me what he's done this time."

Sonia nodded, and they moved down the sidewalk to the Kresge Building's entrance. At the top of the steps she stopped and glanced back toward the street. "I guess there's no sign of Olivia and Dr. Bishop's son yet, then?"

"Not yet..." He sighed and shook his head with regret. It still smarted that Olivia had refused to let him go with her to Brighton. He understood her reasons, or at least he thought he did. Sonia was relieved he'd stayed behind though, and that, if nothing else, had made it worth it. "I never should have let her go with him, alone," he said under his breath.

His wife's eyes narrowed and she gave him knowing look. "And what is that supposed to mean, Charlie?" she asked with a frown. "Olivia is more than capable of looking after herself. And Dr. Bishop's son seems competent also. You don't have to do everything yourself, honey. Let others carry some of the load." She stepped in close again and looked up at him through her long eyelashes, then dragged her fingernails along his jaw-line. "And it might be a little selfish of me, but...I kinda like it when you're around, you know."

"You do, huh?" he inquired, bringing his hands up under the back of her flannel shirt to the small of her back. Her skin was warm and silky, and felt like home. "And why is that Mrs. Francis?"

Sonia gave him a low laugh and slipped out of his arms. "I don't know..." she replied, grinning mysteriously. "I'll let you know when I think of something." She pulled open one of the double doors, and glanced back over her shoulder. "By the way, I had an interesting conversation with Dr. Bishop a little bit ago, when I was down in the lab looking for you."

Charlie followed her inside the lobby. "What'd he say?"

"Well. First, he asked me if the two of us were using contraceptives..." She paused, and glanced around the building's dim interior.

"You're kidding, right?" he asked in the intervening silence. Sex had been the farthest thing from both of their minds as of late.

She shook her head. "No. And then...I think he offered me some LSD." The words came out in a rush, an old habit of hers when she was excited. "You remember how weird he was acting last night? I think he was using it then. He said it was called blue...something or other. That he was in the middle of whipping up a batch, and it might help with my...condition."

"Jesus..." That was all he needed; Dr. Bishop tripping on acid during the apocalypse. No wonder he'd been in a different world last night. "What did you say?"

"I told him I was okay, that he needn't bother," she replied, leading him toward the stairwell to the basement. "What did you think I told him, Charlie? And that was when he told me the interesting part."

"You mean that _wasn't_  the interesting part?"

"Not like this," she explained, then continued in a whisper. "I asked him what he needed LSD for, and he said that Agent Dunham had used up most of his supply with Agent Scott."

Charlie jerked to a stop on the stairwell's landing. "What?"

"That's what he said," she told him. "His exact words."

"That can't be right...," he said, frowning at the idea. "Was Agent Farnsworth there? Did she hear him say it?"

"She was in another part of the lab," Sonia answered, squinting down through the darkness of the stairwell. "I don't think she heard. What do you think it means? You don't think Olivia would...I mean, I just can't picture that."

"Tell me about it," he said, feeling at the line of stitches on his temple. "There's just...no way."

Could there be? Liv taking LSD? It was ridiculous. And what did the doctor mean about Agent Scott? He must have been referring to when John had been exposed to the raw form of chemical weapon used on Flight 627. Olivia had been desperate—even going so far as to fly to Iraq for Peter so she could get access to his father to save him. He recalled one instance where he'd walked in on...something, at the lab. He'd overheard Doctor Bishop telling her that she'd need to strip to her underwear. She'd been evasive, refusing to tell him what she was doing. And then later, she'd somehow come up with their suspect's image, claiming she'd seen him somewhere, again refusing to elaborate on how and where. Whatever they'd been doing, it had apparently worked.

Maybe he was better off not knowing, he decided after a moment. Clearly, things had been going on to which he'd not been privy—up to and including Broyles, and Olivia's sudden promotion out of the blue. He glanced at his wife.

"C'mon, babe," he said, gripping her hand. "Let's go see what they're up to."

#

#

Dr. Bishop looked up from the maze of spiraling glass tubes and beakers spread out over two black countertops as they moved down the short flight of steps to the main lab floor. He was wearing his usual lab coat, though it was beginning to show the effects of their water shortage. The white cloth was stained maroon across the chest, giving the doctor the likeness of a butcher, rather than a scientist.

Charlie eyed the equipment, the bubbling fluids, and the Bunsen burners underneath. Considering the dimness of the lab, it was a wonder the doctor was able to work at all, much less create something as chemically complex as LSD. A single candle was lit on an adjacent table, and a cast feeble, flickering light. The odor of rotting flesh hung in the air, much stronger than it had been the day before. The smell burned at his nose. They would have to do something about it soon, before the lab, the entire building became uninhabitable.

"Agent Francis...," he said in greeting, and hurried around the work tables toward them. "Is there any sign of them yet? Of Peter or Agent Dunham? It seems to me that they should have been back by now."

Charlie exchanged glances with Astrid, sitting on a stool nearby. She gave him a warning look, her eyes widening, a minute shake of her head. He wasn't sure what she was trying to tell him, but he wasn't going to lie to him. The doctor looked as sane as he'd ever seen him, and as worried.

"I'm afraid not, Dr. Bishop," he told him. "But...it's still early. Maybe they got a late start from her apartment this morning."

"And what of the gunfire you heard yesterday?" Walter asked, taking a step closer. He wrung his hands together, massaging the knuckles on his left hand. "Do you...do you think that it might have been them? That they might've been in trouble? Will you go look for them if they don't arrive soon?"

Charlie felt Sonia's eyes boring into the back of his head, and Astrid's as well. The gunfire had been from the southwest both times he'd heard it, and in line with the route he would have taken to Brighton. He'd left that part out when he'd told the others. The discharges had been singular, as if from a semi-automatic rifle—or an M4 or some similar weapon set to single-fire. If it had been Liv, then they must've been in a fairly serious situation for her to have used it.

Conflicting loyalties tied his priorities in a tangled knot. His wife and the need to keep her safe in one corner, and Olivia and his years of working closely with her, of watching her back in the other. And then there were the others, Astrid, Dr. Bishop himself. Could he leave the lab unprotected? It didn't seem like a good idea, all things considered. If something happened to him, then what? The duty would fall to Astrid, little more than a girl herself. She was even greener than Olivia had been when he'd first met her.

The knot grew more convoluted, tugging him in both directions. A ghost of Rodriguez's face floated across his vision, accompanied by a dull ache from somewhere deep inside his skull. He struggled to keep his face clear. The ache wavered on the verge of intensifying, but then faded away.

"The gunshots could have been anyone, Dr. Bishop," he said finally, exhaling a controlled breath. "We've heard them before. Let's give them some more time. A few more hours, at least, before we decide what to do next."

Walter swallowed and dropped his gaze to the floor. "I...suppose that it might be prudent to wait just a little longer before jumping to any conclusions," he consented, sounding crestfallen. "And, of course there's...no way of knowing where they might be, what route they might have taken back to Cambridge. The possibilities are endless, really."

Astrid rose from her stool. "Walter, I'm sure they'll be back soon," she assured him. "Peter's gonna be fine...and Olivia. You'll see."

The doctor smiled thinly, and then nodded. "Yes. I'm sure you're quite correct, dear." His tone was suspiciously light. He twisted off the Bunsen burners, then gazed with a critical eye at a thermometer hanging inside one of the beakers and nodded to himself. "I believe this is ready, so I think I'll continue with my research on our friend while we wait. Would you care to assist me, Astral?"

Charlie frowned at the doctor's refusal to use Agent Farnsworth's proper name, but he made no comment. The junior agent always answered to whatever he called her—and it changed daily. The two of them had a strange relationship. Was it affection? Alzheimer's setting in? He hoped for all their sakes it was the former.

"Oh. Of...course," Astrid replied, glancing uneasily toward the back of the lab. "I can't wait..."

"Excellent," Walter exclaimed, cinching his white lab coat tighter. "I like your enthusiasm for scientific endeavor, Agent Farnsworth. You'll make a fine research assistant someday, my dear."

He crossed over to the far side of the lab with the clearly squeamish junior agent trailing behind. A single table stood alone there, next to the old metal tank that he'd yet to discover the purpose of. He'd looked in it once, and found it full of water. A towel-covered lump rose up from the table's center. The formerly-white towel was filthy, and Walter pressed his fingers into latex gloves before tossing it aside.

Sonia flinched slightly behind him, but for the first time chose to remain in the lab with the new addition unveiled. He took her hand and walked her closer to the table. Her grip was tentative at first, but tightened with every step. And he couldn't blame her for being scared. The thing on the table was disturbing, something out of a nightmare. It would have been so even if the dead coming back to life hadn't been commonplace.

Severed heads tended to be that way.

With that advent of un-death, it was a thousand times worse. This one had been a woman, middle-aged, possibly a wife, a mother—someone he might have passed on the street or in the grocery store without a second glance. What was left of its dark hair was cut short, similar to his wife's, but wavy where Sonia's was straight. One of its yellow eyes dangled below its gaping eye socket, suspended from a thick bundle of what he assumed were nerves and muscle tissue coated in coagulated blood. The other eye swiveled toward them, watching their approach with a burning single-mindedness. Grayish teeth snapped silently like a fish suffocating out of water. The head was suspended between two metal stands, and secured in place by circular clamps above each ear. A small plastic tub sat underneath and collected the fluids that dripped from the stump of its neck.

Charlie had made the mistake of looking in the tub once, and only once. The fumes drifting up from it had made his eyes water. Morbidly, the head was wearing an old Red Sox hat of all things.

"What's with the hat, Dr. Bishop?" he asked, stopping some distance from the table with Sonia. He leaned up against the side of the tank and watched as Walter arranged his surgical tools on a tray next to the head.

"Ah...I removed the upper portion of Judy's skull last night," Walter explained. "The hat seemed appropriate to cover her with, given the shirt she was wearing when we brought her in. I believe she was a big fan of the Sox."

"Judy?" Astrid inquired, arching an eyebrow. "You actually named it?"

"Of course," he told her, and picked up a thin metal probe, then spun it between his fingers. "She's providing us with valuable insight on the nature of the infection, Astro. I cut off the poor woman's head. Giving her a name was the least I could do as recompense."

"But why Judy?"

Walter stared blankly at her a moment, then held up a gloved hand. "Oh, yes...well, she reminded me of a young woman with whom I once had intercourse, during my second semester here at Harvard, if I recall. You see the mole on her cheek there?" He pointed to a spot on its cheek that could have been anything. "Ah...my Judy. She was quite the tenacious lover. And flexible too. She was able to position her legs so that I—"

"Eww...that's enough, Walter," Astrid cut in. Her face twisted with revulsion. "I'm sorry I asked. Let's just...focus on the present, okay?"

The old scientist frowned, taken aback by the lack of interest in the sexual conquests of his youth. He opened his mouth to protest.

"Have you learned anything new about the infection, Dr. Bishop?" Charlie spoke up quickly before he could. He'd witnessed Peter doing much the same before, to keep his father on track. He hoped they made it back soon. "How it spreads, or what's causing it?"

Walter threw the junior agent a sour look, then shrugged and looked down at the severed head. "I've learned very little that's useful, Agent...Francis. Yet." He glanced at Astrid. "Could you be a peach and get me that candle, dear?" After she returned with the candle—along with several others that she lit, and passed around the group—he removed the baseball cap and tossed it aside. "Come closer, all of you," he instructed, motioning with the metal probe. "You'll want to see this. It's quite fascinating."

"What is it?" Charlie asked, and took a step closer to the table.

Sonia followed him reluctantly, keeping his body between her and the severed head. His skin prickled as its remaining eye swiveled in its socket, following his progress.  _I'm in a goddamn freak show_ , he thought, trying to avoid its baleful gaze.  _How in the hell did I get here?_

Just a month ago he'd been working mostly normal cases, living a mostly normal life. Other than the incident on Flight 627, of course. And then there was the more recent case with the terrorist attack on the city bus. He and John had been called in to work alongside Liv for that case, and the little task force Broyles had assembled consisting of the Bishops and Astrid. He was still in the dark on who exactly had been responsible for the disturbing chemical that had been released on the bus. The gas had killed all on board—frozen them in place like Han Solo encased in carbonite. The bodies had had to be cut out with power tools. All of that seemed normal, in hindsight.

The dead rising. The collapse of civilization. Severed heads that looked back at him. It was no wonder he was seeing hallucinations, likely going mad. He was obsolete in this new world. A relic of a past age.  _A fucking dinosaur, soon to be extinct_.

"Baby? Are you okay?" A hand wrapped around his wrist.

Charlie started at Sonia's soft voice in his ear. He looked around, and found himself backed up against the tank's double doors. One of the handles was jabbing him in the back. Melted candle wax stung his fingertips. His wife was watching him anxiously, as was Astrid, who wore a small frown.

Walter's eyes narrowed. "Yes, you are looking a bit tepid, Agent Francis," he commented. "Are you feeling ill?"

He cleared his throat, then rubbed his temple, counter-pressure to the pulsing ache building underneath. "No...I'm fine," he told them both. His throat felt coated in sandpaper, raw, and dry as the Sahara. "That thing was watching me. It just...freaked me out for a second there, that's all."

"She is rather chilling, isn't she?" Walter agreed, sounding like a proud father. "Quite harmless, though, unless you're interested in her dental work. You're not a dentist, are you, Agent Francis? I'm worried I may be developing a cavity."

"What? No!"  _A dentist?_  What the hell was he talking about? Charlie shook his head, then returned to the table, careful to remain outside the head's field of view. "What did you want us to see?"

The doctor eyed him for a moment before glancing down at the head. "Ah...yes," he began, "as I was saying, I removed a portion of Judy's skull last night, in order to directly observe the effects of the infection on the human brain." Walter raised his candle, exposing a square-shaped cut-out centered on top of the severed head. Shadows danced on wrinkled, gray flesh just below the serrated edge of the fissure.

To Charlie's surprise, Sonia stepped up beside him and glanced down at the head. "I guess that's the brain right there?" she asked with a grimace, before swallowing and looking away.

"Indeed it is, Mrs. Francis," Walter nodded. "Contrary to the popular nomenclature, the living brain is actually mostly pinkish in hue rather than gray, similar to the color of your cheek, dear. It is only after death that the tissue drains of oxygenated blood, and becomes the prototypical, 'gray matter', so to speak."

"How'd you manage cut through the skull without killing it?" Charlie asked, staring down at the curved ridges and valleys. The mottled flesh appeared to pulsate grotesquely in the candlelight.

"Very delicately," Walter answered. "Luckily, I've had experience doing this sort of thing before."

"You...have?" Sonia murmured. Her step backward seemed involuntary.

"Oh yes, on several occasions," he said with a nod. "Though most of my subjects still had their heads attached to their bodies at the time, and were alive." He gestured with the probe, circling it over the square-shaped cut. "Now. As you can clearly see, Judy's brain tissue is in fact gray. And beginning to decay, I might add. All of which would normally indicate that she is deceased, despite her head's obvious state of animation."

"So...what does that tell us?" Astrid wanted to know.

"Well, isn't it obvious?" Walter's gaze shifted between the three of them, like a professor waiting for the one student with the answer to raise their hand.

Astrid shrugged, and exchanged glances with Charlie and Sonia. "Not to me, no."

"Don't ask me," Charlie added, massaging his temple.

"Or me..." Sonia put in. "I'm sorry, I don't understand, either, Dr. Bishop."

"Oh come now," Walter scoffed with disapproval. "It's elementary, even for layman such as yourselves."

"Why don't you just tell us in a language we can understand?" Astrid told him bluntly. She struck a no-nonsense pose, hands on hips, lips pursed. Charlie had seen a similar look on his wife on many occasions—usually when he was acting the fool.

Walter frowned, then wiped his hands on the breast of his lab coat. "I thought I did...," he said, stroking his chin. "Was I speaking in another tongue? German perhaps? Greek?"

The pulsing in Charlie's head suddenly intensified, became a spike pounding through his brain. He blinked and stared down at the floor, teeth straining against the mounting pressure. His hearing receded, then left him behind. Only the hammer driving the spike inward remained, sending forked bolts of lightning shooting down his spine. The world tilted, and he struggled to stay upright, to remain conscious. Bile rose in his throat, gritty and sour in his mouth. His stomach heaved...and then the pain was gone, vanished as if it had never been. He drew in a much-needed breath and glanced at the others. None seemed aware of his...condition.

 _Jesus Christ..._  The headaches were getting worse, more frequent.  _That's not good, Charlie_ , he told himself. How long could he keep them secret? Sonia wouldn't be fooled for long, or Liv for that matter. Both knew him well enough to recognize that there was something going on with him, eventually.

Time had passed. How much, he wasn't sure, but Walter was droning on, with Sonia and Astrid listening intently. From the looks on their faces he might have been speaking gibberish.

"...that the cause of the infection, the source of this...un-life, so to speak," Walter was saying. He paced the far side of table, gesticulating with an upraised finger. "It is not in the blood in and of itself, as there's little-to-none left inside her skull. Furthermore, as this head has been removed from the body, there is no heart to pump said blood in any case, yet it remains animated. In addition, the occipital and posterior parietal regions of the cerebrum evoke none of the classic responses to direct electrical stimulation."

"Well, seeing how the only way to kill these things is through the head," Astrid said, "it makes sense that it would still be alive without its heart. As for the rest...I assume you're talking about parts of the brain?"

"Of course," the doctor replied with an impatient nod. "The parietal and occipital lobes of the cerebrum..." At their blank looks, he threw up hands. "The pre-motor and visual centers of cerebral cortex! Did they teach you nothing in school?"

"Walter!" Astrid growled, stamping her foot. "Just tell us what you're getting at. And how did you stimulate its brain with electricity, anyway?"

"Oh...well, I found a battery-powered multi-meter among Peter's belongings...," he explained, then lowered his head. "It's a...a device for measuring—"

"I know what a multi-meter is," she interrupted. "I've been repairing computers since I was a kid. You used the resistance measurement setting, didn't you? To send a current across the two leads."

Walter looked up and his face broke into a smile. "You're quite right, my dear," he told her. "That's very intuitive of you. The method is rather rudimentary, of course, and I certainly wouldn't recommend doing it to a live human...but if the creature's brain was still functioning in any normal sort of way, there should have been some reaction. A facial twitch, dilation or movement of the eyes, something."

"So what are you saying?" Charlie spoke up. "That these things are all brain-dead? Why is that the only way to kill them then?"

"That is indeed the question, isn't it, Agent Francis?" he replied, and resumed his pacing, arms crossed. "Why is the brain at the center of whatever...force that's animating them? As far as I can detect, the brains are completely non-functional, brain-dead, as you said. There's no logic to it...and yet there must be something, some underlying order guiding the process."

"What if there's not?" Sonia wanted to know.

"There must be. The universe demands it."

"Well, how will you figure it out then?"

Walter stopped his pacing and spun on his heels. "By doing the same thing mankind has been doing since the days of Ptolemy and Aristotle, Mrs. Francis," he stated in a surprisingly dignified voice. "Experimentation and observation. We'll start immediately." He flung his hand toward one of the lab's many alcoves, tucked back under one of the brick archways. "Astro, please retrieve that bucket over there in the corner for me. Don't be alarmed by its contents, young lady."

Astrid hesitated, and gave the doctor an uneasy frown. "You know, when you say that, Walter," she said, crossing over to a white bucket sitting up against the wall. "It means that I should be..." She bent for the bucket's handle, then straightened suddenly and looked away. Her hand flew to her mouth. "Walter...why are there hands and feet in this? Ugh...they're still moving!"

"Precisely, my dear." Walter nodded. He motioned her back to the table. "A curious development, wouldn't you say? Completely separated from the host body, yet the animation still persists."

Charlie glanced around the shadow-filled corners of the lab. The thought of a handless, footless, and headless body laid out, twitching and squirming somewhere nearby in the dark was profoundly disturbing. "Where's the rest of the body?" he asked.

"Peter and I tossed it out the back door the day Agent Scott was killed," he said. "I assume it's still there. Come now, Agent Farnsworth. The little experiment I have in mind will tell us much, and hopefully prove a theory of mine. And it could prove to be therapeutic as well."

Reluctantly, the junior agent reached for the handle, keeping her gaze averted. She set the bucket on the table next to the severed head and then stepped back. "What now?"

Walter upended the bucket on the table. The hands and feet tumbled out, grime-covered fingers and toes grasping and wiggling rhythmically. Charlie's stomach roiled at the sight, and he felt a shudder run through Sonia, who had pressed in close to his back.

"The time has come to say our goodbyes to Judy," he announced. "She's been a faithful old girl, but I'm afraid she's outlived her usefulness. And I don't believe I can tolerate the smell of her for another day. I had a dreadful time getting to sleep last night," he added, turning his nose, before gesturing with one finger held high. "Now, if what I suspect is true, then the severed limbs will remain animate, independent of the head. Who would like to do the honors?" When no one spoke up, he smiled, then turned to Sonia. "Mrs. Francis...may I call you Sonia?"

"Um...sure, if you'd like," she replied nervously.

"Sonia, then," he said, maintaining his smile. "Given your...traumatism after your harrowing journey to Cambridge...I believe that it might do you some good, help you manage some of your fear of the creatures...if you were the one to put poor Judy out of her misery. Would you care to?"

 _What?_ Charlie shook his head. "No. I don't think so, Bishop," he opposed, taking a step forward. "She doesn't need that. I'll do it."

Sonia's hand closed about his arm, holding him back. "Charlie...," she uttered softly. "I think I can do it. I think...I think I want to do it."

He looked back, surprised, and searched her face for any doubts, then pulled her aside. "Are you sure, babe?" he asked her quietly, running his thumb across her cheek. "You don't have to...there's no need."

She nodded, and leaned into his palm. "There is a need," she whispered in return. "I can't just...keep going on this way, Charlie. I...I lied to you earlier. When I woke up this morning and you weren't there..." Her eyes closed for a moment before opening and staring directly into his. "God, I was...so scared—I could hardly think, hardly breathe. I had to force myself to get up, to not curl up in a ball and hide under the covers like I have every other morning. When I dream...all I see is you, instead of Agent Rodriguez, getting pulled under. Something could happen to you, Charlie. Olivia was right. I have to start pulling my own weight. I can't rely on you and everyone else to do everything for me forever."

"You heard that?"

Sonia pulled away from his hand and patted his cheek. "Of course..." She grinned her secret smile, the one she'd always reserved just for him. "I love you, baby."

She pulled his head down. Her kiss was light and feathery, and tasted like her—like home. He nearly told her then about his headaches, how he might possibly be going mad. But he just couldn't bring himself to, even though he was sure he was going to regret it later when it all came out. And it would come out eventually, one way or the other.

"And I love you, too," Charlie said instead, and pulled her into a tight embrace. After several heartbeats he released her, catching her eye as she turned away and moved to Walter's side. He followed her, positioning himself in front of the head's good eye. It locked onto his movement, then gazed up at him ominously.

"What do I need to do?" she asked. Muscles in her cheek flexed as she gazed down at the exposed brain tissue.

Walter passed her the surgical probe he'd been handling. "A single thrust through any of the exposed regions should do the trick," he explained. "It shouldn't require much force on your part."

Sonia examined the slim metal rod for a moment, testing the rounded point on one end with her thumb. Her lips thinned, and then without warning, the steel probe flashed in the dim light. She brought it down in a vicious stab, burying it in the grayed flesh down to her tendon-popping grip. The blow was a barely heard  _thunk;_  the silence that followed after: deafening. The head's single eye went slack. Charlie could have pinpointed the exact moment that whatever malevolence dwelt inside the creature vanished.

"Oh...," Walter started, glancing between Sonia and her hand, still gripping the shaft of metal like a vice. "Or...a great deal of force will work just as well."

Astrid blinked, then clapped with delight. "You've got some skills, Sonia," she acknowledged with a laugh. "Nice work."

The corners of Sonia's lips rose slightly, and she uncurled her fingers one by one from around the metal rod. "That felt really good...," she murmured. Her cheeks reddened, and she stepped away from the table. There was an eagerness to her demeanor that sent relief coursing through Charlie's veins.

He turned his attention to the severed hands and feet lying on the table. There was no sign of their former activity. The digits were still and lifeless. "So they stopped moving," he said to Walter. "What does that mean? I thought you said that they would stay alive, or whatever they are."

Walter had noticed the lifeless limbs. He appeared utterly perplexed. One of his hands was pulling at his hair, the other absently rubbing circles over the front of his lab coat. "I...I...thought they would," he managed to stutter. "This...this changes everything. All of my research up to this point—it's useless."

"Useless? Why would it be useless?" Astrid asked. She frowned at the hands and feet, then pushed them off the table and back into the bucket.

"I have been working under the assumption that this infection, this disease, this contagion—whatever it is, that it was in the blood, in the flesh. That it had a biological origin. It made sense. The human body is a biological machine, after all."

"So what the hell are you saying, Doc?" Charlie said. He didn't like the sound of what he was telling them. Not at all. "If the infection isn't biological, what else can it be? You're not gonna tell me it's supernatural, are you? 'Cause I don't believe it."

Walter went still, hands frozen in place. "I'm not prepared to lay the blame at the feet of the Almighty just yet, Agent Francis," he said softly. "Much remains undiscovered, until it is." His eyes narrowed and went distant, focused on some invisible spot in front of him. After several moments of this, he nodded and went on. "While initially discouraging, this phenomenon may actually narrow down the possibilities, somewhat."

"In what way?" Astrid interposed.

"They were linked—the severed head and limbs. Completely separate from one another, yet still part of some greater whole. It's distinctive. Almost suggestive, wouldn't you say?"

"No, not really," she replied. "It sounds like you're saying that the infection is some kind of mystical force that takes over the body when somebody dies or gets bitten. If that's not supernatural, I don't know what is."

"Nonsense," Walter scoffed, shaking his head with disapproval. "We know very little about some of the most fundamental forces of nature, my dear, yet we know that they exist. Take gravity, for instance. It affects you every moment of your life, but our understanding of it is still incomplete. The graviton is devastating to the Standard Model. Dark matter, dark energy—they're voids in our knowledge. We posit that they must exist, but have no idea what they actually are. We can only see the shape of them, their outlines, through our mathematics."

"What's your point?" Charlie said, and glanced at the others. It was comforting to see that Sonia and Astrid appeared just as confused as he felt.

"My point, Agent Francis...," the doctor explained. "Is that I now suspect that the solution—or at least, defining our specific problem—lies not in the field of biology as I had presumed, but in the realm of particle physics."

"Particle physics?"

"Yes, atomic and subatomic particles. You've heard of these, yes?" Charlie shrugged an uncomfortable affirmative, at which Walter frowned, and then continued. "While not exactly what we're dealing with here, it is possible for two particles to be...connected, entangled, so to speak, if they have common origins in time and space. The state of one particle can affect the state of the other, despite being separated by distances that would be considered vast on a microscopic scale. Einstein referred to the state of entanglement as 'spooky action at a distance', and despised the idea, even though his own equations pointed to its existence." He paused, and studied his hands in silence for a moment, before resuming in a troubled voice. "But he was wrong. Entanglement is very real...with very real consequences. I...I need to think on this. Please let me know the instant Peter arrives," he said, then abruptly spun away from them and hurried toward the steps to his basement storeroom.

"What about this head?" Charlie called after his departing back. "Dr. Bishop...?"

There was no reply from the old scientist, and a moment later he disappeared below the floor line. Charlie's hands drifted up to his temples, staving off another headache.  _Where the hell are you, Liv? I can't do this by myself._ And then there was Peter. As much as he hated to admit it, not having him there to act as a buffer between his father and themselves was glaring. Maybe that was why Liv had kept him around.

Astrid stepped up to the head and released it from the clamps holding it in place. It fell into the tub with a nauseating thump. The junior agent bent forward, covering her mouth with the back of her gloved hand. "Ugh...this might be the most disgusting thing I've ever seen," she gasped. When her stomach stopped its heaving, she straightened and lifted the head by its ears and dropped it in the bucket, then gingerly placed the hands and feet on top of it. "Well, I've done my part. You can take it outside, Agent Francis."

Charlie swallowed and reached for the handle. "You know, you can just call me Charlie, Astrid," he told her. "I think we're way past FBI formalities at this point, don't you?"

"I know, sir...," she said, pulling off the latex gloves. She tossed them inside the bucket, and then lowered her head. "I just...it makes me feel like things are normal, like we're not all living inside of some horrible nightmare. I can stop if you want, though...if it bothers you."

Sonia stepped forward and pulled the younger woman into hug. "Sweetie, you can call him anything you want, if it makes you feel better, even for an instant. He doesn't mind, do you, Charlie?" From the sharp look she sent his way, in no way was it a question, or a request.

"Sure, whatever you want," he agreed, and lifted the bucket from the table. It was heavier than he thought it would be. "I'm gonna get rid of this, and see if there's any sign of Liv and Peter. Doctor Bishop was right about one thing; they should have been back by now." His wife nodded, and waved him away. Charlie eyed the two women for a moment, then left them behind.

#

#

Charlie lugged the bucket out of the lab and up the stairs to the ground floor of the Kresge Building. The halls were silent and empty, filled with filtered darkness that the tiny candles did little to assuage. They'd had to cut back on them during the day, before they ran out of them completely.

They were going to run out of everything, eventually. At some point it would become necessary to leave the lab, leave Boston altogether. If they survived that long. They would have to take up farming, though he was no farmer. The damn cow was eating better than they were, though its supply of hay wasn't going to last. Last time he'd checked, the stack of hay next to its stall had less than ten bales left. And that had been days ago. Maybe they would be eating better soon.

He pushed open the door and stepped into the sunlight. The sun stood high above the horizon. It was almost noon-time by his estimation and by the hunger-pangs throbbing in his gut. The wind was blowing hard again, coming at him in strong bursts from the north this time. He leaned into it, heading toward the barricade. The lookout chair was where he'd left it, sitting atop the truck and holding strong against the gale.

When he reached the base of the inner wall, he lifted the bucket onto the hood of a beat-up Dodge and climbed up after it. Across the quad near one of the administration buildings, a group of infected numbering over a dozen stood huddled together in a group. From a distance, they looked like they could have been a gathering of students and their professor holding class outside. Or just average people out enjoying the sun on...whatever day of the week it was.

Until one looked closer, and noticed their stillness, their limp arms dangling from drooped shoulders. The dirt and grime covering their exposed skin. They were unnatural—things that should not exist. There was no sign of the one he'd seen earlier, the one he'd thought had called his name. He wondered what Father Steven at his old middle school would have made of the infected, of their tendency to rise from the grave. What lies he would have told to explain them away, to fit them inside the Church's paradigm, all nice and tidy.

 _There's no Jesus' here, Father,_ he thought darkly, and grabbed the bucket once more.  _If this is part of_ His _plan, then_ He _is one fucked-up individual._

Taking care to avoid looking inside the bucket, Charlie grabbed it again, and hopped down to the outer row of cars. He glanced up at his lookout chair on the truck next to him, then moved away from it, toward the iron fence that ran alongside Massachusetts Avenue. His thoughts meandered to the past, to the haze surrounding Rodriguez's death. It had been around then that he'd lost track of the weekday, along with the date.

He'd been adrift ever since. It was strange how something as simple as knowing what day it was could be an anchor, could keep oneself tethered to reality in some indescribable way. The monotony of their existence was beginning to take on the shape of a half-remembered dream. Night after night, each morning waking to the same dreariness, the same hunger in his belly. Could he have asked someone for the day? Liv likely knew; she had super-powers when it came to remembering things like that. Dr. Bishop could have told him probably also, but when it came down to it, what was the point? Each day was the same as the one that preceded it, and those that followed after would be cast in the same mold. Until they were dead—all of them. And even then, they wouldn't really be dead, would they? Was there peace in the hereafter? Peace in the flesh?

Charlie wiped his brow, unsurprised by the amount of sweat he found there. He wasn't made for this. Suddenly furious with himself, with life in general, he heaved the bucket off the barricade with a savage grunt that sounded like it came from another person. The bucket sailed in a silent arc toward an oak tree standing alone amid the leaves and landed with a crash that resounded across the quad. It tumbled end over end, ejecting its contents in a sickening display of flying hands and feet. The head rolled like a bowling ball, plowing a path through the leaves before finally coming to a rest facing the barricade. Its mouth gaped crookedly.

He exhaled a quivering breath, averting his gaze from its one-eyed stare, sightless as it was. Movement grabbed his attention. The small group of infected had heard the bucket, and were trudging southward toward the barricade. None of them were one of the fast-moving types, so he turned his back on them and pulled himself on top of the inner wall.

Seconds later, faint gunshots echoed to the south. Charlie froze, half upright, and listened. An automatic weapon. Not the same gun that he'd heard the day before. And the shots were coming from the southeast, instead of west. The gunfire went on for several seconds, maybe as many as ten, then died out. He waited for more cracks splitting the air, but heard only the wind blow. An uneasy feeling settled in his gut.

Straightening, he peered out over the fence-line that guarded the southern border of their little compound. The street beyond was clear, as it had been since the day Liv and Peter had left. The uneasy quality in the air intensified, and he loosened his service weapon in its holster. Something was wrong—going sideways. It was a familiar sensation—like something was tickling the inside of his head—and one he'd honed over his years serving in the NYPD, then fine-tuned later in the FBI. He trusted it implicitly.

So he stood by, waiting, anticipating, for whatever it was to happen. When nothing did after several minutes, he crossed over the trucks and SUVs, returning to the lookout chair.

Maybe he'd been wrong, he considered, dropping down on the wooden seat. A cop's intuition wasn't an exact science, after all. He reached for his holster, intending to refasten the snap. And that was when the gunfire started up again, closer than before.

It didn't stop for a long while.

#

* * *

#

The monsters were still following, still creeping along behind them. The dead-faces moved in and out of view, between and over the tops of cars and trucks parked in a line that seemed to go on forever. Other dead-faces crept out from their hiding places behind bushes and the narrow streets they passed by and joined up the others.

A tremor ran through Ella Blake, and she wondered if her daddy had looked like them before her aunt had made him all the way dead. One secret time when her mommy was asleep, she had tried to get a look at him, but the door had been locked and she'd been unable to get it open—much to her annoyance. Her mommy would have been  _really_  mad if she'd found out, though, so maybe it was better that she hadn't.

She looked back again, checked how close the monsters were. For monsters, they moved pretty slowly, she decided. Not like in the scary movie she'd once seen her father watching. Those monsters had moved fast, like monkeys, on both hands and feet. These dead-faces were far behind them, and getting farther.

"Keep up, baby girl," Aunt Liv said suddenly.

The sound of her aunt's voice surprised her—there had been little talking ever since they'd crossed the bridge over the river. Mommy and her aunt were a little ahead of her, standing next to a big truck. Her aunt's eyes were puffy and red, like how her mom's were sometimes when Daddy would yell. Her father had yelled a lot. Mommy's hand or arm was broken—that's what she'd heard her aunt say back on the bridge. Where the bad men had been. The bad men had shot Mister Peter with their machine gun. Was that why Aunt Liv was sad? She wondered if he was dead—if he'd become one of the monsters like her daddy. The thought made her sad, too. He had made her laugh, telling her all sorts of funny jokes when she'd been riding on his shoulders.

"Ella, you need to get over here, now," Mommy said, using her almost-angry voice. Her broken hand looked gross, and Ella tried not to stare at it.

"Okay, I'm coming," she replied, and crossed the short distance separating them.

There was an old house on the corner, with a tall, square-shaped roof and faded red bricks. The houses in Boston were different than in Chicago. Everything was old here, not like at her house. She missed her house, missed her room and all her toys. Aunt Liv didn't have very many toys, and no Legos at all. She did have books, though. Ella liked books, and she already knew the whole alphabet, too.

"How's your head, Ella?" her aunt asked. "Do you want me to carry you some more?"

Aunt Liv had carried her off the bridge, past the monsters on the other side of the river. Her head had been hurting a lot then, and she didn't remember much of what happened when Mister Peter had disappeared. Loud gunfire, and her mommy crying. She remembered that much. Her head still hurt, but it was only a little hurt, not the big hurt it had been before. She thought her mom's hand might be a giant hurt, from the weird way it looked, bent all funny up against her tummy.

"I'm okay, Aunt Liv," she said, trying to sound like a big girl. "It only hurts some. How long is it until we get there?"

"It's close, sweetie, just a little farther," Aunt Liv told her, then pointed down the street, toward some tall buildings in the distance. They were pointed on top, and different than the other buildings she'd seen on the way. "You see those buildings there? They're close to where we're going."

Ella nodded, and looked back again at the monsters following behind them. They were a little closer now. Close enough for her to see that the one that she'd been watching for the last while was a boy, about the same size as herself. His dead-face was all wrinkled and gray, with hair as black as the night. She wondered how he'd become one of the monsters, and if his mommy and daddy were monsters, too.  _What does it feel like to be dead?_  She tried to picture it, but couldn't imagine how it could be, had trouble wrapping her mind around the idea.  _Like sleeping? Or dreaming?_  After a moment, she turned away from him. His yellow eyes were strange, and more than a little scary.

She walked between her mom and Aunt Liv on the sidewalk, keeping her eyes on the pointed roofs that grew larger with every step. They rose up, higher and higher, like castles from one of her princess movies. Was it a real castle? Castles had cows and horses and pigs. Mister Peter hadn't mentioned any horses or pigs, but there might be some, couldn't there be? Maybe some chickens, too. And a moat, with a draw bridge. Maybe there were alligators in the moat, and they would eat all the dead-faces. She thought of the alligators eating the boy-monster, and shivered at the image that came with it. After that, she tried not to think at all.

Eventually, a brown van blocked their path. The van was parked up against the black bars of the fence that ran along the sidewalk for a while. Aunt Liv moved out into the street and then stopped next to it. On the other side of the fence were bunches of leafless trees, and a smaller building, with tan bricks and square windows with brown bars. It did not look like a castle. The pointed roofs she'd seen earlier were still further off down the street.

"We're here," her aunt said softly, motioning toward the van with Mister Peter's crowbar. His backpack hung from one of her shoulders, on top her own. They both looked heavy. "The lab's through there."

"Through where?" Mommy said. "That van?"

"Yeah. Peter...he parked it here." Aunt Liv's voice sounded all sad again. She pulled open a side door and motioned them inside. "It makes a pretty good gate. None of the infected can pass through it. C'mon."

Ella waited for Aunt Liv to help her mom climb inside, and then stepped up after them. She found herself in a small place with long carpet that felt crusty under her knees. A pair of chairs with torn fabric faced a long bench across the back side of the van. The inside was dim, and smelled like the inside of her daddy's old boots—she'd heard her mother say that something had died in them once, though she'd been unable to find any bodies. She pinched her nose and waited for her aunt to move, to take them out of the yucky place. Aunt Liv crouched in front of the opposite door, staring down at the floor for what seemed like forever, before finally glancing back at her mom, and then pushing open the door.

They passed through the van to an open area with a wide walkway lined with barren trees with wide branches that hung low. The sidewalk zig-zagged to the same tan building she'd seen earlier from the street. Trucks parked in a line formed a wall to the left, all different sizes and shapes and colors.

She eyed the trucks with interest, imagining how much fun it might be to run and jump up and down the peaks and valleys of their uneven tops. A man with dark hair was sitting in a chair on top of one of them. She wondered if he thought climbing on them was fun too. His back was to them, and he was staring down into his lap holding his head with both hands. The man jerked to his feet when Aunt Liv slammed the van door shut behind them.

He spun around, knocking the chair off the truck's roof. It tumbled off on the inside of the wall and crashed into the thick leaves piled up below. "Jesus, Liv," the man said, running his hands through his hair. "It's about time. Was that gunfire I heard earlier from you? I've been worried sick. Doctor Bishop's been begging me to form a search party. I was almost ready to..." He looked past them toward the van, then over it, out into the street beyond. When he looked back at Aunt Liv again, his face looked scary, like her daddy's sometimes when he got mad. "Where's Bishop? Don't tell me..." He jumped down from the truck and started toward them. A gun similar to her aunt's peeked out from inside his jacket.

Aunt Liv shook her head, wiping at her eyes with one hand. "We ran into some other survivors, Charlie," she said. Her voice sounded different to Ella—fierce in a way she'd never heard it before. Angry. Very angry. "When we were crossing over the Charles. Infected were almost on us...and they...they shot Peter in the back. He fell in the river...and I couldn't...there was nothing I could do. We almost made it..."

"Shit...," the man named Charlie cursed under his breath. Ella goggled and covered her mouth as he scrubbed his hands through his short hair. She waited for her mother to yell at the man, but she remained silent. She took note of her mother's new behavior as the man started to speak again. "Doctor Bishop's gonna freak. Is he dead?"

"I...don't know. I—I...couldn't tell." Her aunt looked down at her hand, rubbing her fingers and thumb together. "There's a chance that he's not."

"Damn it." The man said, and glanced at her and Mommy, eyeing them up and down. "I'm Charlie Francis," he told them, and the scariness vanished from his face like magic. "Sorry for my language. I take it you must be Liv's sister and niece. Nice to meet you both, finally. I'm sorry it's not under better circumstances."

"Charlie, this is my sister Rachel and her daughter Ella," Aunt Liv told him. "I think Rachel's wrist is broken. Walter needs to take a look at it, but first...I'm gonna have to tell him about Peter. Where is he now?"

"He said something about needing to think, then disappeared into that basement storage room of his. He's not in a good mood. We did a little experiment this morning, and it didn't turn out the way he thought it would."

"Is that so...," Aunt Liv said. "What was the experiment?"

Ella wandered away from them before she could hear the man's answer—the wall of trucks was much more interesting to her almost-five-year-old mind. She trudged through the thick leaves, catching glimpses of green grass underneath with every footstep. The leaves grew deeper at the base of the truck, climbing almost all the way up to her knees. She smiled, and kicked at their weight on her shoes before pulling herself up on the front tire of the truck nearest in line. There was another row of cars on the other side.

She lifted up on her tippy-toes and peered over both rows of vehicles. Pointed rooftops rose up, much closer than they had been from the street. Her view of the building was blocked by a number of trees, but she could still make out the reddish bricks and rectangular windows through the leafless branches. To her disappointment, there was no moat guarding the castle, nor any alligators moving about, though they could have been hiding—it was still a little far away. She wondered what was inside the building, what secret places there might be to explore there. She liked exploring, liked discovering new places, imagining the important things that might have happened there. At least, she thought she did.

In between the wall of cars and trucks and the castle-building was a huge, open space with trees scattered about randomly. Wooden benches—much like those at a park near her house in Chicago—sat underneath the trees next to sidewalks mostly buried by fallen leaves. The open space was filled with the monsters, more than she could count. At least ten-hundred of them. They staggered through the leaves, leaving trails behind that she could follow with her eyes until they became lost amid the many criss-crossing paths.

One of the monsters was close. The creature hobbled along the outer row of cars toward her perch, rubbing up against the doors and mirrors. Its dead-face was long and withered like a raisin, with eyes that glowed gold with some inner life of their own. Part of one cheek was missing, like it had been torn or eaten away. She eyed the stringy flesh with revulsion.

The monster pawed at the car windows, revealing a thin wrist protruding from its dirty coat, hand and fingers curved into jagged hooks. Closer it came, three cars away, then two, until it was directly was across from her, where it stopped.

Ella's heart thundered in her chest. She'd never seen one of the monsters so close before, at least one that was still alive. Back at the bridge, there had been too many to look at just one by itself. This one had spotted her—it knew that she was watching it watch her.

Should she tell Aunt Liv?

The monster's wrinkled lips opened, showing her its teeth. They were gray, almost to the point of being black. Several of them were missing, others broken off into sharp points like fangs. Its eyes latched onto her, held her still with their strangeness. The teeth opened, then closed with a sharp  _snap!_  that sent an electric jolt zipping through her chest and out through her arms and legs. She wanted to climb down off the tire, to call out for help. Instead, the yellow-gold eyes stopped her voice, froze her in place.

It wanted her, wanted to taste her flesh. To rip it away, strip by bloody strip with its pointed teeth. It was going to eat her. Her inner-eye had already imagined it, already pictured it. It was going to climb over the car, then onto the truck. It would reach for her, grab her by the hair and pull her off her feet. Its touch would be cold, the skin dry and rough like sand. Needle-like teeth would tear into her. Just like in her dreams.

"Ella, get down from there, honey. We're going inside."

Her mother's voice snapped the paralysis that had gripped her. Ella exhaled, then let go of the truck's antenna. She jumped back down to the leaves and massaged her cramping fingers.

"I'm coming, Mommy," she called, taking one last glance back at the monster. In the narrow gap between the trucks, its claws scratched at the car blocking its path. She shivered, then hurried back to the others.

#

#

The inside was dark and creepy. Not someplace she would have gone willingly without a grownup. Cones of light cast by tiny candles set along the tiled floor barely reached the high ceiling overhead. The widely-spaced candles made a line down a long hallway lined with closed doors and intricate benches for seating along both walls.

"This is where you worked, Liv?" Mommy asked as the door shut behind them. "Weren't there students here?"

Aunt Liv nodded, looking around in the faint light. "There were," she said. "We were interrupted more than once by a lost undergrad. C'mon, it's this way." She grabbed Ella's hand and pulled her along the line of candles down the wide corridor. "The lab is in the basement. That's where my room is, along with Astrid's...and Peter's. Walter's room is in the lab itself. Charlie and his wife have one of the classrooms on this floor."

"Are you sure there's a cow in here?" Ella wondered aloud, trying to get a glimpse inside the rooms they passed by. "Because that seems...a little weird, Aunt Liv. Can cows go down steps?"

"Oh, there's a cow all right," the man named Charlie said from behind her. She looked back and saw that he'd taken her mother's backpack and slung it over one of his shoulders. She decided that she liked him, but was going to watch him carefully—her Burlap Bear was in that backpack. "At least for now..." he added under his breath.

Ella didn't think she was supposed to hear the last part, but she had anyway. Grownups never thought she heard them when they were trying to be quiet, including her mom and dad. She wondered what he'd meant. Was there a cow or wasn't there? She hoped Mister Peter hadn't been tricking her. Adults were like that, sometimes, in her experience. "Is there really a cow, Aunt Liv?" she asked quietly, looking up at her aunt.

Her aunt glanced down and smiled. In the candlelight, she appeared even more beautiful than normal. Almost like a queen from one of her storybooks. "There sure is, baby girl," she replied with a grin. "She's kind of like...Walter's pet, in a way. Like a dog or a cat."

"Who is Walter?" she wanted to know. She'd heard his name mentioned before. He had a cow for a pet? Could a cow even be a pet? Mona from her school had claimed to have a pig, but she'd never seen it. She wasn't sure she believed her friend, but it might be true if cows could be pets also.

"Walter is Peter's father, Ella," Aunt Liv said, stopping as they reached an open door at the end of the hall. "He's also a scientist, and very, very smart. The lab's down these steps." She motioned toward the darkness spilling out into the corridor from within.

Ella squeezed her aunt's hand, eying the doorway and the thick blackness inside the stairwell doubtfully. While she'd often insisted that she was no longer afraid of the dark, there was a secret place inside her, down at the very bottom of her tummy that still was. A place where cruel and unshapen terrors lingered, monsters awaiting their turns to come out of hiding.

 _It has to be safe, silly_ , she told herself.  _Aunt Liv said so_.

Aunt Liv bent and picked up one of the nearby candles. "Here, baby girl," she said, and passed it to her. "Is that better?"

The candle was tiny, barely larger than a quarter. White wax in a silver cup made of metal. The metal was warm to the touch, but not too hot. Ella looked up from the dancing flame and nodded, then followed her aunt through the doorway. She balanced the little cylinder on her palm, careful not to spill any of the hot wax. She'd already made that mistake in her aunt's apartment. Melted wax hurt...even though it  _had_  been kind of fun to peel off after it had cooled.

"Be careful with that, Ella," her mom said. "You remember what happened in your aunt's apartment?"

"I know, Mommy," she said, rolling her eyes where her mother couldn't see.

There were steps going up and down, and Ella glanced at the upward path with curiosity before taking the downward steps after her aunt. The walls were made of large bricks painted white that glowed in her candlelight. The bricks grew dirtier as they descended toward the basement, the white paint began to chip and peel away to reveal a dull gray color underneath. A faint odor that wrinkled her nose hung in the hair. Her only association with the smell was one of dead people. She imagined the stairs leading down to some awful dungeon, full of wicked men with sharp knives and hooks, and rooms in which people went in but never came out. At least not alive, or with their skin.

At the bottom of the steps, she hesitated, then let Aunt Liv pull her down another hallway, similar to the one above, only narrower and even darker if that were possible. More candles were lit, but they only highlighted the pitch-blackness of the places in between.

This was her new home. That's what her aunt had said. She wasn't sure how she felt about that. There were no windows, no toys for her to play with that she had seen. The doors they passed by were all wooden, and seemed as ancient as time, riddled with jagged scratches and odd-shaped dents. She imagined some formless monstrosity doing its best to claw its way through, with its hideous snarls and pointed fangs.

 _There are no monsters in here_ , she repeated in her head.  _No creatures trying to get in_. Her aunt had promised they would be safe, and she never lied. Her mother had told her so while they'd been waiting at her apartment.

 _Your aunt will come back for us_ , Mommy had said while they were huddled on the couch one day, after her dad had locked himself away.  _She promised she would._

Ella had been full of doubt. It had been days and days already. And the monsters were everywhere. _What if she doesn't?_  she had asked.  _Or worse, what if she's dead?_  She'd been too afraid to say that part out loud.

 _She will_ , her mom had assured her, pulling her onto her lap.  _Your aunt always keeps her promises_.

That had been three or four days ago, and her mommy had been right. Aunt Liv had come, just as she'd promised. "Well, this is it," she announced suddenly, stopping in front of a particularly ancient looking door.

A window of rippled glass was set in the door's upper half. Letters in black ran across the window's surface, mostly faded. The  _W,_  and an  _S,_  and a  _P_ were the most unbroken letters that she recognized. "What did it say, Aunt Liv?" she asked, pointing at the window.

"It says, Dr. Walter Bishop. This was his lab when he was professor...a...a teacher here, many years ago." She took a breath, then pushed open the wooden door and walked inside.

Ella followed her through the door, and into a huge room, with high ceilings and odd ramps and raised parts of floor. Lit candles dotted the maze of tables and countertops, flickering and twinkling like stars in the night sky. She walked slowly down a short flight of steps after her aunt, taking in the wonderful strangeness in front of her.

A curling and twisting mess of glass tubes and cylinders sitting on a counter in the center of the room held her attention, then the shiny metal square hanging from the ceiling above them. The glass tubes looked fragile, like they might shatter with only the tiniest of breaths. She tore her gaze from the center table, to the shelves lining the walls, filled all kinds of  _things_ , from top to bottom. She turned in a slow circle, taking in the rest of the room. Most of the other counters and tables were covered in other  _things_  also, tools maybe, machines and little boxes with strange and secret purposes. Brick arches ran across one side of the room, low enough that she thought Mister Peter might have had to duck underneath them. Beyond the arches was a wall that was mostly windows, though they appeared to look into another room, instead of the outside. Her gaze stopped on a giant metal box standing by itself. She wondered what the small bundles of wires hanging off the box were for. She moved on to an old piano sitting up against the wall, and wondered who could play it before continuing her spin.

She had almost completed her circle when she saw it. Her eyes popped.  _It's really here!_  she thought excitedly. And it was looking at her! The black and white cow had a little stall of its own, tucked out of the way in one corner of the lab. A small stack of hay bales sat close by, and she remembered how Mister Peter had promised her that she would be able to feed it.

Ella was about to walk over to the stall when she heard a voice, a girl's, coming from close by. A head came into view, rising seemingly out of the floor itself. She stared in wonder at this new development, then saw that it was only another flight of stairs, and that the voice belonged to a thin woman, with curly black hair. She was wearing jeans and a striped blouse and looked like she might be nice.

"Walter," the woman said, glancing back down the steps behind her. "You can't hide out down there all day. You should eat something. Let me warm you up some soup, at least. I think we have another can of that minestrone you liked so much..." The woman stopped near the top and glanced back, shaking her head. "Suit yourself," she muttered. "Can't say I didn't try..." She stared downward for a moment, then turned and finished her climb up the steps. She started toward them, then yelped in surprise. "Olivia! You're back."

"Yeah. We're back." Aunt Liv said, setting Peter's big hook down on one of the tables. She sounded sad, and tired. The backpacks slipped from her shoulders and dropped to the floor in a clump.

 _She's sad for Mister Peter_ , Ella thought, watching her closely.

"Walter's brooding down in his storage room. He's gonna be so relieved that you're here." The woman started to retreat back to the steps.

"Astrid," Aunt Liv said quickly. "I have to talk to Walter. Alone."

The woman named Astrid frowned, and looked past her aunt, to herself and to her mother, and then to Mister Charlie standing behind them. "Where's Peter?" she asked. When Aunt Liv didn't answer, the woman's hands rose slowly to her lips. Her head turned from side to side. "Oh no...," she whispered through her fingers. "He's not...please don't tell me that he...he's—"

"I have to talk to Walter right now, Astrid," Aunt Liv said again, then moved past the other woman and hurried toward the stairs.

The woman, Astrid, turned and watched her disappear down the steps. A scary and awful silence filled the lab. Ella's tummy felt icky all of a sudden—like the first time she'd listened to her parents through her bedroom door. They'd thought she was asleep. Their quiet anger had been like watching the stars fall from the sky, one by one. It was grownup trouble. She glanced between her mom, Mister Charlie, and the dark-haired woman, looking for some clue as to how she should be.

The silence lasted only a heartbeat.

"Where is my son?" The sudden cry was man's voice, deep and full of pain. "Where's Peter?"

Aunt Liv's voice was quiet and pleading in response, and a wail rose up from the stairwell. Ella flinched at the terrible sadness in it. She'd never seen or heard a man cry before, had never thought that they  _could_  cry. What did it mean? What would happen? The woman named Astrid started to cry also, and then her mom.

And that was when Ella decided that maybe she should, too.


	9. A Tuft of Grass

**-October 2008**

Olivia looked on as Walter examined her sister's swollen wrist.

The aged scientist's eyes were still watery and red from his earlier tears, but he appeared to be holding it together. His touch on Rachel's wrist was surprisingly delicate, considering his refusal to even look at it initially upon her request.

He had taken the news of what had happened to Peter at the bridge about as well as she'd expected—which was to say, not well at all. In his tear-stricken rage he'd lashed out at her, laying the blame directly at her feet.  _You promised me, Olivia..._  he'd said through his sobs.  _You promised you'd return him to me safely. Now I've lost him..._

She'd had no answer for him. How could she? She had promised, but there was no accounting for maniacs with machine guns. In the end, it had taken another promise from her to get him out of the basement storage room. A promise she intended to keep, somehow, though she hadn't broke the news to her sister or Charlie yet. That would have to come later.

Rachel inhaled sharply and let out a squeak. Her face was pale, eyes nearly popping out of her head.

"Try to hold still, Miss Dunham," Walter said. His voice was gentle, which Olivia took as a good sign. She waited for Rachel to correct him, but she seemed content with the Dunham surname. Considering how tumultuous their relationship had been from the get-go, she'd wondered before if her sister had ever truly embraced her dead husband's last name. Not that it mattered now. On the other hand, she supposed Ella thought of herself as a Blake, which was technically proper, and that Greg had protected them in the end. She wouldn't discourage or encourage either name. "I know this must hurt dreadfully, but it is important that you not make a sudden or sharp movements."

Her sister nod was sharp in response. A faint quiver ran through her as she bit down on the strap of leather Astrid had supplied to keep the pain at bay. The strap appeared to be working. Walter poked and prodded at the wrist for several minutes, squeezing at various points along her wrist and forearm. A dark, angry bruise extended from the palm of her hand, nearly to her elbow. His eyes narrowed at several points during his examination, but whether he'd found cause for concern, he didn't say.

"How does it look, Walter?" Olivia asked. "Will you be able to set it?"

Walter straightened, and rubbed at his chin. "It's difficult to say, Agent Dunham," he admitted with a shrug, keeping his gaze directed downward. "I believe it is most likely a distal radius fracture, though without access to an x-ray machine, ascertaining exactly where the break is, how severe it is, and whether or not surgery will be required to repair it properly..." He stopped and tittered unhappily. "...well, if there were an orthopedic surgeon on hand, at least. As it is, the best I can do right now is to put a splint on it, keep it elevated, and wait for some of this infernal swelling to go down. It's a pity we have no ice, as it would've lessened the time required considerably. I'm afraid you're just going to have to let nature take its course."

Rachel spit the strap from her mouth and looked up at him with concern. "Wha...what happens if I need surgery?" she said a little wildly. "Will you be able to do it, Dr. Bishop?"

"Me? Possibly...," Walter smiled and smacked his lips. "Although, I'm not a trained surgeon, my dear, but I have picked up a few things over the years due to the subject matter of my research, prior to my incarceration at St. Clair's."

"Your...what?" Rachel said, glancing nervously around the semi-circle of observers watching the proceedings.

 _Damn it, Walter..._  Olivia winced, and fished around for some explanation that might salvage the situation. She'd intended to try and convince him to keep his past...private—or least not make it part of the introductions—but had neglected to do so in the aftermath of Peter's shooting. It most likely would've been futile in any case. She had to be realistic about these things, after all. It was Walter she was dealing with.

"Walter...," Astrid spoke up before he could reply. "Could you do it if you had to?"

"And what'll happen if you can't?" Rachel added hastily. "Will I still be able to move it? It's not going to grow back like a...a hook or a claw or something is it?" Olivia couldn't blame her for sounding disturbed by the prospect.

Walter looked between the two women. "This lab is hardly a sterile environment, Miss Dunham," he said. "I may end up doing more harm than good. And even were I able to determine that such a surgery was needed, we simply lack the required provisions necessary to do so; anesthesia, plates, titanium screws. I can't even make a cast, though plaster-of-paris might work in a pinch, but we have none of that on hand, either." He picked up a roll of tan medical wrap and a thin length of wood about as long as her forearm. "As I said, with the lack of an x-ray, we're just going to have to wait and see. It's better than being dead, isn't it?" he muttered under his breath, shooting a dark glance in her direction.

Olivia lowered her head and sighed. His animosity toward her was not entirely undeserved. It might be better if she gave him a little space. She gave her sister a pat on the shoulder, then moved away from the examination chair to watch from a distance as Walter began deftly splinting up her arm with Astrid's help

She crossed over to Peter's table and gazed down at the projects he'd been working on. There were a number of disassembled head lamps, an assortment of rectangular color swatches, small hand tools, and other odds and ends she didn't recognize the use of. She picked up one of the color swatches—it felt almost like a piece of cling wrap—and held it up to a nearby candle. She supposed it was one of the light filters he'd mentioned. The flame flickered a pale green behind the thin piece of plastic. What had he called it? A dichroic gel? It didn't feel like a gel. He'd been very proud of himself—and for good reason, though she hadn't known it then. Why had she not listened when he'd tried to explain the way it worked to her? Another minute or two would have made no difference either way.

Olivia let the piece of tinted plastic slip from her fingers. She knew why. Her impatience had once again gotten the best of her. Peter deserved better than the fate she'd left him to. She searched her mind for anything she could have done differently back at the bridge, and during their frantic flight leading up to it. Would trying to hide, instead of running—as Peter had suggested—have made a difference? The men in the humvee might have missed them.  _Or they might've killed us all..._  she argued silently.  _No. They'd already seen us, I'm sure of it._ In spite of the new promise Walter had extracted from her, she had no idea how she was going to possibly find him, or even where to start looking.

Charlie was leaning up against the tank, watching Sonia with Ella. Her niece was in front of Gene's stall, staring up at the cow with adoration. She had a handful of hay in one hand, and was holding it out diffidently toward the milk cow's snout. Sonia was crouched down next to the little girl, urging her onward.

Olivia studied the older woman for a moment, pleasantly surprised that the Sonia she'd known from before appeared to be re-emerging from her shell. She wondered if it had been a particular moment that had brought the change about, or if it had just been time. Either way, it was good to have her back. Charlie had to be relieved that she seemed to be on the road to recovery.

A wave of exhaustion chose that moment to break like an avalanche, forcing her eyes closed and her mouth open in a wide yawn. She massaged her eyelids, wishing she could sleep for a week, but there was no time. She hadn't even had a chance to clean up yet. Charlie's eyes were on her when she pulled her hands away. He looked as tired as she felt. She nodded for him to join her. Other than in the courtyard outside the Kresge Building, they'd had little chance to talk.

"What's up, Dunham?" Charlie said as he joined her in front of Peter's table. His lips thinned as he glanced down at the mishmash of objects scattered across its surface, and then shook his head. "How are you holding up?"

Olivia shrugged, and wiped a hand across her lips. "Honestly, I've been better, Charlie."

"Yeah...I know what you mean...," he replied under his breath, then nodded toward Rachel on the examination chair. "How's she doing? Her wrist gonna be okay?"

"I don't know," she said, watching as Walter began winding the bandage around her sister's forearm. "Without an x-ray, Walter can't be sure of how bad the break is. We'll just have to wait and see."

"Liv, what happened out there today?" Charlie asked after an interval of silence. "You said something about other survivors."

"Some machine-gun-wielding psychopath in a humvee—that's what happened, Charlie." She felt her face growing hot, the stirrings of rage bubbling just beneath the surface of her demeanor. She held it in check. "They caught us out in the open, while we were being chased by a horde of infected."

"A humvee?" he asked with a grimace. "You mean they were military?"

She shook her head, seeing the bastard's face again, the lilt of his cigarette at the machine gun's recoil. "No. Not this guy."

"So you got a good look him at then."

"Yeah...," she nodded. "Real good. He looked like uh...I don't know, someone in a biker gang, maybe. Long hair, black leather jacket, with what looked like colors on the back." She went on to relay the events of the day, beginning at the beginning, with the wild ride Peter had taken them on after leaving her apartment. The corners of Charlie's lips rose a fraction at several points during her retelling, but his amusement had faded into a stony silence by the end.

"You think they know we're here?" he asked in his low, gruff voice.

"I don't see how they could," Olivia answered. She hadn't thought that far ahead yet. And she still couldn't. Other matters took precedence. They had to, until she knew for sure, one way or the other. "No one followed us back, except infected, of course. I'm sure of that. After they shot Peter, they drove south into Allston."

Charlie threw a quick glance at his wife. She was standing in front of the row of shelves that served as a pantry, searching among their stock of canned goods. "Just the same," he said softly, "I think we need to start keeping regular watches. We'll have to do it in shifts."

She looked away for a moment, then gave him a tight smile. "Yeah. About that..."

"What?"

"Charlie, I have to—" A hand tugging at her sleeve interrupted her.

"Aunt Liv?"

She looked down to find her niece standing at her side. "Hey, baby girl," she said, bending toward her. "Everything okay? How's your head feeling?"

The little girl wrinkled her nose and shrugged. "It still hurts a tiny bit. Is there any water I can have?" Ella asked. "My throat's all dried out, and I think Gene might be thirsty, too. She keeps licking my hand!"

"She does, huh?" Olivia grinned, then tucked a lock of her niece's hair behind her ear and ran a thumb underneath the wound on her forehead. It had crusted over, but was still in need of cleaning. "I guess that means she likes you." She pointed to the spot where she'd dropped the packs on the way in. "There are some bottles in my backpack over there. Do you need any help opening one?"

Ella shook her head. "No. I'm okay," she told them with a child's confidence. "I can do it by myself." She looked up at Charlie and smiled. "Hi, Mr. Charlie."

"Hey, kiddo," he replied, smiling faintly. They watched her departing back for a moment, before meeting each others' eyes. "She's a good kid."

"I know she is..." she agreed as Ella knelt down next to the backpacks. "Her father was bitten while he was out gathering food for them. I found him inside my spare bedroom. He'd managed to lock himself in before he turned."

Charlie's eyebrows shot upward. "Really. This same guy I used to overhear you complaining about in one of the vacant offices from time to time?"

Olivia snorted weakly. "Yeah. Guess he wasn't such a bastard after all," she admitted, seeing Greg's pale face again, his burning gaze and snapping teeth. She pushed the image away. "Rachel's done an amazing job with Ella, though, all things considered." She glanced over at Sonia. "How's your wife doing? She seems different."

"She is...," he grinned, turning toward her. "She heard you the other day, you know. Out in the corridor. I think she took it to heart." He cast Olivia a narrow gaze. "So what were you gonna tell me?"

"That I promised Walter I'd go back out and search for Peter," she said. "So I'm leaving again."

"I figured as much. When?"

"As soon as possible. Tonight, I guess."

"Tonight?" Charlie questioned, shaking his head. "You're exhausted, Liv. At least wait until you've had some sleep. First thing in the morning. Or let me go."

"Peter could be dead by morning."

"He could be dead right now," he countered.

"He saved my sister's life, Charlie," she hissed, leaning in closer. In the corner of her eye, Rachel watched them curiously from the examination chair, eyes narrowed. Walter was nearly finished wrapping her arm. "If it was you out there, I wouldn't wait until morning. How can I do less for him?" Charlie opened his mouth to reply but she stepped closer, cutting him off with a pointed finger. "Don't you dare say a word about his past, about him not being trustworthy or...whatever it is you're hung up on with him. You don't know what we went through on the way south. Do you know who else's life he saved? Mine. I asked him to go with me to Brighton. He got shot because of me. The only reason he's even in Boston is because of me. I owe it to him to at least try and find him. And I made a promise."

"You said he got shot in the back, Liv," he uttered, massaging his temple. "What do you think his chances are of surviving, considering how long it's been already. Not to mention he fell in the river. If he didn't just drown, he could be in the Atlantic Ocean by now."

"I don't know where exactly he was hit," she whispered fiercely. "It may not have been fatal. You're not talking me out of this, Charlie."

"You think I don't know that?" he fumed. His voice was quiet, carrying only to her ears. "What about your family? They just got here, and you're gonna leave them already?"

"And they're safe now," she evaded.  _As safe as they can be anywhere, these days._  "I'll either find him, or I won't. Then I'll be back."

Charlie shook his head again. His face was tight, lips drawn back in a thin line of irritation. He rubbed at his temples, as if he were suffering from a migraine. She'd noticed him do the same earlier, and wondered if there were more to his haggard look than just a lack of sleep. Her mind went back to the strange sense of focus she'd experienced at the bridge, and at other times lately. She hadn't mentioned it to anyone.  _We're all keeping secrets_ , she thought sadly.

Before either of them could say anything more, Ella approached, carrying a bottle of water in one hand and what looked like a small fragment of paper in the other. "Aunt Liv, is this your boyfriend?" she asked.

"Is it what...?" Olivia frowned, reaching for the slip of paper. She pulled it from her niece's hand and flipped it over. It was a picture, a photograph. The image was badly wrinkled, and at the same time looked as if it had been submerged in dirty water. But the faces that stared up through the grime were unmistakable though, despite the jagged tear that encompassed most of her own cheek and smile.

The other face belonged to John.

Olivia gaped at the image, her mind jerking to a halt in confused disbelief. It was a picture of them—her and John—taken at a photobooth in Northampton. At Thornes Market. Oddly enough, it had been John's idea to go there. Hadn't she lost it in her other backpack?  _Apparently not_... she mused. Though she could have sworn it was in there—it had been something of a good luck charm for a time. She couldn't recall removing the photo, but she must have.

"I found this too," Ella said, holding out her other hand.

Lying in the center of her palm was a necklace—a thin strand of gold with a small cross pendant. Olivia recognized it at once, and it  _had_  been the backpack that she'd lost. There was not a single doubt in her mind. And yet her niece had somehow found it.

"Where did you get that, Ella?" she gasped, lifting the nearly weightless necklace from her palm.

Ella froze, wide-eyed, perhaps sensing something was amiss. "Uhh...it...it was in your backpack, Aunt Liv," she said in small voice. "I...I found them when I was getting the water bottle. Was that wrong? Should I have left them there?"

Olivia was in a daze. She held up the necklace. A gift from her dying mother. The tiny cross spun as the chain unwound, flashing sparks of golden candlelight. The clasp looked different somehow, as if it had been damaged...and then repaired. "In my backpack...?" she murmured, running a hand over her hair back to her ponytail.  _That's impossible..._  "How could they have been in my..." She trailed off as her analytical brain began to gear up again, ticking into motion as it was wont to do when presented with a puzzle. There had been several oddities over the last few days, oddities she hadn't thought much of at the time, but suddenly stood out like giant neon billboards.

She inhaled a ragged breath.  _Oh my god..._ The puzzle pieces unfolded in unison, glaringly obvious in hindsight's perfect clarity. Her gaze shifted between the necklace and picture, then over to the two backpacks lying where she'd dropped them on her way in.

 _Peter._ He had asked if she'd lost anything important!  _But I told him no..._ , she recalled. The hand holding the necklace shook.  _What did you do? And why didn't you tell me_ _?_ A hollow, empty feeling settled deep in the pit of her stomach. She pinched her nose, and struggled to swallow through the rapidly expanding lump in her throat. What could have possibly possessed him to do such a thing for her—to risk himself for her? What did it mean?

"Are you okay, Aunt Liv?" Ella asked, touching her hand. "Why are you crying?"

"What is it, Liv?" Charlie asked. His voice has lost some of its brusqueness. "What's going on?"

Olivia wiped at the tear rolling down her cheek. "I'm fine...," she told them both. "It's just...I...thought I'd lost both of these."

Charlie eyed her suspiciously. He probably suspected that there was more to the story than her explanation, but she had no intention of telling him. Whatever it meant, and whatever his reasons, it was between her and Peter alone—if he was still alive, at least. If not, then she would keep it close to her heart, and just have to settle for being eternally grateful.

"Here. This is for you, sweetie," she said, unhooking the clasp and settling the necklace around Ella's neck. "I'd meant to give it to you before I lost it. It was your grandmother's. She gave it to me to keep me safe, and now I'm giving it you. Do you understand?"

Ella's eyes widened with wonder that only innocence could produce. She lifted the cross for inspection, then tucked it inside the neck of her shirt. "Won't you keep me safe, Aunt Liv?" she asked.

"While I'm gone, I mean," she said, glancing at Charlie. His face darkened, but he remained silent. "I'm going back out to look for Peter, Ella. I may be gone for a day or two, but I'll be back before you know it, okay?"

"Okay...," Ella replied, nodding slowly.

"Can you look after your mom for me?"

Ella nodded again, glancing at her mother with exaggerated determination. "When are you going?" she asked. "Soon?"

Olivia glanced around the lab, at Rachel, at Walter and Astrid fussing over the best way to make a sling from a strip of cut surgical gown. She met her sister's gaze and held it. A silent communication flickered between them, an inquiry, and consent given in return. It was the sort of connection only close siblings could understand—the bond of growing up together, secret moments, and shared experiences. Rachel nodded her reply.

#

* * *

#

Peter came awake little by little, then all at once.

At the same instant, the hot sands of Iraq fled at light speed to the distant locker in the back of his mind. The place where all dreams were kept—the one with no key or combination for readmittance. Already the details were fading, leaving behind vague impressions and outlines, dots that might be connected, might form a picture, but would fade from sight if he attempted to draw the first line. The dream remained a silhouette, just out of sight. All he could say for sure was that it had been hot, and he'd been thirsty, and that underneath it all, there had been pain. Massive amounts of pain. There still was.

His eyes snapped open.

He  _was_  thirsty, incredibly so. His mouth was full of grit, his tongue swollen and parched. He couldn't see, and blinked, once, twice, reaffirming that his eyelids had actually obeyed his command. He listened and heard only his beating heart. It echoed in his ears—louder than it should have, though that may or may not have been his imagination at work. His shoulder throbbed in tune with it, burning with an intensity that made breathing difficult.

 _By the way, you've been shot, Peter_ , he told himself, fighting down the stirrings of panic.  _Cross that one off your bucket list._

Yet somehow, he was still alive.

His right hand was locked in a death-grip, applying pressure with what felt like a beach towel over the wound in his left shoulder. From the aching cramp, he must have been holding it there for hours, even in his sleep. Bits and pieces started to come back to him. It had still been daylight when he'd stumbled into the tiny lifeguard office, searching for medical supplies, a first-aid kit, anything at all that he could use to staunch the flow of blood. His left arm was dead weight, and lay inert on the tile floor next to him.

 _This is not good..._  he thought. _Not good at all._

Why wasn't he dead? He  _should_  have been dead. There were a number of arteries in the neck and shoulder area, some of which would kill a person in short order if severed. The subclavian, in particular, was in the direct vicinity of the wound pulsing underneath his hand.

"I guess it's my lucky day...," Peter croaked, and then coughed and immediately regretted speaking. The sudden movement jostled his shoulder, turning the burning ache into a torrent of hell-fire. He gasped, and nearly passed out from the pain. His head swam in a wave of dizziness, followed by a fit of intense nausea that knocked him on his side.

He had a moment's warning before his stomach heaved and the meager contents of his stomach spilled out onto floor. Another heave racked him, then the flow trickled to a stop, leaving behind the wretched taste of bile. His shoulder felt as if it were being pounded with a hammer, and the cruel clawed end at that.

He lay on his side panting for a moment, fighting to stay conscious. It was a colossal struggle. A black nothingness hovered over the horizon. Its tenebrous gravity pulled at him, threatened to swallow him hole. Speckles of white light floated in his vision. They flipped and curled like tiny snowflakes. Liquid welled between the fingers pressing down on his shoulder. His blood was hot and sticky.

 _Get up, Bishop!_  a distant voice screamed in his head.  _Do you want to bleed out on the fucking floor in a puddle of your own puke? GET UP!_

 _Elevate the wound above the heart. Apply pressure, continuous pressure._  The instructor from his EMT training class droned in his memory. He had to get up, no matter how much it was going to hurt. Gritting his teeth, Peter twisted onto his back and tried to sit up.

Accomplishing this task was no small feat, and took him two excruciating tries. By the time he was back in his original upright position, he was sucking down huge gulps of air, eyes stretched all the way open from the pain. He sat still until the agony retreated to a muted roar, then thought about his near-term future.

It was looking bleak.

He'd been shot. He'd lost his crowbar, his backpack, all his supplies. Something sharp pressed against his tail-bone, and he recognized the gun Olivia had given him. Somehow he still had it. Not that it was going to do him much good at the moment. The crowbar was not too great a loss. It would have been mostly useless anyway, with his left arm as it was, and his right hand otherwise occupied with keeping him alive. But the backpack had held his food and water, his headlamp. The food he could do without for the moment, but the water, and his headlamp—those were necessities. He wondered if Olivia had taken them with her, if she had gotten her family back to the lab. He wondered if she was still alive.

He could still see the horror in her eyes when he'd fallen, when his jacket had slipped from her grasp. It was a miracle that she'd been able to get hold of him at all. Luckily, his forehead had only grazed the guardrail. The faint pulsing above his left eye was a flyspeck compared to his other injuries. She'd shouted for him, but he'd been unable to respond, unable to do anything but keep his head above water. He'd been sure he was going to be joining the ranks of the undead. The river had been frigid, the current gentle but insistent in its push toward the ocean. He'd kept his eyes on her stricken face, then her golden hair until she was out of sight. He had expected her to be the last thing he would see, but she hadn't been. Somehow he'd stayed conscious.

After that, he'd managed to kick his way slowly to the eastern bank. He'd been far downstream from the Weeks Bridge, past the two vehicle bridges they'd passed on their way north, when he'd finally managed to drag himself ashore. What happened next was foggy; he'd been tottering on the edge of delirium. There were flashes of a long, low building and a pool, shattered glass, and the lifeguard office where exhaustion had finally gotten the best of him. At least he'd had the presence of mind to sit down before he had fallen down. Though he could have chosen a more comfortable spot. His clothes were wet, and his ass was numb. Something sharp was digging into his back, screwing its way into his spine. A file cabinet or a desk? The size and shape of the object seemed about right for a handle. Taken all together—he felt like shit.

Objects emerged from the darkness as his vision adjusted. He dimly remembered there being a desk, a computer monitor, paperwork. A corkboard mounted on the wall. There was a tall, rectangular shape to his right. An open doorway. Through it the darkness was a lighter shade of black. The tiled floor shimmered faintly, reflecting some dim light source out of his view. The moon was out. The realization brought him back to his immediate situation.

The first order of business was to stand up. He had to get up. Sitting on the floor wasn't going to locate any of the things he was going to need sooner than later; water, real medical supplies, antibiotics if he was lucky. He'd been in the river, who knew what kind of infection its polluted water might bring. Secondary was food and painkillers, getting back to the lab.

He curled his legs under him and rocked forward, working his way into a kneeling position. The stress the motion put on his shoulder was brutal. He'd never considered how much one's hands were used when standing up before, but the lack of them was apparent now.  _Rough times are ahead_ , he thought, struggling to his feet. He swayed back and forth, feeling light-headed.

"Not again...," Peter muttered, and took a deep breath. He exhaled slowly, trying to wait out the unpleasant sensation. His heart hammered in his chest. The queasiness passed shortly, and he contemplated removing his hand from his shoulder—as something of a test—but decided against it, thinking of the fresh blood when he'd been on his side.

He tested the feeling in his left arm. Pins and needles ran along its length down to his fingertips. He attempted to wiggle a finger, and was met with limited success. It was difficult to say whether his pinkie had moved or not in the darkness. He tried squeezing his hand into a slow fist, expecting a fresh burst of pain from his shoulder at any moment, but it never materialized. He thought that might be a good sign, or at least he hoped it was. The numbness faded somewhat, but never vanished entirely. Worries of nerve damage came and went, but there was nothing to do about it. Having a little bit of feeling in his arm was better than none at all—or than being dead.

He moved forward, toward the blackness to the left of the doorway. After a step, his knees bumped into something hard. The desk. He turned to the side and let his fingers drag along its surface. Stacks of paper. A pencil. An open three-ring binder. He imagined someone leaving in a hurry. At the edge of the desk he stooped lower, searching for a drawer. His fingers located the handle and he carefully pulled it open. Inside there were more pens and pencils, what felt like a roll of tape, and other items one usually found in an office. He shut that drawer, and hunched lower, searching for and finding another, then opening it also. The lower drawer contained random objects his fingers couldn't discern the shape of, on top of more papers. Nothing useful. He'd been hoping for a flashlight. He needed to see his shoulder, see what he was dealing with. It had been a faint hope.  _Damn it._ He started to pull away, then his fingers brushed against something else.

A box.

He ran his fingers over it, like a blind man reading braille. It was rectangular and small, and covered in a thin, crinkly plastic.

Cellophane.  _Cigarettes._

Excited by his find, he grabbed the box and gave it a little shake, noticing a distinct solidness inside. The pack was open. He flipped the top back and felt along the inside. Loose cigarettes pressed back softly against the pad of his thumb. And something else. Hard plastic, topped with something circular and rough.

A lighter.

 _Jackpot_. He breathed easier. It was a start. A glimmer of hope broke through the surface of his exhaustion. Though it was something of a risk, he had to test out his new find.

Peter removed the lighter and flicked it alight with his thumb, closing one eye against the glare. The office interior glowed yellow. His left side was drenched in blood, from underneath the towel on his shoulder down to his waist. A frighteningly large stain covered the floor where he'd been sitting. And there was something else. Hanging from a hook to the left of the doorway was a red vinyl bag with a white cross centered in the middle of its zipped flap.

The first-aid kit. He let the lighter go out and slipped it in his front pocket. Now came the hard part.

He swallowed through the grit lining his throat, then reached for the spot where he'd seen the red bag. Or rather, he tried to reach for it. His shoulder flared anew, a tumultuous roar that was instantly unbearable. He dropped his hand and bit back a scream. Fire ran the length of his arm, enveloped the left side of his torso. He imagined being stabbed repeatedly with an icepick might have felt similar. The dizziness returned, worse than before. He lost his balance momentarily and staggered up against the desk, antagonizing the injury even further. Pain was the extent of his existence for a short while.

"Goddamn-motherfucking-son-of-a-bitch...," he mouthed, quashing his eyes shut and panting through the worst of it. Apparently, lifting his left arm above his waist was off the table for the time being.

An infinite amount of time later—after the pain had receded enough to allow complete thoughts—Peter felt around on the desk for the three-ring binder, then retrieved the lighter. He hesitated with his thumb on the flint-wheel, uncertain as to whether what he was about to do was a good idea or not. Light was an immediate necessity, non-negotiable. He had to see the wound, and needed free hands.

Were there infected nearby? He'd heard no noises since waking, nothing to indicate he wasn't alone. And surely he hadn't been quiet upon entering the building. He had a vague memory of awkwardly hurling a landscaping rock through a window at the rear entrance. It stood to reason that if there were infected in the vicinity, they would have devoured him while he'd been passed out.

There were holes in his logic he could have driven Walter's wagon through, but desperation was driving him. His knees felt like he'd been standing for hours. They had a wobbly feeling that suggested he might be running out of time.

W _hat's the worst that can happen?_  he thought acerbically, and ignited the lighter.

The papers in the three-ring binder kindled at once. The corners blackened and curled upward in expanding lines of flame that took with them the sheets below. Fire licked upward, lighting up the office. Gray smoke gathered on the ceiling and flowed outward, forming a reverse mushroom cloud. He was going to have to hurry.

Peter let the towel on his shoulder drop, then snatched the first aid from its hook and set it on the desk a safe distance from the flaming binder. His hand shook as he worked the zipper open, then ripped the flap back to expose the kit's interior. Its contents were of the standard variety: gauze pads and rolls, band-aids, little packs of antiseptic ointments and various other medical devices—none of which were at all suitable for self-treating a gunshot wound.

 _What were you expecting, genius?_  He eyed the first-aid kit with dismay.  _Sutures? Perhaps a blow-up surgeon? It's a goddamn public pool._ The cigarettes probably belonged to some kid who'd had to hide the habit from their elders.

Peter glanced down at his shoulder. The corduroy fabric of his jacket gleamed in the firelight, saturated with blood. Sucking in a long breath, he slowly peeled back the lapel, exposing his equally-stained t-shirt underneath.

 _Oh shit..._ The air came whooshing out of his lungs.  _That's gonna leave a mark..._

The bullet had passed straight through him, exiting just below his left clavicle. A gaping divot yawned beneath the tatters of his shirt, with bright red sinew and fibrous tissue exploded outward around the edges. Seeing it brought back images of the meat-packing company he'd worked for briefly, and the giant meat grinder he'd run. His stomach disagreed violently with the association. The point of entry on his back was less disturbing to look at, what little he could see of it; a small puncture wound in comparison, and in the meat of his shoulder.

Blood streamed from both wounds in steady trickles. Now that he'd seen it, the wetness running down his chest and back, down his leg and under his jeans was unmissable. His heart thumped loudly in his ears.

 _I_ should _be fucking dead,_ he realized. He was lucky, incredibly so. From the size of the gun that had shot him—a light machine gun, as opposed to the heavy fifty-caliber that had been mounted on their humvee—to the location of the wound itself; if it had been any higher the bullet would have ricocheted off his clavicle like a pinball. The exit wound could have been anywhere...or nowhere. Perhaps the bullet would have remained lodged in his heart or some other vital organ. If it had been any lower, his subclavian would have been severed, or at least nicked. From the blood that continued to seep from the wound, he thought it might have been nicked anyway—a possibility that was distinctly worrying. He let his jacket fall back into place, hissing at the contact it made with his raw flesh. All of a sudden, keeping the pressure on it seemed like a wonderful idea.

The fire on the desk was growing. It had consumed most of the binder, and was spreading to the other papers scattered nearby. The flames rose toward the bottom of a low-hanging shelf mounted on the wall above the desk. The shelf was packed with books and manuals that looked ripe for tinder. Yellow post-its tacked to the lower half of the corkboard below the shelf smoked and then combusted, one by one. The atmosphere in the office was suddenly choked with smoke and falling paper ash that grew thicker by the second. His eyes began to water, to burn. The cloud was just above his head. It billowed through the doorway out into the hallway beyond.

Peter took in a mouthful of smoke and coughed, shooting daggers throughout his torso.  _Time to go._ For an instant, he envisioned himself heating up a piece of metal in the flames and using it cauterize the wound, but dismissed the idea as soon as it came. There was nothing suitable in reach. And besides, this was no movie—he would have been just as likely to finish the job the bullet had started, than do any real good.

His gaze flicked around the little office, searching for a fresh towel. There were none. The one he'd had, he must have found on the way in—it was all very hazy. He grabbed the gauze and the antiseptic packets and stuffed them in his pocket, then hobbled toward the door.

Outside the office was a windowless corridor. His shadow cast against the wall opposite the doorway, outlined in orange light by the quickening flames. To his left, the hallway vanished in a wall of darkness. A shaft of moonlight stole across the path to his right, beyond the corridor's exit. He shuffled toward the light. At the threshold he paused, listening. Wind whistled through a narrow vertical window next to the rear entrance, then dropped off. A mosaic of shattered glass glittered on the floor. Crickets and other night creatures chirped and chittered outside. There was a stillness to the air, as if time were frozen, hanging between one moment and the next. Somewhere outside the building, an owl hooted once, and then again.

He was alone.

Deciding to take a chance, Peter thumbed the lighter and stepped out into the lobby. A cart of neatly folded white beach towels standing alone in the middle of the space drew his gaze instantly. He sighed, and made his way across the room. The floor in front of the cart was speckled with drops of blood intermixed with smeared shoe-prints, presumably his own.

The sight of his own blood-trail made him slightly queasy. He wondered how much he'd lost, how far he was from the threshold of hypovolemic shock. Or whether he was already entering the early stages, with loss of consciousness and death soon to follow. Was his heart rate elevated, his respiratory rate? He certainly felt anxious enough. He consciously tried to slow his breathing, despite the logical side of his brain informing him it was a useless gesture.

 _Standing here isn't going to get you anywhere,_  he told himself.  _Move your ass, Bishop._

He let the lighter go out. The sudden darkness made him blink, and he reached out with blind fingers for a towel from the middle of the stack, and then pressed it hard down on the wound.

The pain was immense, though not quite at the same level as before, back in the office. It was manageable, and that was good enough.

He clamped his teeth together, fighting back another bout of nausea, and staggered toward the shattered window. Glass crunched under the soles of his shoes as he passed into the narrow strip of moonlight. He passed by a lumpy, oblong-shaped rock lying amid the debris, about the size of a baseball. The stone could have been a mirror in shape—almost like a peanut—to the clump of pyrite that had been the prize of his rock collection back at the house on Reiden Lake. He wondered what had happened to the little wooden box, shaped like a treasure chest that he'd kept them in, or the lakehouse itself for that matter. It had been decades since he'd last been there—before Walter's incarceration.

Had his parents sold the house? He couldn't recall—its fate lay in one of several blank spots in his memory—spots that sometimes encompassed entire years of his childhood. All he could say for sure, was that at some point...his family had just stopped going there, no reasons given. It was strange how a simple rock could bring it all back to forefront; he hadn't thought about either; his rock collection or the old house, in years.

Peter disliked the sudden musing on the past. It wasn't like him. There was a certain resignedness to it—and he wasn't ready to concede anything yet, not while he could still walk...still breathe.

He moved past the familiar-shaped rock, putting it and the past out of his mind. Neither were of any use in his current predicament. Shards of glass caught on his jacket and plinked off as he stepped sideways through the narrow window-frame to a concrete patio area. The patio surrounded a long, rectangular pool, open long past its normal closing date. The water looked brackish and was covered in a thick layer of leaves, and most likely algae as well, though he was unable to see any in the moon's light. Another reminder of the current state of the world, if he needed another, which he most assuredly did not.

A chest-high, metal picket fence surrounded the pool, with a gate to the parking lot beyond. To the west lay a grassy area he dimly recalled stumbling across, and then the river. It flowed past silently, sparkling with ripples of silver light. Across the river, the elevated portion of I-90 stood out against the horizon. With glum amusement, he realized he was looking directly at the same section of highway under which they'd been forced to abandon the humvee. Right back where he'd started. He squinted, trying to make out the trucks angular shape in the moonlight, but was unable find it.

Was it gone? It may have been a trick of the poor lighting, but he thought the crushed portion of the fence was visible—minus the out-of-gas humvee.

 _If it's gone, you know who took it._  He saw the man in the truck again, the colorful patch on the back of his jacket. Had he been some kind of biker? The jacket had been distinctive.  _Son of a bitch._

Had they gone after Olivia and her family? Men who would shoot a random stranger in the back would not hesitate to do worse. Perhaps they'd thought with him out of the way, two women and a child alone would be easy prey. Olivia would have quickly disabused them of that notion if they had...if she were able. She would've fought until her last breath.

 _And what if that wasn't enough?_  He'd known men in his former life, hard men with no consciences, no remorse. Sociopaths, all of them. Cruelty was inbred, second nature to them. They'd been the kind of men who'd kill a man without batting an eye. The thought of Olivia, or her sister and little Ella for that matter, in the hands of someone like that was sickening. Everyone had a breaking point, even her.

Peter shoved thoughts of Olivia aside, renewing the pressure on his shoulder. Maybe his worry was for nothing, and she'd gotten away safely. The woman was tough. Tougher than himself by a fairly large margin, he was sure. And he had his own problems at the moment, problems that couldn't wait. The lab was miles away. His shoulder throbbed mercilessly beneath the towel. He imagined a black infection working its way inward, slowly, a worm inching its way toward his heart. A malignant tumor growing with every second. He swallowed thickly through a chalky dryness in his throat, and started toward the gate. After a single step, he stopped, staring out over the fence.

Silhouettes moved about in the empty parking lot, shapes that lurched and wandered without intent. He eyed the infected warily. They were unaware of him. Would his blood draw them out, like sharks in the ocean? Walter's experiments with smells had been inconclusive. Everything was inconclusive.

Olivia's side trip down into the subway system came to mind. He'd thought her insane at the time, but her little experiment  _had_  provided some useful information. She'd been able to come within spitting distance before they'd become aware of her. With some luck, getting that close wouldn't become necessary.

He crept toward the gate, pressing down harder with his right hand. His head felt heavier than normal, and the arm was already feeling the effects of the strain, but there was no choice but to continue holding it there. Whether or not his efforts were accomplishing anything was up for debate, but somehow, he was still alive and was going to do his best to remain so.  Anything else was unthinkable.

The gate was latched shut. Luckily, he'd had the sense to close it on his way in, or he might've woken to find the building infested with undead, or with one of them gnawing at his throat. He noticed a spring mechanism mounted on the inside. Maybe it hadn't been luck at all. He silently thanked who'd ever installed it, then pushed the latch up with his elbow. If he stayed close to the building, he should be able to slip past them, then head north, once he was out of their range. He sort of remembered there being a pharmacy somewhere in the vicinity, and it was as good a short-term destination as any.

Peter pushed the gate open, then froze at an ear-piercing electronic scream that wailed from inside the building, cutting through the night's silence with horrifying precision.

#

* * *

#

Chest heaving, Olivia stared down into the dark waters of the Charles flowing noiselessly out from beneath the bridge. Shimmering ripples and eddies imperfectly reflected the moon overhead. Her cheeks stung in the cool night air, the tip of her nose and ears as well. It had been a long run.

In spite of her stated intention to set out immediately, the sun had already dipped below the horizon by the time she'd gathered her supplies and began her southward sprint from the lab. She'd taken the most direct route to the Weeks Bridge, avoiding the infected in her path if possible, and simply racing past those evading proved too much of a hassle.

She had no clear idea of how to go about finding Peter, but going back to the beginning, where she'd lost him in the first place, had seemed like a good starting point. Walter agreed, and had even proposed she jump in the river herself, letting its current take her where it would. It had been a serious suggestion.

Olivia eyed the puffs of condensation rising up in front of her nose at every breath. "Yeah...that's not happening, Walter," she whispered, scratching her fingernails across the rough surface of the guardrail.

To her right was the concrete barricade he'd tumbled from. The walking path on the other side was clear of the horde that had been raging when she'd led Rachel and Ella away. Further south, the Harvard Business School campus was bathed in faint light. The quad appeared to be free of undead as well, from what she could see, though she didn't trust the observation; too much was hidden in shadow.

Where to start, or indeed, how to start?

She turned her gaze to the southeast, where the river curled out of sight. What would she have done if placed in a similar circumstance? If she were cognizant and aware—which he had seemed to be when he'd tipped into the water—then avoiding drowning would have been the first priority. She replayed the painful memory, saw Peter's confusion again, the instinctual clutching at the wound. He was a survivor. He'd had to be to keep his head afloat in his old life, in the circles he'd run. The two of them were similar in that way. She would have kept pressure on the bleeding as best she could as a second priority—if she'd managed the first—and so would he. Getting out of the water would have come third, and if she were aware enough to do the first two tasks, then she would have tried for the Cambridge side of the river. It would have been a difficult swim, most-likely one-armed for most of the way, with wet clothes dragging him down. He would have been exhausted, possibly going into shock when he pulled himself from the water. He wouldn't have made it far from the river before needing to find shelter.

In her perfect world of theory-land, at least.

 _This is ridiculous..._ , Olivia thought, pushing back her hair. _How in the hell am I supposed to find him? He could be anywhere._  With Walter's anguished gaze on her, promising to find Peter had been all too easy. However, when presented with the reality of the situation, it all seemed rather far-fetched. An unlikely sequence of events, each dependent on the preceding, and on the biggest piece of luck of them all: that the bullet had missed all of his vital organs and arteries in the first place. Saying that she would have done this or that from the relative safety of the sidelines, without a bullet-hole in her chest was simple. Her assumptions were based strictly on the best-case scenario. But she had no choice but to go with them, as the best-case scenario was the only one in which Peter was still alive. Logic told her that Charlie was more than likely correct, and that she would never find him. But there was always hope.

She flicked on her headlamp, then loped back across the foot bridge and headed south.

#

* * *

#

Peter went still, heart hammering in his chest. The high-pitched squeal reverberated across the concrete patio, the parking lot, and all of Boston for all he knew.  _What the hell is that?_  He looked back toward the building, mind racing for the source of the affronting noise.

A thin plume of smoke was drifting upward from the window. It twisted and curled in the slight breeze, then dispersed above the rooftop.

A fire alarm.

 _You lit the building on fire_ , he thought, berating himself. He'd been a fool.  _It's 2008. Fire alarms are pretty much mandatory at this point in history_ _, idiot_ _._ Or were. He should have known better than to start a fire, considering how much good it had done him. Back near the beginning of the outbreak, there had been a time when battery-powered fire alarms were going off all over Cambridge. Walter had enjoyed listening to the cacophony, had claimed that it soothed his nerves.

"Excellent...," he muttered, glancing back toward the parking lot. "That's perfect."

The infected lurched toward the gate, toward him. He stepped back inside the perimeter, letting the gate swing shut. It re-latched with a metallic ring, cementing his location as the source of the disturbance. More undead silhouettes trudged into view around the corner of the building from the front, bringing the running total to at least thirty, possibly as many as forty or more. Enough to be a serious problem.

He leaned up against the metal fence, testing its sturdiness. The posts wobbled dangerously in their footings.  _That's not good_ , he thought, backing away from the fence. It might hold, for a few minutes at least. Clearly it had not been erected with the intention of holding back a horde of undead in mind.

Peter slipped back through the narrow window. The piercing alarm echoed from everywhere, from multiple alarm modules. A dense veil of smoke blanketed the lobby, and the hallway with the lifeguard office. Yellow flames flickered in the depths of the haze down the corridor, evidence of how quickly the fire in the office had grown. He imagined it was spreading like wildfire—there had been no lack of fuel, certainly. With the thick smoke, visibility was near zero. He gingerly retrieved the lighter from his pocket with his left hand and thumbed it alight. The effort left him gasping, but he strode forward anyway, holding the lighter as high as his shoulder would allow.

He moved forward, eyes watering and nose burning A faint ache began to develop deep inside his skull. He didn't have much time, and crawling underneath the smoke was more than he could manage. The building had to have a front entrance, some other way out. If he was lucky, the alarm might even clear the area in front of the building.

A pair of doors emerged from the smoke on the left side of the lobby—changing rooms from the signs on their fronts—then a row of vending machines to his right. He paused for a moment at the vending machines, wishing he had the time and means to vandalize one of them. He had neither, so he moved on, following the wall until he came to a rectangular cut-out with a narrow countertop across the lower edge. The cashier's window. The front entrance had to be close.

He coughed, and took another step through the smoke, and then fire spread throughout his abdomen. Peter managed to hold in the next cough for an instant, before the need for air became paramount. The coughing fit was light at first, and then quickly escalated to hacking gasps that felt as if his lungs were being turned inside-out. He began to choke, to gag. Sunny spots drifted across his vision. The burning in his lungs, combined with the alarms constant peal and the waves of torture emanating from his shoulder sent his head spinning. He couldn't breathe, couldn't think. His lungs were raw, full of scraping needlepoints.

 _I'm...suffocating..._ he realized as darkness closed in.

Abruptly, something cool pressed against Peter's cheek. His eyes slitted open. The world was blurry, and had turned sideways. He blinked in the dim light. He was on the floor.

Inhaling was painful, though the atmosphere was better down low. He lay there for a moment, wheezing for air. He had to get up, had to keep moving. Staying still was certain death...and then undeath.

But his limbs refused to cooperate—he felt languid, relaxed. At peace. If he just closed his eyes, sleep would carry him away. It would be so easy to give in, just for a moment, then he could go on. In a moment. His eyes refused to stay open. He recalled being in a great amount of pain for some reason, but couldn't remember why, or feel much of anything. Except there was an angry whistle in his head. The trill whistling faded in and out, like a gnat buzzing in his ear—it refused to be silent, or let him slip over the edge.

 _Go away..._ he thought, looking down from the clouds.

He stirred, and tried to swat at the flying insect. Fiery agony tore through his left arm and shoulder. "Gahh...fuck!" Peter rolled onto his back and clutching at the shoulder. The pain, and the sound of his own voice brought him back from the precipice. He suddenly recognized the intense droning in his ear for what it was.

_The fire alarm._

He was still in the building. He'd collapsed.

 _Smoke inhalation can incapacitate a man in minutes,_  so his instructor at the firefighting academy had drilled into them.  _Don't try to be heroes, people. We have oxygen tanks for a reason._  The man would have been laughing his ass off if he could see him now.  _Fuck you...,_  he told the man in his head. He'd never liked him anyway.

He stared upward, and saw the outline of the cashier window above him. The entrance had to be near. It had to be.

Peter sat up slowly, panting painfully and gritting his teeth. He'd lost the lighter, but had somehow managed to keep hold of the towel when he'd fallen. He winced, and pressed it back into place over his mangled shoulder. Of the two, he wasn't sure which was more important, but there was no time to look for the former. The layer of smoke was right above him, and getting denser by the second.

He glanced back toward the rear of the building, at the hazy strip of moonlight that was the shattered window. Shapes moved in the haze—whether they were inside or outside, he couldn't say for sure. They'd gotten through the fence though, and were far too close, either way.

A voice spoke in his head, urging him to move.  _Now, Peter._  He smiled, despite how miserable he felt. She would say it like that. And she was right, as usual.

He leaned forward, and reached out cautiously with his left hand, testing his weight on the tiled floor. It hurt about as much he'd expected it to—enough to make his eyes bug out of their sockets. He struggled not to cry out, breathing in short bursts through his teeth, and then let his full weight settle on it. The pain was tremendous, and he felt like vomiting again, but he had nothing more to give.

In the background, he heard a drawn-out squeak underneath the tonal fire alarm, and froze in the crawl position. It had sounded like something in need of oil. It had been close, and not a natural sound. Something metal had moved...or been pushed. He heard the noise again.

 _A squeaky wheel?_  he wondered.

A wheel. The towel cart. They were inside the building.

_Shit. Move. Now._

Peter crawled forward on his left arm, doing his best to ignore the anguish pulsing in his shoulder. There was a dull crash behind him and the thud of something solid hitting the floor, followed by a low, unhuman grunt. He crawled faster, moving like a lame dog, and a blind one to boot. His shoulder screamed at the abuse. The exit had to be close. He slipped, and almost face-planted on the floor, only catching himself at the last moment. Nearly insane from the pain, he pushed himself up and started forward again—only to smack his forehead hard against something as solid as a brick wall. Pain shot down his neck, and he saw stars for an instant. Ignoring this new injury—minor at best, compared to the plethora of others he was accumulating—he tilted his head, holding the towel in place on his shoulder while feeling around with his right hand.

It  _was_  a brick wall. An exterior wall, to be precise. Excited now, he felt for the corner to his right, then slid to his left until he came across a raised surface. A metal door frame. Hinges and smooth, cool glass. Darkly tinted. He could just make out a sidewalk through the lower half beneath the smoke. There was more movement behind him, along with harsh growls and exhalations that sent icy prickles down his spine.

They were close.

He reached upward in a frantic search for a knob or a handle. Not finding it, he rose up on his knees ran his palm all over the glass door's surface. He inhaled a mouthful of smoke, and was coughing before he was even aware he'd done so. It was a deep, belly cough, hoarse, and loud enough to drown out the shrill fire alarm in his ears, like someone on the edge of death by tuberculosis. He dropped out of the smoke layer. The towel slipped from his shoulder. Dry-heaving came next, and he tasted a foul concoction of blood and bile on his tongue. Fighting down another heave, he pushed on the door with his good shoulder.

The door rattled in its frame, but remained closed. The entrance was actually two doors, he realized, with a dead-bolt in the center, holding them together. His fingers fumbled for the inside knob that must be there. All dead-bolts had them, didn't they? Yes. It was there! He twisted the knob clockwise and heard the bolt draw back with a mechanical click.

Relief made him giddy...until he tried the door again, and it still refused to budge. The relief turned to unmitigated dread that left him dumbfounded, unable to process further action.

 _It should've opened..._  His thoughts were stuck in a loop of stupid unbelief. He pushed and pulled on the door again, then again, with the same result.  _It should've..._ The solution slid into his conscious mind, coalescing like a rainbow out of the mist.

There was another latch. Two locks, two latches. He'd seen the same configuration on double doors ten-thousand times before, on commercial buildings the world-over. It was fucking standard, like the goddamn fire alarm.

He shot a glance over his shoulder. From his low vantage, the vertical window was mostly gone, obscured by shuffling legs, with their torsos hidden in the layer of smoke above. Many legs. The lobby was crowded with infected. The air seemed to groan at their approach, drawn toward him by his coughing.  _They're like a colony of bats_ , came the absent thought.

Peter looked away from the horde, and felt desperately along the metal frame, over the knob he'd already turned, and higher, deeper into the smoke layer.  _Where is it?_ It had to be there. There was no other explanation. He sucked in a hoarse breath, then rose up on his knees once more. He found what he was looking for an instant later—a short lever, as opposed to a knob. He swung it downward, then pushed again.

The door swung open.

 _About fucking time, Bishop_ , he thought, climbing to his feet.

Before he'd gone more than a step, a hand grabbed a fistful of his coat. He felt himself being hauled backward, inside the building. Twisting around, he caught a glimpse of snarling teeth, of mad eyes, just in the doorway. Others were just behind. Another hand clutched his shoulder with a vice-like grip just above the gunshot wound and squeezed.

Peter choked off a tortured shout. "No...!" he growled, leaning forward, resisting the pull.

He grabbed the door for leverage, then stepped to the side and swung it shut with all the force his weaker arm could muster. The grip on his jacket relaxed, and he tore free of the clinging fingers. He threw his weight against the glass and crushed the reaching arms between the two doors. The bones in the protruding forearms snapped audibly, like dried twigs.

Fear and adrenaline had him in their frenetic grip. It had almost had him. He threw himself against the door, pushing with all his strength. The infected's gaping mouth was visible against the glass directly opposite him, snapping futilely. Thick blood spurted from dangling limbs as the door's edge sheared through the mottled skin with the practiced ease of a razor-blade. And then the upper latch clicked in place, reducing the fire alarm's wail to a low murmur.

Peter stepped back from the door, shoulder throbbing with the heat of a thousand suns. He sucked in huge gasps of air. His lungs were raw, and his knees wobbled dangerously. The world tilted and swayed from side to side.

 _That was way too close..._ he thought as the adrenaline began to recede.  _Way too close._ He checked his surroundings, expecting to see another horde rushing toward him, but there were only a few stragglers on the sidewalk across the street. None were close enough to pose a threat. He could still hear the fire alarm, he noticed, echoing distantly from the back side of the building. Maybe it would draw the rest of the undead in the area. Like a sonic bug zapper.

He glanced back at the entrance, at the outlines pressed up against the glass. He hoped they all burned. The pair of severed hands dangled from ragged strips of flesh, fingers tensing and releasing with their strange inner-life. A woman's bracelet hung loosely from one wrist. Disturbed, he shook his head, eying the hands for a moment. They reminded him of Walter, and the infected woman they'd captured. He wondered if his father had begun his research on the detached body parts, if he'd discovered anything of use. With a little luck, he might even be around to find out.

The infected he'd noticed earlier were moving diagonally across the street, heading toward the pool building. Their heads bobbed over a row of squarely-cut bushes lining the sidewalk. Peter pressed himself against the bricks in the shadows of the shallow entrance alcove, waiting to see what they would do. There were four of them, three males and a female. The infected bumbled across a narrow strip of tall grass and leaves, then moved past to his left, heading toward the parking lot and the rear of the building.

He stepped cautiously out into the moonlight, keeping an eye on their departing backs. When they were out of sight, he swallowed, and lifted his jacket to get another look at his shoulder. Fresh blood glittered wetly in the pale light. As before, the sight of his torn flesh sent his stomach reeling. It was unfortunate that he'd lost the towel—keeping the pressure on the wound without it might be more than he could manage. With an unhappy sigh, he pulled the gauze from his pocket. The packages seemed laughably small compared to the extent of his injuries, but they were all he had. He fumbled them out of their wrappers with his good hand.

 _Not exactly sterile_ , he thought uneasily, glancing at his bare fingers. He'd been crawling on the ground, in the river. Infection was a near certainty, even if he somehow managed to stop the bleeding. But of the two likely forms of death in his near future, bleeding-out would come far quicker.  _Here goes._

Peter bit down on the lapel of his jacket, then shoved the gauze pads into the exit wound, pushing them in as far as they would go. For an instant, electrifying agony became the extent of his existence, of the entire universe. It was all pain, from top to bottom. He staggered back against the building, barely able to stay on his feet. He wanted to scream, he wanted to cry. Instead, he settled for merely gritting his teeth and thudding the side of his fist against the bricks and riding it out.

He was beginning to hate his new life. His left arm had gone numb again, and salt stung at his eyes. He mopped a layer of sweat from his brow. He was drenched.  _You're in bad way, Mister Bishop_ , an Irish accent that sounded like Big Eddie's informed him. The night air was cool on his wet skin. A shiver worked its way through him, antagonizing him further. Feeling dizzy all of a sudden, he touched his forehead once more. Was he hot? Or cold? A fever? He'd never been able to feel fevers on himself... "I have to...get out of here," he panted, but didn't move.

After a while, he spotted more infected down the block, strolling his way from the south. They disappeared in the murk of shadows, only to reappear a moment later. They were on his side of the street.

_Move your ass, Bishop._

Peter blinked forcefully, trying to clear his head. Where was he going again? Thinking was more difficult than it should have been. North.  _Yes, that's it._  He had to go north. There was a pharmacy somewhere to the north. He needed something...he'd had a shopping list...hadn't he? He would have to figure it out on the way.

He forced himself off the wall and stumbled out toward the street. The street's name wouldn't come, but it looked familiar, mostly. Unlike nearly every other road in Boston, it was deserted, with not an abandoned car or truck in sight. He didn't waste much energy on wondering why—energy was in short supply at the moment, and not to be spent frivolously. Just maintaining a slow walk seemed a titanic effort.

The pool parking lot was empty when he passed it by. The moon was obscured by a cloud of smoke rising up from the back side of the building, where flames were already visible above the roof line. The rolling clouds blotted out a small section of the night sky. He suspected there would be nothing left of the structure come morning, and felt no remorse.

Towering black outlines broke the horizon several blocks away. A hotel, he dimly remembered, and some other office buildings. Data storage? A pharmaceutical company? Exhaustion left his head empty. It wasn't the kind of pharmacy he needed in any case.

The going was slow, even with the moonlight for guidance. An incessant wind slipped through his wet clothes and jacket. He slunk slowly from shadow to shadow, trying to stay focused on his surroundings, but his shoulder throbbed and his thoughts drifted to other things, unimportant things. The surreality that had become the norm. His father, and how he was likely coping with his absence. Probably not so well if he knew Walter at all. And then there was Olivia.

He'd never met a woman quite like her before, ever, in all his travels. Selfless to a fault and full of mystery. Fierce and fearless. He found himself watching her sometimes, wondering if she was real or not. She had a passion for helping others that was contagious in its intensity. How else could he explain his actions—so much out of character—since arriving back in Boston? Why had he even agreed to stay? Had it been the sincere urgency in her eyes? He'd found himself unable to refuse her. A pair of luminous green eyes was all it had taken. He thought of the prior morning in her apartment, of how he'd awoken to find her head on his shoulder, snoring softly, face clear of all her usual stresses. At peace. Christ, she'd been beautiful. Reminiscent of a sleeping angel. And then she'd whispered for John as he'd extricated himself, reminding him of exactly who he was. And who he wasn't.

A noise off to his right drew Peter from his meandering thoughts. The rattle of metal. He thought about stopping to investigate, then thought better of it, and increased his speed instead. The night was eerily silent. Then he heard the rattle again, behind him now. He glanced back down the street toward the pool building, far down the block.

His breath caught.

Black shapes crowded the street behind him. At least ten of them...maybe twenty. And close enough to hear the scuff of their shoes on loose gravel. Their outlines listed and reeled as they jerked after him, arms swinging limply. The group moved into a patch of moonlight, revealing their ruined faces and gaping jaws. More of them streamed off a side street, adding their numbers to the whole. Several dozens, at least, and gaining on him.

 _Fuck me..._ he thought, eyeing their numbers. How could he have missed so many? Had he gone blind?

Peter increased his speed from the slow stumble he'd been maintaining to a moderate stroll. They were no longer gaining on him, but not falling back, either. A golden-yeared mall-walker would've blazed past him, but it was the best he could do. Running might be possible, but he wouldn't put any wagers on how long he'd be able to keep it up—exhaustion had sunk its barbed fangs in, and was loathe to let go. He thought it best to conserve what little strength he had left, just in case.

The weight of Olivia's gun pulled at his belt. With his left arm as it was, shooting with his right on any but the closest of targets would be laughable at best. His offhand was blind and stupid comparatively. It always had been.  _Just in case_ , she'd said. He would use it all right, but only at the very end, when all his options were exhausted. There would be no chance of missing. He hadn't reached those doldrums yet, so he struggled onward, putting one foot in front of the other.

The river slid by on his left, keeping him on a northerly course. He tried to estimate how far he had to go, but stumbled over the numbers. Three blocks? Five? He thought the pharmacy might be several blocks to the east also. He passed a burnt-out Starbucks on his right, and would have given anything for a cup of their overpriced coffee, or even a drink from their drinking fountain. His throat was a barren desert.

At the corner in front of the coffee shop, he spied shapes moving in the street ahead, in the shadow of the hotel building. He turned east away from the hotel, wishing he had a clearer idea of where he was going, what obstacles lay in his path, but the concentration required to plot the course eluded him. It was hard enough just to keep his eyes open, to stay on this side of conscious. His breathing had deteriorated to short, shallow rasps that whistled in his ears. They were coming too fast, part of him was aware, but his only other option was to not breathe at all. The undead kept pace, and turned the corner behind him. He pressed onward.

 _Hypovolemic shock, Peter_ , he thought, recognizing the symptoms.  _You're going to become intimately familiar with it._

Every step sent a jolt through his shoulder. He'd let his right arm drop long ago. He was at the point of diminishing returns; the effort required to keep pressure on the wound outweighed any tangible benefit he might have been receiving. It had come away sticky with blood. Whether or not he'd been accomplishing anything was anyone's guess. In any event, he had a sneaking feeling the time he had left was on the shorter side of soon.

The eastward street disappeared shortly under a thick blanket of shadow. Tightly packed apartment buildings and a forest of trees hugged both sides of the street, cutting off the moon's light. He moved into the patchy darkness without stopping. Visibility dropped to what was directly in front of him. Beyond that, anything might be waiting. But anything might also be nothing, and of the two, his fear for the definite something behind him was far stronger.

Peter gave his followers a backward glance. The group had yet to cross the border into shadow. He'd gained a little ground on them, several yards at least, maybe as much as ten. "Slow and steady...," he whispered painfully, turning back to the front. He tried to walk a little faster still. His shoulder shouted its disapproval.

A strip of moonlight ran across the street at the next intersection. He zeroed in on the light, ignoring the faint rustling of leaves beyond the parked cars, the quiet exhalations of breath, and low grunts that he may or may not be imagining. They were close, conceivably all around him. He forced legs to move faster, hoping to make it past before it...they, became truly aware of him.

His spine tingled with ill attention. There were eyes on him. His over-worked senses screamed at him to run—to get the hell out of there while he still could.  _Not yet..._ he overruled, glancing left and right.  _The time's not right..._

Was something there, outside his little cone of vision? Blackness shifting inside a deeper blackness? Could there be a ripple of awareness blinking in his wake? He imagined misshapen heads turning, slow-firing impulses making the required connections to form an instinctual response to the stimuli of his passage. Then would come motion.

Peter crossed out of the shadow, into the pale brilliance of the intersection and swung north, putting the moon at his back. His elongated form preceded him across the pavement, mimicked his movements. Ahead, the street curled around a closeknit strip of family-homes, before winding out of sight in a gentle curl to the northeast. He risked another peek behind him when he was almost at the next block.

There was nothing at first, only a black penumbra of varying shades. No sign of anyone...or anything following. A biting wind gusted, urging him onward. Had he lost them?  _Not likely_ , the voice of reason answered at once. The infected were single-minded creatures, though somewhat easily distracted. And there had been no distractions—hence, they were still behind him. Whether or not they would turn the corner was the question. He glanced away for an instant, double-checking the street ahead. When he turned back, his heart threatened to leap from his chest.

A figure charged out of the blackness. Its movements were jerky, with arms that swung and flapped in out-of-sync motions. A man it had been, before. A big man—easily as large as the infected that had been Olivia's brother-in-law. It was a wearing a fireman's jacket.

He noticed all those little details at a glance, yet was unable to look away from the only important one. The pale face. White cheeks that glowed faintly in the moonlight. "Oh shit...," he whispered out loud, unintentionally. His bowels constricted into a tight fist. The creature took the corner in a wide, off-balance turn, then headed straight toward him. Behind it, a thick line of shambling infected emerged from the shadows. They too turned the corner. From somewhere deep in the midst of his rising dread, came the abstract observation that he'd attracted a rather large following.

 _Now it's time,_ he thought grimly, summoning the last of his strength. Whatever play he had left to make, it was either now, or die trying. If he failed...well, at least they weren't going to take him alive. Olivia had seen to that.

Peter retrieved the gun from the small of his back, and began to run.

#

* * *

#

The infected man lunged forward with outstretched arms, teeth bared. Olivia backpedaled, and sank Peter's crowbar in above its left ear. Its knees buckled, nearly yanking the crowbar from her hands as it collapsed at her feet. She ripped the hook free, spraying blood and chunks of gore across the front of her jacket. Nudging the infected on its back, she directed her red light on its gnarled face, just to double-check, then exhaled with relief.

It was fairly fresh as she'd thought, but it wasn't him.

She'd been unsure. The infected had been a man wearing a brownish jacket, and sporting similarly wavy hair. But where Peter was tall and slender like a knife-blade, this fellow looked as if he'd spent a considerable amount of time at the gym. She'd found it wandering the riverbank in her path, and for one heart-wrenching instant, she'd been sure she was looking at an undead Peter Bishop. It wasn't the first infected she'd come across since turning south, but it was the first that had born a vague resemblance to Peter. The others hadn't required her to come half as close in order to verify they weren't him.

Olivia stepped over the dead man without another glance. More of them were gathered off to her left, standing in a tight group in front of a low apartment building. She moved past them after a cursory glance. Even from a distance, it was obvious that they were all old-dead, and had reached the point where stumbling about was the best they could manage.

The strip of tall grass she'd been following ended abruptly. Whitish blocks of concrete emerged from the murk just ahead. Out in the river, the collapsed span of the Western Avenue Bridge stood out in the moonlight. She hurried toward the bridge, keeping her light on the rubble rising from the water. It was conceivable that someone—or a body—floating downstream could have become stuck in the debris on their way past. She moved as close as she dared, pushing through the thick chaparral covering the riverbank at the bridge's base.

Submerged cars and trucks sat in watery graves between the jagged blast points. The river lapped at their twisted remains, flowed through the shattered windows. She searched for the drivers, the families, trapped in the explosion, as had been at the other collapsed bridge, but found none.  _Maybe the man following orders had a conscience for once_ , she thought. The vehicles were empty, and Peter was nowhere to be seen, alive or otherwise.

After forcing her way to the bridge abutment, she rose up and peered over the masonry wall. The red light of her headlamp reflected off the rear side window of an expensive-looking BMW sandwiched between a nondescript mini-van, and a black SUV. The closest infected was out in the intersection, bumping up against a bus-stop canopy, reminding her of a broken record. She watched it for a moment, then pulled herself up and over the guardrail with a grunt, and moved down the line of cars to the broken span of bridge.

 _He's not going to be here_ , she told herself, sweeping her light among the wreckage below that had been out of view from the riverbank. And he wasn't.  _He must've passed through on the far side, underneath the section that's still standing._ The thought was worrisome. Maybe she'd been wrong in her assumption that he would try for this side of the river. Would he not have tried for whichever bank was closest?

She clicked off her light, and gazed over at the far bank. There was nothing to see but opaque, inky shadows and rectangular silhouettes against the horizon. She shook her head at the lingering doubts. All she could do was keep looking. She'd made her choice, and now she had to see it through.

Olivia retreated quietly off the collapsed bridge. She stayed low and out of sight, then continued southward, past the doddering infected at the bus stop. A sidewalk had replaced the landscaping she'd been following. She jogged along a low handrail that overlooked the river, and kept her eyes peeled, despite it being unlikely in the extreme that Peter could have managed to pull himself out of the water along this stretch of shoreline; the sidewalk was elevated several feet over the waterline.

After a while, she was almost able to imagine being on one of her predawn morning runs. Almost, except for the crowbar throwing her off-balance and the backpack bouncing up and down behind her. And the undead standing limply in the street to her left, she mustn't forget about them. None were Peter though, and she ran by them without slowing. Past an old decaying warehouse on her left, a stout office building, then a park of some sort, with thickets of skeletal trees scattered randomly throughout. Infected haunted the park's grounds. She slowed to a walk as she passed opposite the bunch, sucking in gulps of much-needed air. She kept one eye on those closest to the street. They never looked in her direction, and she moved passed them quickly, noticing several that could only have been young children. As of yet, she'd not had to kill any child-sized undead, and hoped she never did. There was only so much deprivation a mind could take before something inside—something necessary for sanity, in her opinion—was irrevocably broken. She moved past them and didn't look back.

#

A tall hotel building towered at the next cross-street, where the next bridge—this one whole—crossed over the Charles. Unlike when they'd passed it by earlier that morning, the bridge was clear of infected. She shook her head ruefully. Could all the gunfire to the north have paved the way for her now, when she no longer needed it? No doubt Peter would have come up with an amusing and sardonic commentary on the irony of it all, but at the moment she lacked the imagination to do the same.

 _What a fucking disaster this is_... she thought gloomily, eyeing the bridge and the unbroken chain of vehicles stretching across it.

The handrail came to end at a low wall of crumbling concrete blocks that continued around the corner onto the bridge. She stopped next to a traffic light and wiped a sheen of cool sweat from her brow. It had been a long, grueling day. One of the worst in recent memory, and that was saying something, considering the string of horrific days she was putting together. And her day wasn't even close to being over. She bit back a yawn and felt through her jeans for the small lump in her pocket, thinking of Walter's last words before she'd walked out of the lab.

 _Take these, Agent Dunham_ , he'd whispered in her ear, pressing a plastic baggy into her hand. _Just in case you need a little pick me up while you're out finding Peter._

 _What are they?_  she'd asked with a frown, fingering the white capsules through the plastic.

 _A mix of dexedrine and modafinil..._  he'd said excitedly. His lined face and bright, eager eyes had been the picture of insanity. _It's my own personal blend...quite potent._ Then he'd turned and walked away before she could refuse.

She left the baggy in her pocket and turned the corner, slinking a path through the stalled vehicles and out onto the bridge. There might be a situation that called for their use, but Walter's homemade drug cocktails weren't something she was eager to ingest—not without a high degree of desperation, at least. And she was nowhere close...yet.

At the bridge's apex, Olivia pulled off her headlamp and massaged a spot on her forehead where it had begun to chafe. She wondered for an instant if Peter had given her the lamp with the least padding on purpose.  _No,_  she thought, shaking her head slowly. She turned the headlamp over in her hands. _He wouldn't do that._ The swaggering Peter that she'd met in a posh hotel in Baghdad might have, but he wasn't the same man he'd been then. That Peter, with all his anger, his stubborn bitterness—at herself and at Walter—would have never done what he'd done. She had to know why, had to read the truth for herself behind his eyes. If he was alive.

She cast her gaze southward over the water toward the western bank.  _What if I've been searching the wrong side of the river?_  The nagging doubt ran dogged circles in the back of her mind. He'd fallen in much nearer to the western bank, after all. She could cross over here, if she so chose, and work her way north again, essentially retracing their footsteps from that morning. Or she could go south, only the next bridge across was several miles away—nearly as far as West Fens—and there was no guarantee she'd be able to cross it in any case. What if she reached the bridge and still hadn't found him? What then? Was she supposed to follow the river all the way to Boston Harbor? Out into the Atlantic?

How was she to know when to draw the line?

 _Make a choice, 'Livia,_  a Bostonian drawl that sounded suspiciously like Peter's taunted.  _Either way, you're still searching for a proverbial needle._ _Have fun with that._

A chilly breeze blew obstinately from the west. The wind could be taken as a sign perhaps, if she believed in such things. She did not, however, and never had. The breeze became a moaning gust seeking entrance through her layers. She took a hesitant step, wincing at the stinging bite on her cheeks, then froze when a fetid rankness tickled her nose.

Olivia hastily re-affixed her headlamp, then flashed the red beam all around her. There was nothing to see at first, stalled vehicles, and the veil darkness just beyond the range of her light. Then a figure with thick, stringy hair staggered into view. An infected woman careened in slow-motion down the narrow aisle between cars in her direction. Hefting Peter's crowbar, she started toward the undead woman then jerked to a halt, noticing a dark lump protruding from its chest. Her first thought was that it was a backpack, inexplicably being worn backwards, but then, as the creature moved closer, it became apparent that it was something else entirely. The lump was open at the top, almost like a kangaroo's pouch.

Unbidden, a memory of a slightly younger Rachel wearing a similar device flashed through her mind: tiny arms and legs, a patch of thin, dark hair visible above the folded-down rim, and her sister's joyful smile as she stared down at Ella, less than six months old. Things had been normal then, her sister newly-married and happy.

With mounting horror, she ripped her gaze from the baby carrier. The undead woman was closer now, almost within arms reach. Their eyes met for a heartbeat, and then the infected was rushing forward, clawing for her face. Olivia stood frozen, still in shock by the unimaginable possibility strapped across its chest.  _Please be empty..._  came a repeating voice, thrashing around inside her head.

She recovered at the last moment, and managed to drive the angled tip of the crowbar upwards into the soft flesh underneath its chin. The infected crashed into her, forcing her back against one of the cars in the line. She found herself face-to-face with the dead woman, holding its limp weight upright with the crowbar. The stench of rotting death was overpowering. She gagged, and then, horribly, felt a slight movement against her chest.

Her gaze dipped downward of it its own volition, filling the gap between them with red light. Something tiny squirmed there. Something terrible and obscene, something that should not exist. Her mind recoiled, screaming, and fled to some distant recess where peace and tranquility were still possibilities. She shivered maniacally, unable to look away. The air seemed twisted around the monstrosity, depressed somehow, as if the malignancy were too crushing a burden for even reality to bear.

It was too much. Olivia squeezed her eyes shut, turning away from the insanity staring, reaching, up at her. She had to get away from there, away from the horror and the death at every turn. She felt a strange pressure, building inside her head, and then a slight pop, similar to the feeling of a soap bubble busting against her skin. The dead woman's limp weight vanished, and she staggered at its absence. At the same instant, the air...changed around her, temperature, the smell. Her eyes flew open.

She was someplace...else.

The bridge remained, but gone were the lines of abandoned vehicles, the dead woman and her monstrous burden. The air was warmer, and the always-present stench of rotting corpses had given way to...nothing—a complete lack of odors of any sort. A staleness. An absence of life of any kind, she would have called it, if her mind weren't occupied, trying to comprehend the view to the southeast. A giant, irregular mound of...something, dominated the horizon. She gaped at its sheer size, at the way the moonlight reflected off its seemingly smooth surface, like glittering drops of honey. Was it translucent? Were there shapes inside it? Buildings? The city?

 _I'm going utterly mad..._ , she thought, taking a step forward.  _I'm going—_ The world...  _flickered_...around her mid-step. And then she was back.  _crazy..._ she finished the thought, looking around wildly.

There had been no feeling of transition. She'd simply been  _there_  one instant, and been back the next. Back in the oppressive chill, with the stench of death filling her nostrils once more. The infected woman was lying face-down on the pavement at her feet. The mirror of the sedan she'd stumbled against dug into her side.

Olivia stared with bulging eyes at the straps crisscrossing the back of its coat, at the filthy mop of hair. She had no idea what had just happened—maybe she'd imagined it all—but the sense of horrible wrongness still lingered. A raving voice in the back of her mind warned her to leave it alone, but she reached out anyway, and hooked the dead woman over onto its back.

The baby-carrier had a purplish tint in the light of her head lamp and was surprisingly clean. Was the fabric blue? Rachel's had been a dark navy color, also. She slowly raised the crowbar over her head.  _It's not person...or a baby._ She squeezed the cool metal with both hands, steeling herself for what would come next.

Just as Olivia was about to bring an end to  _its_  unholy existence, a whiff of something acrid grabbed her attention. She hesitated, arms still upraised, and sniffed at the air. The odor didn't belong, not anymore. She smelled death and blood, rusting metal and herself. The wind breezed in off the river. She caught another whiff of harshness, and recognized it for what it was.

Smoke.

_A fire._

_Peter._ A spark of hope kindled to life, sending her heart racing.

Thoughts of that other place and even the  _thing_  in the baby carrier fell away. She dropped her arms and spun about in a slow circle, scanning the horizon. She saw nothing out of place, until she turned her gaze to the south, along the eastern bank of the river. About a quarter-mile away, the moonlight revealed what looked like a boat dock jutting out into the water. An angular structure sat nearby—presumably the associated boathouse—amid a clumpy blackness that she took for trees. Above the trees was a faint, orangish glow, that she would have missed if she hadn't been looking for it. Higher up, a section of the night sky was blotted out by what she could only assume was a plume of smoke.

"If that's not a sign, Peter, I don't know what is," she whispered to the night.

She swallowed, then glanced down at the corpse. A moving lump pressed outward, deforming the fabric of the baby-carrier. She hesitated, clenching her teeth, then stilled its movements with a single, tearful blow.  _That wasn't a baby_ , she told herself afterward, taking a deep breath and pushing her hair back.  _It wasn't_. There had been no other choice. She kept repeating it to herself as she raced off the bridge.

The towering hotel building on the corner cast a wide shadow that fell diagonally across the intersection. She plunged into the darkness without slowing, turning south.

The circle of her red light bounced on the pavement. Infected loomed outside its beam, standing in disorganized groups out in the street, and on the parking lot and sidewalks in front of the hotel and the river. In her path. She zigzagged through their ranks, sprinting past them even as awareness bloomed on their ruined faces. They would follow her, of course, but not nearly quickly enough.

The street was clear beyond the hotel. Olivia set a torrid pace, keeping her gaze near the spot where she'd seen the orange glow, though it was no longer visible. More undead wandered near a squat office building on her left. She flew by them with out a second glance. Another herd was moving away from her, down a side street where the blackened shell of a Starbuck's sat abandoned on the corner. She frowned at their departing backs, curious, but then they were out of sight and out of mind. She ran faster, noticing the pungent odor of smoke.

The road angled away from the riverbank, taking the sidewalk with it. A line of trees sprang up to her right, cutting off her view of The Charles. The strip of land widened into a wooded area, with the angular boathouse she'd seen from the bridge nestled in its center.

She was almost there.

Flames were visible now, flickering in the background of tree trunks and branches. The air became hazy. The trees ended abruptly, and she arrived at a paved parking lot, blanketed in a thickening smoke. She slowed down as the source of the smoke came into view; an old brick structure with licks of fire and shooting sparks rising up over the roof-line like a crown.

She sped across the parking lot, fighting her way through the smoke cloud. It reeked of burning plastic and who-knew-what else, lead paint probably, or something equally as toxic. There was another odor inside the smoke, foul and stomach-turning, like rotten meat. The high-pitched shriek of a battery-powered fire alarm echoed from inside, audible over the snaps and pops of burning wood.

Olivia covered her nose and mouth with her sleeve, and imagined what conditions might be like inside. Considering the amount of fire shooting through the roof, it must be a raging inferno. Anyone inside would have succumbed to smoke inhalation in short order. Surely if Peter had the sense to start the fire, he would have gotten himself out beforehand. Surely.

 _Of course he would have_ , she told herself, moving toward the rear of the building where the wailing of the alarm was loudest. She expected there to be infected in the building's vicinity, drawn in by the sounding alarm, but there were none. The lack of them was disturbing, and what she came upon next even more so.

A picket fence extended off the rear corner of the building, out toward the river. A wide section was buckled inward, like some giant had put its foot down on top of it. She stepped carefully between the metal pickets. Beyond the fence was a concrete area, with lines of lawn chairs, and circular picnic tables and folded umbrellas. A public pool, she realized, eyeing the long, rectangular depression in the concrete.

Blackish smoke billowed from a narrow, vertical window adjacent to the building's rear entrance. The glass had been shattered. She stared into the depths of the smoke for a moment, before moving toward the rows of lawn chairs. He couldn't be inside.

"Peter...," she called out, keeping her voice low. She headed toward the far end of the pool, casting her light around the patio. "Peter, are you out here?"

There was no response, and some part of her sensed that she was alone, similar to the feeling of being in an empty room. It was discouraging to admit. Maybe she'd been wrong, and the fire had been purely coincidental after all.

It was possible, she reasoned, but not probable. She would've been willing to bet almost anything that he was connected to it in some way. Someone had set the fire, certainly, and burning down a building to make a signal, or even because he was cold or needed light was something she could picture Peter doing. Her lips curved inadvertently at the thought.

The back side of the property was wide open, all the way to the river. A narrow strip of shoreline glistened faintly under the moon's glare. A beach, she concluded after a moment's thought. An easy place to exit the river, and the first she'd seen since she'd started her search.

She retreated back to the flattened section of the fence. Taking a closer look at the bent metal, she noticed that it included an unlocked gate. A human, even one delirious and gunshot, would have just opened it and walked through. The fence was the work of infected—probably a small horde drawn by the fire alarm. It would've been irresistible. But they had not broken the window. That was the work of a human, and a desperate one at that. They'd probably thrown something through it. She glanced around and noticed a rocky landscaped area, not far from the parking lot. Hunkering down, she inspected the concrete between where the gate would have stood, and the entrance.

The concrete glowed pink under her light. In front of rear entrance she found several dark stains of indeterminate color, drops of some congealed liquid. She smeared a finger through one of the globules and sniffed at the sticky substance. It had a metallic, coppery odor. She knew it well from her former life.

Blood. And fairly fresh.

She rose from her crouch. He'd been injured. Hence, the blood was his. It was the simplest explanation. She ducked under the billowing smoke. Holding her breath, she moved closer to the window, into a blast of hot air that singed her cheeks. Yellow and orange flames flickered deep inside the haze, up high on the ceiling and engulfing interior walls. The fire alarm's wailing turned to static suddenly, and then went silent.

 _If he's in there...he's dead._ She knew it, but couldn't leave without trying.

Olivia stuck her head through the window. "Peter," she cried. "Peter!" Smoke stung her eyes, burned in her nose and throat. She turned away from the window, coughing, and gasping for air. She looked around futilely, panting, and wondered what to do next. Finding him had always been something of a fool's hope—in spite of how she'd convinced herself otherwise. She'd been sure he was here, that it had been him. Everything pointed to it.

She heard a sound, then saw figures moving inside the smoky interior, bodies wreathed in flames. The infected she'd been looking for. They appeared confused, unable to navigate to any degree. She thought that maybe their eyes had burned out. Several collapsed and lay still, burning. Others staggered about, as if searching for a way out. Any of them could have been Peter, or none.

 _Goddamnit..._  Olivia scrubbed at her eyes and turned away from the window.

She headed toward the front side of the building, intending to walk its perimeter. There were no signs of him in the parking lot or on the sidewalk leading up to the front entrance. The double doors stood closed and still whole, but she wanted to inspect them anyway. Directing her light into the recessed entrance, she gasped, and her breath caught in her throat. Her heart stopped for an instant, then continued in a frantic, adrenaline-fueled pace.

It was a pair of hands, both cut off just above the wrist. They lay on the concrete in a pool of blood, flexing and squeezing at the air. Next to the hands, part of a towel peeked out from under the door frame, stuck there. The white cloth was covered with bloody spots and smears, several of which looked to be hand prints. She gazed at the towel feeling a surge of hope.

Peter  _had_  been there. She could feel it. Every part of her intuition was screaming it. She could almost picture how it had all unfolded, leading up to his escape through the front door. Had the building already been on fire? Almost certainly. Where was he now? She scoured the sidewalk, searching for another blood trail, but found nothing.

Olivia hurried out to the street and looked around. Where was he? She peered southward, following the rows of houses toward a bend in the road where it turned east and disappeared.  _He wouldn't go south_ , she thought, shaking her head and turning back to the north.  _If he'd been able to make it this far, he would try to get back to the lab._ That's what she would have done, and it was all she had to go on. They might have even passed each other, the timing seemed about right, or near enough.  _But we didn't_ , she argued,  _I would have seen him, and he would have seen me, seen the red light._ She had taken the most direct route. And all she'd seen were undead, all of them old, except for the one she'd killed. She was missing something. Something crucial.

A sudden yawn forced her eyes closed. When she reopened them, a man was standing in her path, less than a block away.

Olivia frowned at his sudden appearance. "Peter?" she said, hurrying toward him.  _No_ , she answered herself an instant later, coming to a stop.  _Not Peter_. She shifted the crowbar to her left hand, and dropped her right down to the pistol on her belt.

The man stood perfectly still, shoulders straight back, watching her. He was wearing a dark suit. And a hat. A fedora. Olivia's mouth went dry.

It was him. The strange man she'd seen on the way to Brighton. He was here. ...And he appeared to be expecting her. He'd been watching them before. Perhaps he'd seen Peter.

 _Well...there's no reason to keep him waiting_ , she thought, and started forward keeping her eyes locked on his silhouette. If he planned on disappearing as he seemed able to, he showed no sign of it, or indeed any emotion at all when she came to a stop in front of him.

#

* * *

#

Peter rounded the corner and risked a glance behind him, toward the deepening shadows between the last pair of houses on the block. He searched the darkness for a hint of his pursuers' silhouettes. The first infected—the fresh, as he'd known it would be—burst into the light, closer than before. The thing was gaining on him with a rapidity that deflated his balls into shriveled prunes.

He gritted his teeth, taking a pull from some internal well that had nearly run dry. Cool sweat beaded on his cheeks, dripped from the bridge of his eyebrows. His labored breaths rasped loudly in his ears. He was nearing the end.

 _Not quite yet..._ he thought determinedly, eying a nearly windowless brick structure that loomed out of the pitch-black on his left. A manufacturing plant of some sort. The building was surrounded by a chain-linked fence. He continued past it, doing his best to ignore the scraping behind him, the loose gravel kicked about by ungainly feet. Feet that were more than capable of catching him.

Another structure appeared out of the night. This one was brick also, though it had an angled roof-line with regular gables that looked vaguely familiar. On the side facing the street stood an arched opening, with a drive leading up to it. A parking garage. The sight of it sent his heart racing, and gave him a moment of total clarity.

He knew that building, knew exactly where he was; the  _Whole Foods_  on the corner of River and Putnam. He'd taken Walter there once and it had blown his mind. Despite Peter's protests, they'd left with more food than they could reasonably eat, and most of it had gone bad in the lab's refrigerator. More importantly for the present, however, was that the grocery store shared a parking lot with one of those chain pharmacy stores.

Swerving between a pair of parked cars, he angled toward the darkened opening to the parking garage, zeroing in on another entrance visible through the blackness of the garage's interior. The pharmacy lay just beyond it.

Just before plunging into the darkness of the garage, he noticed a foul putrescence in the air and skidded to a stop underneath intricately bricked archway. A patch of blackness in the garage moved. The shadows separated, became distinct forms, bodies outlined against the far entrance. They moved toward him.

_Well, that was stupid of you, Peter. Why don't you just run right in to them next time?_

He backed slowly away from the garage entrance. His heart raced, thudded furiously under his coat. Footsteps scraped on the sidewalk to his left. He spun, desperately bringing Olivia's gun up, and stared into the insane eyes of the still-fresh infected, highlighted in the moonlight. It was less than ten steps away, teeth bared in anticipation of his throat. At the same time, he sensed movement to his right, back in the garage. Both were closing the distance rapidly.

Peter stepped toward it and fired without thought, without even aiming. He was suddenly furious. All he could think of was that he was tired of this shit; the running, the constant pain, and the goddamn near-death experiences. The muzzle flashed, bathing the former fireman in yellow light for an instant. The shot thundered in the silence. Its nose evaporated in a red mist.

 _One_ , he counted grimly, turning away even as the creature fell in a heap of flopping arms and legs.

There came a collective groan from inside the garage, and then undead by the dozen spilled out into the street, cutting off his avenue to the north. He spied an apartment building across the street; an ancient triplex, divided by floors, with an external staircase winding up the outside to each entrance. More undead blocked any retreat to the south, as the other hangers-on finally arrived on the scene.  _Apartment it is then_ , he thought wildly, and dashed across the street.

The mass of infected surged after him, following him toward a slim opening in a fence along the sidewalk. He reached the front porch and staggered up a short flight of steps to the front door. It was stout and wooden, with an arched window high on its upper third, too high to be of any use. The door was locked, and he had no time.

In full blown panic, he gazed around the porch frantically, unsure of what exactly he was looking for. A child's bicycle with training wheels sat next to several lawn chairs. Maybe he could block them somehow, he reasoned, thinking of the stairwell in Olivia's apartment building.

The first of the infected reached the porch. He recalled wondering whether or not they could even climb steps at one point. That question had been answered with finality back at the bridge. He moved close enough to give his right hand the handicap and fired at random into the crowd. Rancid blood splattered in his face, on the painted white column next to his head. At least a half-dozen dropped, smacked face-first on the wooden treads. Those behind them stumbled over the fallen bodies, causing havoc at the bottom of the steps. It wouldn't last.

Peter surveyed the scene for an instant, then shoved the pistol inside his belt. In two long strides he was at the bicycle. He hurled it at the chest of a leering infected woman who was crushing its fellow underfoot as it struggled up the steps. The dead woman fell back, pushing a whole in their ranks. The lawn chairs followed the bike onto the pileup, adding to the chaos.

He hurried up the stairs to the second level and found another locked door. "Goddamnit..." he said, and gave it a weak kick, to no affect. The door was as solid as an oak tree.

He went to the banister and peered down at the fray. His throat tightened.  _I'm so fucked_... he thought, eyeballing the seething mass. The undead were pushing their way through his obstructions, trampling one another in their efforts to climb the narrow set of stairs. He could hear the dry crunching of snapping bones even from his height. Their numbers swelled in the small courtyard—at least a hundred of them and growing.

 _Do something. Move!_ a voice shouted in his head. His eyes darted, searching for a way out.

A gas barbecue grill gleamed in the scant light. It had been nice once, plated in stainless steel and large enough to cook several meals at once. Nearby was a small table and a threesome of wooden chairs. A ten-speed that looked older than he was leaned on its kickstand. He grabbed one of the chairs and pushed it down the steps. It tumbled end-over-end before coming to rest against the railing on the intermediate landing. The other chairs followed suit, followed by the ten-speed bike, and several basketball-sized potted plants he'd discovered also. They made a jumbled pile at the bottom, difficult to pass by to be sure, but he could do better.

He dragged the gas grill to the precipice, then hesitated, eyeing the balustrade below. It didn't look particularly sturdy, and the grill was not light. If it broke through, he might end up clearing a path for the infected.  _To hell with it_ , he thought, and shoved it over the edge. The grill tilted comically, then plunged down the steps like a runaway piano. It managed to stay upright for a second or two. Then one of its supports caught. The grill went into a cartwheel and smashed down on top of the chairs and the ten-speed with enough force to shake the floor beneath his feet. The ensuing crash was deafening in the silence. Echoes rebounded off the nearby buildings and again off those even further out.

Peter leaned up against a square support column and assessed his handiwork. It wasn't too bad, considering he had no refrigerator to make use of. The tangled mess might even hold them back. For a little while, at least. A grin cracked his lips, and then a slightly hysterical laugh bubbled up from some place inside that was still capable of seeing amusement. It felt good to laugh. They came far too infrequently these days. The laughter died out after a moment, leaving him empty and exhausted. His breath was coming out in short little wheezes, he realized, and had been for sometime. It was amazing how rapidly his strength had fled.  _It's the adrenaline saying sayonara_ , he thought dazedly. He wanted to laugh again, but it would have taken too much effort. He leaned his head against the column instead and sighed.

Boards creaked on the porch below, and he knew that the infected were on their way. He trudged toward the third floor steps, incapable of summoning any of his previous energy. His well had finally run dry.

Climbing the next floor proved difficult. Peter was gasping by the time he reached the landing at the halfway point. He struggled to catch his breath, to take in enough air; no amount seemed enough to fill his lungs. But he forced himself onward, taking one step at a time. Sweat poured down his face, into his beard, onto his lips. He touched his forehead and was surprised he wasn't burned, so intense was the heat under his skin.

As he neared the top, a violent wave of lightheadedness sent the world spinning like a top. He teetered on the brink of tipping backwards. Out of pure left-handed instinct, he grabbed for the railing and immediately regretted it. His shoulder—which in his distraction had faded to a muted throb—suddenly roared back to life with the force of a supernova, searing every particle of his being.

Peter screamed and then felt himself falling.

#

* * *

#

The man's skin was pale, almost white, and contrasted brightly against his black suit. But he wasn't infected. His eyes were colorless, to the point of being gray. He had a delicate nose for a man, with a cleft chin below skin-colored lips. It was difficult to put an age to him—he could have been anywhere from his mid-thirties into his fifties. Strangest of all, he was hairless, even his eyebrows. And there was a calmness to him, as if he could stand there all night, as if he had all the time in the world. A black briefcase hung from his left hand.

"Who are you?" Olivia said when the silence grew too thick.

" _Who are you._ " The man spoke in unison, repeating her own words back to her. His voice was bland, just like everything else about him. His head tilted to the side.

"Why are you watching me?" she tried, and the man did it again, repeating her question even as she spoke it. " _Why are you watching me."_

She took a step back, out of arm's reach.  _Something is very wrong here_. The way his head moved, the slow, emotionless cadence of his speech. He almost seemed something other than human.

"What-"

" _What do you want_?" the man finished for her. His head tilted to his other shoulder, eyes intent on her face. "Have you seen Peter? Is he still alive?"

Olivia gaped at hearing the questions she'd yet to ask, but had intended to. It was as if the man had plucked them from inside her head. "Who...what the hell are you?" she said, fumbling her gun from its holster.

"I mean you no harm, Olivia Dunham," the man replied, pronouncing every syllable fully. He shifted his head again, unaffected by the presence of her weapon.

She reeled at hearing her name on the stranger's lips.  He knew her. How was it possible? "How do you know me?" she whispered. "How did you know what I was going to say?"

"It is a small thing," the stranger said mechanically, "and of no consequence in this place and time."

 _Place and time?_   _Or place in time?_ She wasn't sure which he'd said, and neither made sense. Olivia frowned. "What does that even mean? Who are you?"

The man regarded her silently before replying. "I'm not supposed to get involved," he said. His voice quiet, as if he were worried about being overheard. "I shouldn't be speaking with you. It is ours to watch. Only to observe, never to intervene. And yet..." He trailed off, seemingly confused by his own actions.

"It's a little late for that, don't you think?" she told him dryly, letting her pistol fall back in its holster. Despite the man's strangeness, she sensed no ill intent from him, but kept her hand on the pistol's grip, just in case. "You know, I saw you before, two days ago. You were...observing us, then. I had an accident."

"Yes..." He tilted his head again, eyes narrowed. "I presume an...adjustment, had become necessary. A correction."

"An adjustment? What are you talking about?" The way he'd said it, it gave her the chills.

"Something has gone askew here...," he said, sounding confused again. Olivia had sneaking suspicion that he wasn't referring to Boston. "Events are not proceeding as history intended. There has been a fork. It was unforeseen, and highly unstable."

"A fork...?" Olivia didn't know what a fork had to do with anything, but there was definitely something askew, as he'd put it. "You're talking about the infected...aren't you?"

"The...infected," he repeated, as if tasting the word on his tongue for the first time. "Yes."

"Why is this happening?" She threw her hands wide, gesturing all around her. "What caused it?"

"The beacon in this place was...diverted." In spite of his cryptic answer, his voice remained devoid of emotion. He stuck his chin out, then angled his head to one side—an inhuman motion if she'd ever seen one. "I have been unable to calculate the source of the divergence. The ripples of causality are still compounding, expanding outward up the lines of probability. They have yet to converge on any single outcome. All is in flux as we have never witnessed before."

"The beacon? Probability?"  _We?_  Olivia smoothed back her hair impatiently. The man was speaking gibberish, worse than Walter ever had.  _This is going nowhere._ Maybe the end of the world had driven the fellow mad. He certainly seemed delusional. But then how could he know her? "Have you seen Peter? Peter Bishop?"

"Yes." The man's gaze was sharp, knowing. "The boy. He is...was important. Before. In another place. He is different in this here and now. And so are you, Olivia. I had to see for myself."

 _What in the hell is that supposed to mean?_  She didn't bother asking. "Where did Peter go?" she said instead. "Is he alive?"

The stranger made no reply. Instead of answering, he flipped open a what appeared to be a cell phone and studied it for a moment before slipping it inside his suit jacket. When his hand emerged, it was holding a small, black handgun of strange design. Olivia recoiled, reaching desperately for her own gun. The man ignored her efforts and fired without aiming off to her right side.

Instead of a gunshot, there was only an odd  _whirring_  noise, and then a thud on the pavement behind her. She twirled around and found an infected lying in the street. Its skull was crushed, caved in like it had been struck by a sledgehammer. Bits of gore and gleaming bone splattered the sidewalk behind it.

Olivia turned back to the stranger. "What was tha..." The question died on her lips. She was speaking to the air.

The man was gone.

She spun on her heels, directing her light in the shadows and dark places where a man could secrete himself. He was nowhere. Vanished, into thin air. Like a ghost. Her back had been turned only for an instant. There had been no time for him to run, or to hide.

He'd known something about Peter.

Before she could ponder the pale stranger and his curious behavior any further, a gunshot echoed in the night. Olivia froze at the sudden sound. Had it come from the north? She started forward at a slow trot, keeping her own gun drawn. Another shot rang out, and then a flurry of them, all to the northeast.

 _Peter_.

Olivia broke into a sprint even as the gunshots died out and were replaced by a foreboding quiet. She headed north, toward the burnt Starbuck's building she'd passed on her way south. As she turned the corner, making a loping turn eastward, her earlier thought that they could have passed each other returned.

There had been a number of infected on this street earlier, moving away from her...or chasing after something...or someone. She'd looked right at them, and had never considered that possibility. _He might've been right here, and I missed him. Son of a bitch._

She ran faster, until her thighs and calves burned. Her bad knee ached with every stride, the wound most likely reopened, but she distanced herself from the pain. Trees flew past, parked cars and trucks in front of houses packed together in tight bunches. But not a single infected. While it was normal for there to be stretches of inactivity, surely some of the bunch she'd seen would have broken off, distracted by some sound or another. Unless they  _had_  been following something.

 _They can be single-minded when it comes to their dinner._ Peter had said that to her once, while they'd been watching a horde of newly-infected rush past from the safety of the van. They'd been moving south toward Harvard Square. Toward what had sounded like a full-scale armed conflict, complete with automatic weapon fire and explosions loud enough to shatter glass and rock buildings.

Olivia slowed at the next cross-street, unsure of the right direction to take. She took a few steps to the east, squinting into the blackness ahead. Something had moved in her peripheral vision, a shifting of shadow perhaps, or the play of moonlight across some reflective surface. It had been something. She took a few more hesitant steps, then jumped when a thunderous boom reverberated from the north.

 _What the hell was that?_ she thought, shooting glances in all directions. The sudden noise reminded her of the trash behind her apartment building being emptied into a garbage truck, an occurrence that seemed fairly unlikely given the current state of civilization.

She turned north, moving slower than she had been, unsure of what she might be heading into. It seemed unlikely she was the only one moving to investigate all the noise. The natives would undoubtedly be closing in as well. The rows of tightly-packed houses were replaced by ivy-covered apartment buildings. A tall fence sprang up on her left, crowned with spirals of razor-wire. Then came a dark alleyway, followed by another brick building, a former retail store of some sort, she thought, from the receiving area on its back side.

Movement in the darkness brought her up short. She ducked behind a parked car and peered around the fender. Infected clogged the street ahead. Their outlines moved just out of the range of her head lamp; at least a hundred undead pushing and surging toward an apartment building across the street diagonally from her position.

What were they after? Images of Peter in the center of the scrum, being torn to pieces, eaten alive, flooded her imagination in a continuous stream. How cruel a fate would it be to survive being shot in the back, only to be devoured by a mob of undead? She had to get closer. She had to see.

Staying in her crouch, Olivia moved down the line of cars until she was nearly on top of the infected at the rear of the congregation. A body lay face down on the sidewalk. It wasn't Peter. Her new location put the apartment in clear view. It was an older building, three stories, with wrinkled siding and an external staircase with attached porches that looked as if it had been added after the fact.

The raucous sea of undead pushed and shoved their way onto the lowest porch, and up the steps to the second level with feverish intensity. She searched the upper levels and was shocked to find the porch above empty. The red light of her headlamp reflected off something metallic on the landing between the floors.  _Is that a wheel?_  She noticed a circular shape between the slats. A bike? The undead appeared unable to move past it to the second level.

A prickle of excitement ran down Olivia's spine. Someone had blocked the stairwell, though from the size of the horde below, it wouldn't hold forever.

 _The gunshots, that noise—they had to have come from here_ , she thought, scanning the upper floors again. The porches seemed empty, but that didn't necessarily mean anything; whoever had done it could have simply entered one of the apartments. And the third floor was mostly out of sight anyway. Either way, she had to get up there.

 _And just how in the hell are you going to accomplish that small feat?_  She ground the end of the crowbar into the concrete. She needed a diversion, something that could get the attention of all the infected, and at the same time, wouldn't draw attention to herself.

There was nothing close by. Abandoned cars lined the sidewalks intermittently on both sides of the street. She vaguely recalled seeing a row of dumpsters back near the receiving area she'd passed earlier. With a little luck, there might be something suitable to throw inside one of them, something made of glass, hopefully.

She holstered her pistol, then retreated to the alley, staying in a low crouch until she was clear. Her memory was as accurate as ever; the dumpsters were massive, two of them in a line along inside a fenced enclosure. She lifted up on her toes and peered inside the closest only to find it full of cardboard, much to her disappointment. The second was empty.

 _Damn it._ Time was running out. She glanced around, searching for anything that looked useful, but there was nothing, not even a discarded cigarette butt. Somehow, she'd stumbled up on the only clean alley in all of Boston. She smacked her fist against her thigh in frustration.  _Goddamn it..._

She trotted back to the street. There had to be something she could use. Her headlamp glared red off the passenger window of a sedan parked at the alley's entrance. She came to a stop, staring at her reflection in the glass. And then it hit her, like a slap across the face.

The parked cars.

Olivia rushed across the street to the northward facing row of vehicles. The closest was a blue sedan. Its doors were locked. She glanced around, checking her immediate vicinity. Then smashed the driver's window with the crowbar, wincing at, but ignoring the crash of shattered glass.  _Please work..._ , she prayed, and reached through the window for the headlight lever.

The headlights bloomed to life, lighting up the street with a blinding intensity. She moved down the line, repeating the process on three more vehicles. The street was awash in light. It was a scene she'd never thought to see again; lines of cars, waiting for whatever was causing the traffic jam to move on. But she wasn't done. She pulled open the door of the last vehicle, a tall pickup truck with massive tires, and pressed the horn. It was freakishly loud in the quiet. She didn't doubt that it could be heard for miles.

She kept her hand on the steering wheel, blaring the horn for what seemed like a full minute before the first of the infected staggered into the light of the blue sedan. More followed closely behind, all moving with a greedy fervor. She watched them move closer. They reached the first car, the second, and then it was time for her to go. She released the horn and raced across the street.

The infected continued toward the truck. Olivia retraced her steps beside the fence, staying low on the sidewalk close to the southward facing vehicles. Bodies moved past in the street. Their throaty growls and shuffling footsteps drowned out her pounding heart. She reached the alley, and peeked around the rear bumper of a minivan. As she'd hoped they would, the infected were pouring out into the street from the front of the apartment building like it was on fire.

She watched them hurry down the street toward the headlights.  _Why does it enrage them so?_  Walter had yet to explain the behavior. After several minutes the stream of undead came to an end, and she was able to cross the street behind them.

On the walk leading up to the front porch she found five trampled infected. All had been shot in the head, and at close range. She stepped over the mangled bodies and hurried up the steps to the second floor. As she'd thought, the landing had indeed been blocked. What looked like the remains of several wooden lawn chairs and a bicycle were in a jumbled pile, all crushed beneath the weight of an over-sized barbecue grill. An infected man struggled among the debris, pierced through the left thigh by a spike of wood from a broken lawn chair. The creature appeared unaware of the injury and groped toward the headlights below. With a grunt, she plunged the crowbar into the back of its head, then yanked it out of her way. It skidded down the steps on its back. Olivia picked her way over the pile and ascended to the second floor. There was no sign of Peter, though someone had certainly been there. Fresh scratches on the painted wood floor led straight to the stairs. The apartment was locked, and she moved past it, onto the third floor stairwell.

And that was when she saw him.

Her heart took a great leap in her chest. He was lying on his back at the bottom of the steps. His eyes were closed. A nasty cut marred his forehead, and his skin was pale beneath his light beard. His jacket was soaked in blood, the source of which was a gaping wound in his left shoulder. The handgun she'd given him was shoved inside the front of his jeans.

"Peter!"

Olivia threw herself down beside him. Was he breathing? She couldn't decide and reached for his pulse. Her hand shook. She touched his neck and hissed, jerking back reflexively. His skin was on fire. Her mind flashed back to John, and how hot he'd grown the instant before he'd turned. She expected Peter's eyes to snap open, their cool blue replaced by an ugly gold, but he remained still. Gingerly, she touched his neck again, conscious of her proximity to his teeth. There was nothing. A painful constriction swelled about her throat. She was too late.A tear fell on his cheek, then another, and she wiped them away with her thumb, letting her palm linger against his beard for a moment.

She screwed her eyes shut and took in a shaky breath. The taste of failure was bitter on her tongue, in her gut. "I'm so sorry, Peter," she whispered, leaning over him. She touched his cheek again, then ran her fingers through his hair. "I'm sorry."

Peter's body suddenly stirred beneath her hand. He exhaled a saw-toothed breath. Olivia backed away, then rose up on her knees, lifting his crowbar. The angled tip hovered over his head. A groan escaped his lips—a raspy, liquid sounding growl that sent chills racing down her spine.  _I'm sorry,_ she told him silently, fighting back more tears. His eyes fluttered, then slid open.

It was the moment.

Olivia steeled herself.  _It's not him..._  she thought, looking him over for the last time. She tensed, lifting the crowbar higher. _It's not him._  She clenched her jaw in preparation for the killing thrust.

Peter's eyes swiveled in their sockets, unfocused, before coming to rest on her face. Her heart lurched. She gasped, and came close to dropping the crowbar, which would have been a disaster. His eyes were blue. Beautifully, and completely blue—without a hint of an infected's cruel yellow. And she'd come within an inch of killing him.

"Peter!" She tossed the crowbar aside and crouched over him again, touching his face. "Peter, can you hear me? It's me..."

He moaned pitifully, then mumbled something she couldn't make out, if it had been words at all. It didn't matter. He was alive. Now she just had to make sure he stayed that way.

Grabbing him under the arms, Olivia lifted him into a sitting position against the railing, trying to be gentle with his wounded shoulder. He let out a painful groan despite her best efforts, but remained otherwise docile. She shifted her gaze between the second and third levels. As much as she hated the idea, they would have to take shelter for the night. He was in no condition to move, and she wanted to take a closer look at his injuries.

"Stay here, Peter," she said, and snatched up the crowbar. "I'll be right back."

The second level apartment's front door proved easy prey for the crowbar. It was easy to see why he carried it, and she was beginning to develop a fondness for its versatility herself. The door swung open on silent hinges.

Olivia stepped into a family room and shined her light around. An ancient couch and matching love seat sat adjacent along two walls. The room was empty. She moved further inside, going from room to room. The apartment smelled of mold and staleness, but not of death, and that was all she cared about at the moment. The other rooms were just as empty as the first. Dishes cluttered the kitchen sink and clothes sat neglected in laundry baskets. Whoever had lived in the apartment had left in a hurry, or had never been back at all after the start of the outbreak. Either suited her just fine.

Peter was still sitting where she'd left him, head limply lolled to one side. For an instant, she thought he'd passed in the interim, but then his chest lifted. "Don't you dare die on me now, Bishop," she muttered, crouching beside him. Not after all the trouble she'd gone to find him. "I have to lift you up, Peter. Try to help if you can."

There was no reply.

She grabbed him under the arms again, hugging him against her chest. He was heavier than she would have guessed, considering their poor diets as of late. Grunting, she staggered to her feet, lifting him with her. His head rested on her shoulder. She felt the scratchy roughness of his beard against her neck. He reeked of blood and smoke and himself, and the feverish heat emanating from him was incredible.

 _He's burning up..._ , Olivia thought, dragging him down the steps to the open apartment door. She maneuvered him to the sofa. After some difficulty, she managed to get him situated, with a number of pillows propped under his head and back. It would have to do.

She found an oil lamp sitting on top of an old microwave in the kitchen, and a book of matches in a junk drawer underneath. The apartment's only bathroom had an ample supply of towels—though their cleanliness was certainly in question—along with a medicine cabinet in which she'd found a half-empty bottle of Tylenol. She set the lamp on an end table and knelt down next to the couch. Peter lay still, eyes closed, his breathing reduced to shallow gasps. Sweat beaded on his brow and dribbled onto the cushion below. The bullethole in his shoulder looked in need of serious attention, but she was no doctor. He appeared to have shoved a bandage of some kind into it; the pain must have been immense. The best she could do was wrap it up, and try to keep pressure on it until she could get him back to Walter. The fever burning him up was a much greater worry.

Olivia pulled a water from her backpack. "Peter..." She put a hand on his cheek and winced at the furnace raging inside him. "Peter, I have some water. Try to take a drink." She dribbled a few drops over his closed lips. They twitched as if the water tickled, then his tongue peeked out for an instant. His mouth opened, and she gave him a drink. He swallowed several mouthfuls, then she pulled the bottle away from his reaching lips. "That's enough for now. Go slow, Peter." She spoke softly, as if talking louder might violate the atmosphere of the empty apartment in some indescribable way.

She set the bottle aside. When she turned back to the couch, his eyes were wide-open, locked on her face with the same cerulean intensity she'd pretended not to notice so often in the lab.

"'Livia..." His voice was a wet rasp, almost inaudible. She leaned closer as he said something else. "What...how are you even here? You just...can't get enough of me, can you, Agent Dunham?"

Olivia snorted and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. At least he still had his sense of humor. Her lips curled into a wide grin, and she suddenly found her self on the brink of tears. "Watch yourself, Bishop," she said fondly, wiping at her eyes. "Or I might just have to leave you here."

Peter chuckled, and then coughed and reared up on the couch. "Ahh...don't make me laugh, Olivia...," he gasped, grabbing at his shoulder. "Don't make me laugh, please."

"Sorry..." And she meant it too. He must be in an extraordinary amount of pain. She helped him lie back with a hand on his chest. "I'll try to keep the laughter to a minimum." Their eyes met, and she held the contact instead of looking away as she usually did. She had questions for him, but they could wait. She wanted him clearheaded when he answered. After several heartbeats, his eyes slid shut and he let out a long sigh. She dabbed at the sweat on his face. "You're burning up, Peter. I found some Tylenol in the bathroom." Olivia grabbed the bottle and spilled two out onto her palm. "Here. Take these." She pressed them to his lips.

Peter glanced down at the pills. "Keep 'em...coming," he said, and opened his mouth. She frowned at his request, but gave him two more, followed by another sip of water. He stared up at the ceiling, breathing shallowly. "I'm fairly sure..." he panted, "that in addition...to suffering from the effects of blood loss, the river left me a...little present. Sepsis, here I come." He exhaled loudly through his nose. "I'm gonna need antibiotics sooner than later...that is if I don't finish bleeding out first."

"Antibiotics?"

"There's a pharmacy not far from here," he said. "That's where I was...headed when..." His eyes slid shut, and he swallowed thickly. "...You ever been shot, Olivia?" he asked a moment later.

"Never," she replied at once. "One time on a raid, I took a hit in the vest, though. Hurt like hell."

"That it does..." he agreed, managing to smile. He eyed her sideways. "How's Walter? Not so good, I imagine."

"Yeah...that would be something of an understatement," she said with a low chuckle. "He begged me to find you. Made me promise that I would, actually."

"Is that the only reason you came?" His voice was deceptively light.

Olivia regarded him before answering. Muscles flexed under his beard in the intervening silence. "No...," she murmured finally. His gaze sharpened, but she changed the subject; that was a conversation she wasn't ready for, and maybe never would be. "Listen, Peter," she began instead, grabbing his hand and giving it a squeeze. "I have to wrap your shoulder. It's probably going to hurt."

"Probably?" He grunted, and bit the lapel of his jacket. She suspected it was not the first time he'd used it so. "Go ahead," he said through his teeth.

Olivia snaked a bath towel under his arm pit, then criss-crossed the ends. "You ready?" He nodded in reply. She was about to cinch the towel tight, when a thought struck her. "Oh. What kind of antibiotics do you think you'll need?" At his frown, she elaborated. "...Just in case."

"Umm...a non-refrigerant type, obviously. Uh...cefalexin, if they've got any," he answered. "Or any of the penecillins if they don't. Fuck...just grab whatever you can find. That's what I was going to do anyway..." He hesitated, meeting her eyes again. "Olivia...I...thank you. For coming."

She swallowed and gave his hand another squeeze. "You would have done the same for me, Peter," she said, returning his gaze meaningfully.

After a moment, he nodded, then bit into the lapel again.

"Okay..." She would just have to figure it out, somehow. Hopefully, the pharmacy wasn't completely looted, and the pharmacist in charge had made good use of labels and organized her drugs in an obvious way. "All right, here goes." She pulled the towel tight. Peter gasped around his lapel, eyes bulging as she increased the pressure. At some point during her second knot, he lost consciousness, just as she'd predicted.

Olivia stood and stared down at his still form.  _Why did you do it, Peter?_  she wondered again. Why had she been so desperate to find him? Because he'd gone and found her necklace? Because he'd saved Rachel? Both were good enough reasons, she supposed.  _There's more to it than that_ , a voice answered.  _And you know it_. She thrust the thoughts aside. Reasons weren't important at present. Getting back to the lab was.

She went out onto the porch. The street to the south was still a halo of light, though some of the headlights seemed dimmer than she recalled. The mass of infected had surrounded the vehicles. Their frenzied silhouettes reminded her of moths in a spotlight. After several minutes of watching their fruitless efforts, she went back inside.

Since the front door's lock no longer held, she wedged a chair from the kitchen under the door knob. A human would be able to push it open certainly, but it would deter a curious infected, if one managed to bypass the barricade. She glanced around the dingy apartment. The oil lamp sputtered and flickered fitfully. Who had lived there, and what had happened to them? A man, most likely, she judged. And single, from the lack of photographs in evidence, and the absence of any effeminate decor in any of the rooms. Maybe a grad student taking night classes. She wondered how they'd died.

Finding that line of inquiry too depressing, she returned to Peter's side. His sleep was peaceful, though his chest rose and fell faster than she would have liked. She touched his forehead, and was again disturbed by his fever.  _I should have given him more water_ , she thought worriedly, eyeing his sweat-soaked hair. Resisting a sudden urge to touch him again, Olivia instead crossed over to the love seat and sat down.

Her body ached, from the soles of her feet all the way up to her scalp. She released her ponytail and felt a prickly pain, but immediately felt less tense, more relaxed. She sighed, and then settled back on the love seat, curling her legs to one side. It occurred to her that she'd forgotten to mention the strange man in the suit to Peter, and their even stranger conversation. She was eager to hear his opinion. In the morning. What had happened on the bridge she would keep to herself for the time being. Surely she'd imagined the whole thing, anyway. It was the only explanation.

A tired yawn stretched her mouth open. She sank deeper into the cushions, overcome with an overpowering exhaustion that pulled her eyelids downward with irresistible force. On the edge of sleep now, her mind hovered in that place where the waking world and dreams were indistinguishable. The stranger's words echoed in the silence of her purgatory, dark and full of premonition.

 _He is different in this here and now. And so are you, Olivia_.

Olivia teetered on the brink. Some memory sparked another memory, that in turn produced an image. The image wavered, obscured by time and chemical barriers. The sliver of her consciousness that remained awake reached for it, recognizing some part of its terrible truth. She grasped the image and all that came with it for a single instant. And then it sublimed into the haze of false memory, and she succumbed to sleep.

Tears rolled down her cheek, unnoticed and unadorned.


	10. Tidings

**-October 2008**

The thunderstorm had woken him before dawn.

Dr. Walter Bishop stood just inside the lab's back door. The rain fell in great, torrential sheets whipped sideways by the gusting wind. A fine mist of water droplets sprayed across his face and he wiped them away unconsciously, watching the animated corpses wander about. This particular door opened to Harvard Yard, outside the barricade Peter and Agent Dunham had constructed. The undead moved at random through the trees in no recognizable pattern he could discern. None were close by, though it was not always the case. It was the same every morning. The headless body of poor Judy lay not far away where they had left her, partially covered with blown leaves.

Across the yard, a rooftop caught his eye. The bluish-green patina of the Widener Library stood out through mostly barren trees and the haze of rainfall. From that same vantage, part of the Cabot Library was also visible, closer than the Widener, but still out of reach. Between the two of them, their volumes held nearly the sum total of all human history and accumulated knowledge; from science and mathematics to the cultural and philosophical holdings of five continents. The thought of their silent rows and stacks sitting untouched and unread, disintegrating in time, filled him with melancholy. Or even worse, he amended, the hallowed grounds infested with mindless monstrosities—unholy mockeries of their former caretakers.

 _It's such a terrible waste_ , he thought, helplessly massaging his right hand. S _uch a terrible waste_. "Even Belly would be outraged," he muttered. "And he was never one for sentimentality."

He wondered how Belly was doing these days. That he had survived was without question: he would have extrapolated that the end was coming. Just as Walter himself had. His old friend was far too resourceful to have fallen prey to the current calamity. If he'd even been present, of course, and not on one of his infamous business trips. Perhaps he was waiting out the end of the world in the ivory tower he'd constructed for himself out of both of their labors.

Not like Peter.

He did his best to suppress the thought—and all the interminable pain that came with it—but it had already sunk its teeth in. "Peter's going to be fine...," he repeated for the umpteenth time that morning.

Pain flared in his right hand. Walter released his palm, suddenly aware of the pressure he'd been applying. He swallowed, then closed his eyes and exhaled a slow, shaky breath.  _Agent Dunham will find him, and she'll take care of him. She has to take care of him. I can't bear to lose him again._

Lightning forked across the sky, burning purple spiderwebs onto his retina. Simultaneously, the accompanying thunder shook the building, rattling his beakers in their stands across the lab. It was a close strike, the source obscured by a copse of oak and elm trees to his left. The wind shifted, intensified, sending a chilly blast of rain through the open doorway.

He took a step back, wiping the water away with the sleeve of his lab coat. The undead out in the yard had stopped their wandering. As one, their heads turned from side to side, searching for the source of the affronting noise. He watched the corpses closely, curious at their behavior. The  _infected,_ as the others referred to their undead friends— erroneously, in his opinion—had only rudimentary sound processing capabilities. The subtle white-noise of the rainfall seemed to affect them not at all, yet, they had clearly reacted to the thunder. He continued his observation, counting the seconds until they lost interest in their search. Would it be a uniform number? Or was their attention span affected by the degeneration of their tissue? With the oldest of them having the shortest span, similar to how the newly-infected retained a higher degree of mobility than their older counterparts. A tingle of anticipation ran down his spine, a familiar feeling—the addictive thrill of discovery. He dipped into his front pocket for a red vine—one of his last, unfortunately—and began to chew enthusiastically.

Another web of lightning flashed to the southeast. He caught a glimpse of the discharge just as it disappeared, somewhere in the vicinity of the Faculty Club building on the far side of campus. A heartbeat later the rolling rumble of its thunder followed. As if they were all following the same command, the undead turned as one and lurched in the general direction of the thunder even as it faded away.

Walter frowned at the behavior.  _Very curious_ , he thought, squinting through the rain at their furious retreat. They were soon out of sight, obscured by the rain and intervening trees.  _How long will they continue their search_? he wondered, as more undead hobbled into view from the north.

He gazed at the newcomers. They staggered across the yard, following in the footsteps of the others to the southeast. Why did the sight make him think of birds? There was certainly nothing avian about any of their movements. More than anything, the undead resembled nothing so much as a pack of drunkards from a distance. There was another round of thunder to the south, and the creatures swung about, veering toward the fading rumbles. Had the first group changed their course also? He thought of birds again, of the starling, and its effortlessly complex and fluidal flocking mechanics. Their flocks were collective, without any single leader, and yet they still managed to create the most beautiful and intricate patterns in the sky. Countless such examples of emergent behavior existed in nature, in non-living and biological systems; from the distribution of atoms in solids and liquids, to schools of fish, bee swarms, and ant colonies. Indeed, emergence was everywhere, including in human behavior, all the way up to the fluctuations of the now defunct stock market.

Walter fingered his chin.  _Why birds?_ he wondered. They were not exhibiting flocking behavior, only responding to stimuli in the only way they were capable.  _So why do they remind me of birds?_

After a moment, he shook his head. He was on to something, some...realization, and only time or distraction would bring it forth.  _Or some Bach_ , he lamented sadly. He shot a glance toward the piano, swallowing through a painful constriction, then hung his head. He would have given anything to hear Peter play once more. Anything at all. He'd done so before hadn't he? Yes, he had. The pain in his chest swelled to unimaginable heights, and he bit back a sob. So long ago it had been. What had he done exactly? He recalled being so very desperate, and his Elizabeth, also. Before the fire and St. Claire's. Back when he'd still been whole, and not an old man with half a memory.

The tinkle of breaking glass jerked him from the past.

"Eh? Who's there?" Walter spun around. He found a little girl standing not far away, holding the candlestick he'd lit on his way out of the office. Shoulder length, chestnut hair framed an oval face, still with traces of baby fat and complete with dimples. Agent Dunham's niece. He looked past her and saw that she was alone. He'd forgotten her name. With all the excitement yesterday, between Peter and the girl's mother, he'd barely paid attention to the introductions. On the floor at her feet was one of his beakers, shattered. They stared at each other in the flickering candlelight for several moments.

"Um...Dr. Walter?" Her voice was tremulous, full of fear.

He wiped at his stinging eyes, then gave the girl what he hoped was a friendly smile. "Oh. Hello there, my dear," he said.

"I—I'm sorry...," she squeaked, glancing down at the broken glass, dismay written across her face. "I—I didn't mean to drop it, Dr. Walter. It...it just slipped..."

Walter brushed the matter aside with a wave. "It's quite all right, young lady," he told her with a shrug. "If I had dollar for every beaker I've broken...well, I would be a relatively poor man." He threw a glance out into the rain, then motioned the girl to his side. "Come. We'll clean that up later. I don't believe we've been properly introduced yet." The little girl stepped forward hesitantly, until she was within arm's reach. "I'm Dr. Walter Bishop. And what was your name again, miss? I was a bit...preoccupied yesterday, when you arrived with Agent Dunham."

"Um...I'm Ella. Ella Blake," the girl replied.

"Ella." He grinned and held out his hand, which she took hesitantly. "What a lovely name, child. Is it short for Eleanor? Ellen?"

She lifted her chin proudly. "Nope. Just Ella."

"I see..." Walter grinned at her impudence, so similar to Peter at that age. "And why are you up so early this morning, my dear?" he asked.

"The lightning woke me up," she said, looking past him out into the rain. "And Mommy was still sleeping. She gets mad when I wake her up, you know."

"I imagine so," he said, secretly amused by her seriousness.

She threw a glance over her shoulder. "I wanted to see Gene again, then I saw you by the door." The girl paused and looked down at her shoes before going on. "Mister Peter told me I could feed her... Are you his daddy?"

Walter swallowed through a sudden lump in throat and forced out a smile. "Um...yes. That I am."

Ella flashed him a small grin. "He was nice on our way here. He gave me a ride on his shoulders... It was fun. My dad stopped giving me rides after I was little."

"Peter...gave you a ride?" he queried, struggling to keep his face clear. He'd never seen his son interact with children as an adult, though it had always been something of a dream. A dream not meant for him. Or his Elizabeth.  _Oh my poor dear, my poor Elizabeth. I'm so sorry._ He regretted his lack of insight; that he should have seen her despair before the accident, and in the letters she'd sent him after. But he hadn't. He wished he could have seen her again. "I...I should have liked to have seen that."

The girl shrugged, then stepped up next to him and peered out into the rain. "What were you looking at outside?" she asked, glancing up at him. "Are those monsters out there?"

"I...I was observing our unliving friends," he explained, gesturing toward the bodies moving in the distance. "Watching their movements, studying their behavior during the storm." He gazed out into the rain. Another group stood off in the distance among the tress. They appeared to have lost interest in following the storm. "The creatures react to the sound of the thunder, you see. They hear sounds and are compelled to find the source, and yet thunder is fleeting. I...I've been wondering if there were any chance it might affect us here. Though I can't see how, yet."

"Does that door open to the outside?" Ella questioned, giving the door a peevish look. "Outside the wall of cars, I mean."

"Indeed it does," he answered with a nod.

Her eyes widened and she stepped from the doorway. "Should it be open then?" she said, staring up at him. "Won't the monsters be able to get us?"

"Of course not, child," he scoffed. "Peter removed the outer handle, just in case any of them became too curious. It's not as if they can open doors in any event. Their intelligence is quite rudimentary."

She seemed to accept his judgment and relaxed. The rain had slackened considerably since they'd been talking, going from a downpour to a light shower. The undead moved about in the yard, the same batch that had wandered in from the north. They ignored another low rumble, from far away to the west. He wondered where the threshold was, what decibel level was the minimum that would catch their attention. An experiment was in order, though he'd have to come up with a safe way to test their hearing.

"Can you really fix the monsters?" she asked several minutes later. "Mister Peter said you were a scientist, and that if anyone could, it was you."

Walter's heart lurched. "He...said that?" he asked, stilling his trembling hand.

Ella nodded. "Yeah, I heard him," she reported. "I was supposed to be in bed when he and Aunt Liv were talking to Mommy about coming here, but I listened anyway. He sounded pretty sure."

"Well...I...I hope I don't let him down then," he said hoarsely. His eyes began to sting again and he screwed them shut until the moment had passed, taking in ragged breaths.  _I can't lose him again. I can't bear it..._

"My daddy turned into one of the monsters," the girl whispered suddenly. "I wish...I wish he was here now. Maybe you could've healed him. And then he wouldn't be dead."

Walter placed a hand in her hair. She was shaking ever so minutely. "I'm so sorry, my dear," he said gently, "but no, there was nothing I could have done for your father. The condition is fatal, one-hundred percent. I'm nowhere close to finding a cure yet. And without Peter, I—I'm not sure...I'll...I'll..." He held back a rising sob with his fist against his lips.

Ella glanced up at him, then tugged on his coat sleeve. "I'm sure Aunt Liv will find him, Dr. Walter," she told him. He could see the hero-worship in her eyes, hear it in her voice. She had complete confidence in her aunt, in Agent Dunham. "She promised she would come for me and my mom, and she did. You'll see."

"I hope you're right..." he said, looking out at the rain, but not seeing it. His thoughts turned inward. Olivia had promised that she would do her best to find Peter, would do everything in her power. She had promised.

 _And some promises are all but impossible to keep, as you well know_ , a voice told him then. The voice grew louder, rattling his skull, smothering the rain and thunder and his thoughts.  _Sometimes our best isn't enough. Yours wasn't, before. You let him down, before. It was your fault! Elizabeth was your fault. Everything that happened was your fault. You failed Peter. You failed both of them._

 _Stop it!_ A war raged inside his head.  _I did everything I could have! Everything I could think of. I just ran out of time. He was my son! My only son. Do you think I wanted him to—_

"Dr. Walter?" A hand pulled at his coat. "Dr. Walter, are you okay?"

Walter jerked at the touch. He blinked, becoming aware of the lab again, of the young girl standing next to him and the rain outside, and of his wet cheeks. His hands were on his head, fingers tangled in his hair. Swallowing and exhaling a hoarse breath, he let his arms fall to his side. "I...I'm sorry, my dear," he said in ragged voice. "I...the past...things that happened long ago..." The girl's face scrunched with confusion at his response, and he smiled weakly. He had probably been frightening her half to death. "Don't mind me, child, ignore an old man's ramblings..."

After a while, she pointed out into the rain that was picking up again. "Do the monsters go to bed at night, Dr. Walter?" she asked. "My mommy told me once that monsters have to go to bed at night. Is that true?"

"Go to bed...?" he said, glancing down to gauge if it were a serious inquiry. The girl seemed earnest enough. "Certainly not. They're nothing more than beasts, young lady. Incapable of lying down even if they were to try. Surely your mother was simply placating your irrational fears of the dark." In the back of his mind, Elizabeth spoke, berating him in her dignified accent that he'd so adored when they'd first met.  _She's just a little girl, Walter. To her, her fears are in no way irrational._ She was quite right, of course, his Elizabeth. She usually was.

Ella frowned up at him. "What's...placating?" she wanted to know, sounding out the word.

Walter smiled at her natural curiosity. Peter had been very inquisitive boy at that age also, constantly questioning the nature of everything from social interactions between the boys and girls in his preschool class, to drawing conclusions—even erroneous as they were—regarding the relationship between the sun and the stars. "Never you mind, child," he said, putting a hand on her shoulder. "It's not important."

At that moment, lightning split the air once more to the south, followed almost instantly by deafening crack of thunder that rocked the campus. The girl flinched under his palm, and he squeezed her shoulder gently. The slovenly figures in the yard lurched southward through the rain. He wondered if the water confused their senses—the raindrops on their skin, in their eyes. What senses had priority? He might've been able to conduct some tests on Judy, but doing so had not occurred to him until that moment. Perhaps Peter and he could capture ano...

No. Dear god, he'd forgotten already.  _Peter, my son_. A terrible ache spread out from his chest. He hung his head, taking in a deep breath. If Peter didn't come back...  _Peter._

"Where will they go?" Ella asked, gesturing toward the fleeing undead.

Walter swallowed down the despair, and glanced between the girl and the dead. "It's...impossible to say, really," he told her, feeling little of his usual fervor. He leaned his head against the door frame. Mustering any sort of excitement about the scientific impossibilities of the present situation seemed beyond him. "I suppose they'll continue in the direction of the stimuli until they lose interest. And then something else will catch their attention and they'll move on. In time, they might even end up somewhere else entirely, perhaps even in another...another..." A thought struck him then, a premonition, dire in its implications. Emergent behavior must order the universe—including the undead creatures. He stood up straight, mouth hanging open.

 _Birds. Of course...,_ he thought, raising a hand to his forehead. _I should have seen it at once._ _Mass migrations._ _We might have to leave Cambridge, abandon Boston altogether before they're driven west._ The prevailing easterly winds—and their accompanying storms—wouldn't arrive until spring, so they had that much time. Should he inform the others? The Charles would slow them, but not indefinitely. Eventually, they would find a way across, one way or another. The winter ice, perhaps? Would the freezing temperatures help or hinder? He'd had no way to test any hypotheses regarding the undead's resistance to low temperatures.

There came a tugging on his arm. The girl was speaking, asking him a question. "...Another what, Dr. Walter?"

"Oh...it's nothing to worry about, my dear," he answered, pulling the door closed. His suspicions could wait. They had time still, months even. And he could never leave without knowing Peter's fate. "A problem for another time. Come. Let's clean up this broken glass before the others awake."

#

* * *

#

Olivia startled awake to the rattle of a deafening thunderclap. She blinked and stared up at an unfamiliar ceiling, still partially submerged in one of the strangest dreams she'd had in recent memory. The ceiling was water-stained and glowed faintly in the dreary light slipping through the cracks in the window blinds to her right. Where was she? An apartment?

In her dream, she'd been at a small dinner party. A celebration of some kind, though not for herself. They'd been waiting for food to arrive, only to have the delivery man drop it on the doorstep. Had it been Chinese? A pot roast? Her hands had been strange, not her own, covered in light hair and disturbingly male-looking. It was almost as if she'd been someone else entirely, as odd as that seemed. And the delivery man had been Peter. She reached for more details but they slipped away, like grasping at smoke.

Outside, the pleasant white-noise of a downpour urged her back to sleep, but she resisted its call and sat up instead. Where was she? Her groggy confusion lasted only until she glanced at the couch next to her, and then it all came rushing back; Peter and his injury, the fire, and her frantic run through the night to find him. The mysterious stranger and their even stranger conversation in the middle of the street. The man had disappeared. And then there was her...episode, or hallucination, or whatever it had been.

Olivia sat up and wiped the crumbs of sleep from her eyes. A musty odor wrinkled her nose. Peter lay unmoving, eyes closed and his left arm dangling limply above the floor.  _Oh my god._  Her breath caught. "Peter!" She leapt off the couch and was at his side in an instant. Was he breathing? In the apartment's dimness it was impossible to see the rise and fall of his chest. She rushed to the window and yanked up the blinds. A thunderstorm raged outside. Wind whipped sheets of rain and the trees about in the courtyard below. She eyed the weather for a moment, then returned to his side.

He was breathing, though shallowly, and his face was deathly pale. The towel she'd tied around his shoulder was showing signs of saturation, and needed changing soon. She laid a hand on his chest and gasped at the heat radiating out through his shirt and coat. His temperature was even higher than when she'd found him the previous night.

"Peter, wake up," she said, giving him a little shake. "Peter? You have to wake up, just for a minute." Should she leave him here while she went to look for antibiotics? Or find a car first?

Peter's face twisted with pain. "Ahh...fuck." He let out a soft groan and attempted to turn his head away. "Leave me...alone, Walter," he panted. "I don't think...I don't think I can go in today. Call Astrid...maybe she can pick you up. And for once, try not to piss off...Olivia."

Olivia's lips curled despite the gravity of their situation. Was this what mornings had been like in the hotel? She could imagine his father pestering a grumpy Peter every morning for some reason or another. If she'd learned anything about him since they'd all moved into the Kresge Building, it was that a morning person he was not. "Peter, Walter's not here. It's me. This might hurt." she whispered in his ear, and then grabbed his hand and lifted his arm back across his chest. "Wake up."

Peter's eyes bulged open, exposing the whites all around. "Son of a bitch..." His agonized whisper was filled with misery. He tried to sit up, but she held him back with two fingers on his chest. "And here...I'd thought I'd only dreamt about being shot," he wheezed, eyeing her sideways. "At least I wasn't dreaming that you'd found me."

"Dreaming? Sounds more like a nightmare," she replied with a smirk, and grabbed a half-empty water off the coffee table. "Here, have some more water, you're burning up, Peter. I'm worried. We have to get you back to Walter." She pressed the bottle to his lips and gave him several swallows. He sighed and let his head fall back on the pillow. "And some more Tylenol, too." She twisted the cap off the pill bottle.

Peter stared at bottle with dark amusement. "Isn't that...a bit like putting a band-aid on a gunshot wound at this point?" he commented, and then grinned at her arched eyebrow. "Sorry...not so funny, I guess, all things considered."

Olivia quirked her lips to one side. "No. Not so much," she said, feigning irritation. It spoke well of him that despite his obvious pain and discomfort, he was still able to maintain his sense of humor. She wasn't sure she would've been able to herself. She gave him another quartet of pills and another sip of water, and then straightened. Her knees cracked loudly in the silence. She sensed his gaze tracking her over to the window. She made her decision; he would leave with her, and wait in whatever car they found. "We have to get out of here, Peter," she said, peering out through the foggy glass. The rain had let up some, or at least the wind had died down. She wasn't sure if there was a difference. "But first I have to search that pharmacy." She eyed him over her shoulder. "How do you feel? Could you walk if you had to?"

Peter made a feeble attempt at a snort that left his chest heaving. "Walk? Possibly," he replied. "Walk back to the lab? Not so much." He squeezed his eyes shut and struggled to swallow. "...And as for how I'm feeling, I think it's safe to say that I've never felt worse. So there's that."

"We won't have to walk far, hopefully," she called over her shoulder on her way to the linen closet for another towel. "We just have to find a car to hot-wire. Didn't you tell me once that older models are easier?"

"Olivia, I hate to tell you this," he said, when she returned to the front room. "but there's no way I'm gonna be able to—"

"Did I say you?" she cut in, dropping the folded towel on his chest. She eased down in front of the couch. Her bad knee ached at the pressure, but there was no way around it. "You're just going to have to teach me, Peter. On the job training, or something like that."

"...Teach you?"

Olivia gave him a narrow glance. "Yeah. Is that a problem?" From the look he was giving her, she might have asked him to become one of Walter's test subjects. Which was odd, as he normally never hesitated to display his less than legal talents. She thought of the old Bishop house in Cambridge, and how casual he'd been about breaking in to retrieve Walter's equipment—for her.  _This is barely even a crime,_ he'd said with his trademark smirk. _I used to live here_ _._  Had that really happened less than two months ago? She could scarcely believe it. "Weren't you a fake professor once upon a time, Peter?" she asked, untying the towel on his shoulder. "I seem to remember reading that in your file. Sit up a bit, if you can."

Peter leaned forward slightly, grimacing in discomfort. "Hey...the only thing fake about that position was the degree I used to get it," he insisted as she pulled the saturated towel free. "It was a real teaching job...at least until the department head did a little research on me. Turns out he didn't like the fact that I was smarter than he was." He paused, catching his breath.

She pulled back his coat, and sucked in a sharp breath at the sight of his torn shoulder. In the morning light she could see it clearly. The partially-crusted-over exit wound was oblong, and easily larger than a silver dollar. Blood still trickled from the wound, and the flesh around the perimeter was torn and ragged, resembling nothing so much as raw meat. It would leave a horrific scar behind. "Then...then, what's the problem?" she asked, tearing her eyes away.

"Job security...," he replied, eyes twinkling. "I can't be telling you all my secrets, now can I?"

Olivia snorted and rolled her eyes. "Job security...?" she said, and somehow managed to hide her amazement that he could be joking around with that gaping hole in his shoulder. How was he not screaming in agony? How had he managed to survive at all? The river and the fire—she wanted to hear all about it, but now wasn't the time. She tucked her loose bangs behind her ears, and offered him a thin smile. "Don't worry. I won't be kicking you to the curb just yet, Peter. After all, you still owe me that toast you promised." If there were other reasons, she wasn't about to admit them to him. Or even to herself, when it came down to it.

"Well that's very comforting."

"It should be," she told him, unfolding the fresh towel. Their eyes met. "I have to rewrap your shoulder, and then we have to go. Think you can manage it?"

"I guess we'll find out." He swallowed, and let her slide the fresh towel under him, then glanced down at the towel where she was criss-crossing the ends in preparation for the knot. "Is that really necessary?" He sounded more than a little uneasy, and after seeing just how bad it was, she couldn't fault him at all.

"I'm afraid so," she nodded, and then squeezed his hand on an impulse. "I know it's going to hurt like hell, but try to stay awake this time, if you can. I don't think I can carry you, Peter."

She felt him return the contact, if only slightly. Sweat beaded on his brow. He nodded and then bit his lapel. For a wonder, he didn't pass out.

#

* * *

#

Peter stared out at Olivia's departing back through the water rolling down the passenger window. Her backpack bobbed on her shoulders. Rain had darkened her hair, smoothing it against her scalp in thick ropes of light brown, intertwined with thin strands of gold. She wasn't wearing her usual ponytail, and he wondered why. It wasn't like her to forget something like that, though he supposed it was possible; she was only human after all. Most of the time, at least.

She made her way slowly through the disorderly mess that was the Rite-Aid parking lot. From his vantage on the street outside, the pavement was littered with decaying bodies. None were moving. It was the scene of a massacre, though not the sort he'd seen before, where the military had been involved. Someone had made a stand. From the inside.

The pharmacy entrance was a yawning black hole, with no sign of the glass automatic doors one usually found in modern retail buildings. From the jagged masonry and twisted door frames he suspected that something rather large had been driven through them. Probably the delivery truck parked off to one side; it certainly looked big enough to have done the deed. Grocery carts piled in reckless fashion made a makeshift barrier across the doorway, though he doubted it would have held long against some of the hordes he'd seen since the world had suddenly ended. No, the barrier had been an act of desperation, erected before things had fallen apart completely.

Olivia approached the building cautiously, one hand on her pistol. In her other hand was his crowbar. It had been something of a surprise when she had produced it upon leaving the apartment. She hadn't offered it to him, and he hadn't asked for its return—not that he could have used it anyway. John Scott's assault rifle was nowhere to be seen, and he wondered at its absence. Had she left it at the bridge? It was all very hazy—before and after he'd been shot. She stopped in front of the grocery cart barricade and peered into the blackness of the entrance, tilting her head from side to side. After a moment, she glanced back, meeting his gaze through the window, then reached up for her headlamp and switched it on. The red beam was hardly visible despite the gloomy weather from the storm. He wondered if the batteries were getting low and considered trying to warn her, but she was pulling herself up and climbing over the grocery carts before he had a chance to do little more than raise his hand to the door handle. An instant later she was over, and disappeared inside the building.

Peter's gaze lingered on the shaded entrance.  _She'll be fine,_ he thought, letting his eyes slide shut. His head fell back on the rest. She had her gun, and the red light, and it didn't look as if anyone had been there in some time. She would be fine. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. The throbbing in his shoulder kept perfect time with the pounding headache that had developed over the short, but strenuous trek to find the car. After he'd come close to tumbling down the steps, Olivia had carried most of his weight. The lightheadedness he'd felt then still lingered. Given his current plight, he ran down a list of various medical conditions it might be a symptom of, and none of them were conducive to a long life. It was a testament to just how weak he was that he hadn't even put up an ounce of protest. She would have likely just ignored him anyway.

How in the hell had she found him? And so quickly? Her stubbornness knew no bounds, and apparently extended even to him, a former criminal. When had that happened? And why? She had evaded his questions, shifting the conversation to her family. He supposed it was just repayment for helping with her sister and niece. They'd all made it back to the lab without further incident. The news had brought him a surprising amount of relief, indeed, a shocking amount of relief.  _You're not so heartless as you thought, are you?,_  a voice spoke up.

He glanced around the interior of the sedan. The maroon Oldsmobile was from the late nineties, and its steering column had been ripe for the plucking. Olivia had been a good student. She'd even had the foresight to bring along his multi-tool, which had made the job infinitely easier. He glanced at the dangling wires underneath the steering wheel, inspecting her handiwork. All that remained was to touch the starter wires together. She knew what to do, though he'd warned her every make was different. Wire colors varied, as did the number of power wires feeding the starter.

His feet swam in a sea of trash. Ancient soda bottles and cans, crumbled fast food wrappers, and wadded newspaper covered the floorboard. A slight, but constant burn of mold and mildew stung at his nose, the source of which, he suspected, was the mountain of blankets and dirty clothes covering the backseat. Some dead person's dirty laundry. Perhaps they'd been killed on their way to a laundromat. He smiled faintly at his own joke.

Outside the car, the rain had begun to taper off. Thunder rumbled off in the distance. He twisted in his seat as much as his shoulder would allow, getting a view down the street behind the Oldsmobile. When they'd left the apartment it had been empty, and they'd not seen a soul on their search for a suitable car. It was not empty now.

Infected filled the street. And more staggered out in a sporadic line from behind a pizzeria, catercorner to the pharmacy. He recognized the restaurant—they'd made a good pie, before. The undead's rain-slicked hair and tattered clothing clung to their skeletal frames, adding to their already grisly countenances.

"Shit..." He threw a glance toward the pharmacy. Olivia was still inside. A flash of red moved deep inside the lightless interior. "C'mon, 'Livia," he hissed, checking the undead's progress in the side mirror.

They were moving toward the car, though none of them could have seen him, yet. And maybe they wouldn't. He shrank back in his seat. The infected jerked closer. Their uneven strides and dangling limbs brought to mind a marionette theater, albeit a ghoulish one, where the puppets dined on the audience. Could they notice a person inside a car? Their visual acuity was poor, but what did they really know about the infected's sensory processing? It wasn't as if one of them could answer their questions. All they had were observations, which were open to interpretation. It might be better to not take any chances.

Peter tilted his seat back slowly, until the headrest pressed into the mound of clothes in the back seat, disturbing the pile. The fresh stench of mold that enveloped him was dizzying. He turned his head, but the fumes were overwhelming. He tried to distance himself from the rankness. The first of the scuffling figures came into view in the driver's window. A woman. Its left arm ended abruptly in a stump just below its elbow. The creature moved past the car without a backwards glance. Others followed close behind, in a macabre, single file line. Rain pattered lightly on the car's roof. The undead moved past without making a sound.

They couldn't see him.

He held himself utterly still, lest the spell break. The thorny aroma of mold suffused his airspace, turning his stomach. Had the clothes been left in the car wet? That would certainly explain his current predicament. The lightheaded sensation deepened.  _Excellent..._ , he thought. _That's just perfect. Just our luck._ To make matters worse, the tip of his nose began to itch. The itch was slight at first, like the fine edge of a feather brushing across the surface of his skin. He blew a jet of air upwards, hoping to alleviate the growing impulse to sneeze.

There came a tapping, a light scratching to his right. Peter tensed at the sudden noise. One of them was on the sidewalk outside the car. He rolled his gaze toward the sound, but saw nothing—moving his head or anything else was out of the question. The scratching persisted, dragging along the outside of the car, over the rear fender, the passenger side rear door window, and then it was outside his door, pawing at the glass. He could see it now, in his peripheral vision; a zombified man with flaxen hair and stained teeth. Grime-covered fingernails groped at the glass to no avail. Out in the street, the line of infected continued past unabated.

Eyes wide, he held himself still. His heart thudded hollowly in his chest. There was no way it could know that he was a live human—unless he moved, of course.  _Then why is it standing outside your fucking window?_  an insolent voice asked.  _It's just the same bad luck I've had since what happened in Iraq,_ he answered _._ _With Ahmed and his people._ The mold and mildew chose that moment to reaffirm their presence, and his nose twitched in response. The urge to sneeze was at once overpowering. He clenched his teeth, holding back the exhalation.

The undead's fingernails raked across the glass, and then it was past him, moving along the front fender. The infected man continued down the sidewalk, brushing up against a late model Ford sedan. Peter waited for more to pass by, but the lone male seemed the exception, not the rule. His nose burned. The pressure to sneeze increased exponentially, until holding it in was no longer an option.

The sneeze screamed in his ears. Once, twice, three times in quick succession. He stifled them in the towel on his shoulder as best he could. When he was finished, his head swam. His shoulder pulsed with angry indignation. White dots twirled before his eyes. There was movement in the pharmacy's parking lot across the street, through the intervening infected whose numbers were beginning to dwindle. A mop of dirty-blond hair rose up from behind a parked car.

Olivia. He wondered if she'd found anything, and had to think hard for a moment to recall what she was looking for. Had he told her to be on the lookout for Red Vines? He wasn't sure.

The infected on the sidewalk and those in the street continued onward, oblivious. Peter relaxed as the last of them past him by, and inclined the seat forward. He cracked open his door and took in gulps of fresh air. But the dizzy feeling persisted, along with a rising queasiness in his gut. He shivered, and sweat stung in his eyes. He wet his lips and tasted salt.  _I should do something about that..._ , he thought, but couldn't summon the will to do anything; just holding himself upright was an effort, and all he could manage. The world teetered and spun. His head felt empty, unattached, and his body distant, as if he were connected to it by only the tiniest of threads.  _This...isn't right..._ Concentration eluded him. He felt hot...and somehow cold at the same time. _Something's...not right..._ A door opened and someone sat down next to him. He tried to open his eyes. Where was he?

"Well, that was close, wasn't it?" a female voice said from close by. The voice was echoey and distant. Were they in a tunnel? Where was the car? "Good news, Peter," the voice went on in slow motion. "I think I found some antibiotics, and even some real painkillers. Whoever was there before...I don't think they knew what was what. Most of the—" The voice stopped abruptly and he felt something soft and cool on his forehead. "Peter?" The voice was close, in his ear. "Peter!"

 _Peter._  Yes. That was him. It was Olivia. She was back. Where had she been? He struggled to turn his head. She was there, and as beautiful as ever. He liked her hair down. The thought came from somewhere else, somewhere outside his aching body. He'd been shot.

"'Livia...I—I don't feel so...so good...," Peter gasped through chattering teeth. Was the car shaking? No, it was him! He couldn't stop. "I...something's...wrong. Shock...I think it's...Walter...ugh..." He groaned and screwed his eyes shut. He was falling into a velvety blackness. It moved all around him, and through him, in a gentle wave that sent his conscious mind to a far away place.

"Don't try to talk...," Olivia's voice sounded as if she were at the far end of a long hallway. Something moved across his chest. A metallic click rung discordantly. "Just hold on, Peter..."

An engine cranked over, then roared to life. It seemed far away, and unimportant. Peter let go, and sank into oblivion.

#

* * *

#

Walter paced another lap around the perimeter of the lab. The room was empty, other than himself, and the silence was nerve-racking. The little girl had left him earlier, in the company of her mother and Sonia. They'd mentioned something about setting up a room upstairs.

Arriving at the deprivation tank, he let his fingertips scrape across the rough surface of its sidewall. The paint was chipped intermittently, the exposed metal covered in a layer of rust. He gave it a thwack, and listened to the hollow echo and the slight sloshing of water, left behind by Agent Dunham's excursion through the mind of her dead lover. The others had forgotten of the water's existence, not that he would relish drinking it, but it would do in a pinch, if they could remove the salt somehow. Gene would had no problems with it. He moved under the brick archway and glanced in his office-turned-bedroom, then passed by the line of shelves that had once been stuffed full of his equipment, but were now stuffed full of canned goods and non-perishable food items scavenged from outside the perimeter. The change was bothersome, even though he understood the logic behind it. They needed the space, and without power, the majority of his equipment was nothing more than paperweights. Junk. But he didn't have to like it.

In an attempt to keep his mind occupied while waiting for Agent Dunham to return, he'd already reorganized the pharmaceutical cabinet, sharpened his scalpel set, and cleaned his glassware of all illicit residues left behind after his latest batch of LSD. He'd used a good amount of water in the process. He paused at his old centrifuge and fiddled with a knob, idly thinking of his son. His hand shook. Peter would have been cross at the waste, he was quite sure, but it was necessary. And it would be the last time; making more was out of the question as replenishing his supply of lysergic acid was impossible. Not that he would need to. A grin crossed his lips for an instant, then fell away. He'd made enough to last for several lifetimes. The thought gave him no pleasure, as it might have only days ago; the world had dimmed considerably in the last twenty-four hours.

When he'd run out of tasks to complete, he'd begun to walk...and had been unable to stop. He moved away from the centrifuge and crossed over to the old upright piano. It was an ungainly thing, dented and scratched from decades of abuse. But it stilled played beautifully, and Peter's playing on it had been a beautiful thing to hear. Elizabeth would've been overjoyed to witness it.

Walter swallowed, and eyed the narrow bench. It was still pulled out from when his son had played for him just the other day, when he'd been brainstorming on the lack of cellular interaction in the undead. He sat down and felt along the keys. Bach's Mass. He preferred the composition off-key, in A minor, but Peter had ignored his request and played it in B, as the master himself had intended.

"My poor boy...," he whispered, settling his fingers over the proper keys for Mass's opening bars. It would be a funeral march. What chance did she have to find him? "I'm sorry, Elizabeth. I've lost him."

 _Again_ , a voice answered.  _You deserve every ounce of misery._ The voice in his head sounded like his own, only deeper, with more authority.  _Every single ounce, you've earned a thousand times over._  The man he'd been. Before. What did he mean  _again_?

Walter froze, fingers outstretched on the keys before him. The thought jarred...something. A feeling, perhaps. A shadow of a reflection, buried deep in the layers of time spent locked away from the world, the years spent not his own. When his mind had been put to sleep. He focused on the sliver, on the thread of time, on the chain of events leading backward from the accident in the lab, and forward from the period when he and Belly had shared the lab together.

Closing his eyes, he started to play. Softly at first, then with greater confidence. Music filled the lab, parting the silence, and letting his mind relax and roam freely. To the past. His fingers knew the path, knew the ebb and flow, the rises and falls. How could they not? He himself had taught them to Peter. Before the fire, before the accident, when his dear assistant Carla had perished. Elizabeth would sit in the parlor and listen. He could see her! Her eyes were red-rimmed, breath laced with bourbon. She was so sad, so haunted! They'd been in Cambridge then, in the big house. His Biochem Chair at Harvard was realized, their future secured. Yet she was haunted, dreadfully so. Peter had been at the center of it, and her guilt—both of their guilt. And with the guilt had been pain. A bottomless well of suffering that never stopped giving. It overflowed daily, hourly, every second of every day. Instead of decreasing over time it had only intensified, until he could no longer bear the sight of him. How was that possible? It was his son! His only son.  _Wasn't he?_  He could still feel it, feel it all over again. All centered around Peter. All centered around...what? Why couldn't he remember? The answer eluded him, as if a slice of the past had been plucked from his head like a feather. His fingers continued their dance, moving with muscle-memory over the keys.

He cast his gaze back further, over the missing years, back to the time before, with William in the lab. Kelvin Genetics, and their research contracts with DARPA and the military. What had they been working on? Weapons? It had been more than that, and less. New and theoretical technologies, from all sectors of science, despite the name of the project. The same technologies that had been at the center of Agent Dunham's cases, before the collapse. He and Belly had been under intense pressure to produce...what, exactly? They'd held back, pretended ignorance when it suited them. Why? For profit? William had surely profited. Why could he recall the before and the after, yet the middle ground, the time between, remained off limits? Logic suggested he'd suffered some deep physical or psychological trauma. But when? And how could such an occurrence be so selective? He played on, played harder, trying to pierce the fog of non-memory. His fingers crashed on the keys, playing louder, and louder still.

His mind wandered, hardly noticing the tempest. He poked and prodded at the blank spot of his past. Surely not every neurotransmitter and synapse had stopped firing. There must be an alternate route, a path through the twisted folds of brain matter that would lead him to the source that would trigger the memories. There always was. He thought of Peter, of his birth. They'd been so happy, so ready for the duty of being parents, of raising a child. It had been apparent early on that the boy was intelligent, much more intelligent than his years. They couldn't have been prouder. His own parents were long dead, but Elizabeth's, from back in the old world, had come to stay with them while she had adjusted to being a new mother. They had stayed for several months, and he'd been glad to see their backside when they'd finally left, though it hadn't stopped them from returning every holiday season, until...until... Walter sat up straight.

Images exploded behind his eyes, stills, with no context. Peter as a young boy. He was in his old bed. Deep bruises covered his arms, his legs, his chest. His face was pale and gaunt with sickness.

Walter inhaled a gasp. Peter had been sick! Of course. It was all coming back to him. An unknown genetic disorder. How could he have possibly forgotten? But there was more, much more. It was right there; the source of all their misery. He still couldn't quite reach it, though it ate away at his soul. Pain clamped around his throat in a tight, constricting band.  _Dear god, Peter. My boy. How I miss you._

His eyes flew open. Tears clouded his vision. They fell in a steady stream onto the piano keys. He'd stopped playing at some point, but couldn't pinpoint the exact moment. Clearing his throat, he pushed off the piano bench and rose unsteadily to his feet. When he turned around there was a man standing there, watching him. Their eyes met.

"Hello, Walter."

"Oh. How did you get in here?" Walter replied, clearing the tears away. He dried his hands on his coat, watching the stranger with lowered eyes.

The man's suit was a vintage cut, something his father might have worn in the post-war era, single-breasted with a narrow black tie and white shirt. A black hat was tucked under one arm. His gaze settled on the candlelight flickering on the smooth paleness of the man's bald head. A shiver ran down his spine. He knew the fellow, though it had been years, no decades, since he'd seen him last. A memory unfolded out of the mist, dropping Walter's mouth open.

 _They'd come through to the crack of ice breaking. A tiny hand is gripped in his own. Then the ice breaks and they're falling. Frigid water nearly stops his heart. He kicks furiously, trying to stay near the surface. Moonlight shines through the ice layer above, and he reaches for it, pounding with his fist. But the ice is too thick, unbreakable. The hand slips from his grasp, pulling his glove free. He screams, reaching out with desperate hands, and the icy water filled his lungs._ _Peter!_ _his mind shrieks, but the freezing temperatures have already done their work. A distant, languid fugue settles over him, sucking away his strength, his will. He is sinking into the blackness. Bubbles rise up from below, from the small figure disappearing below. He's failed him...again. He thinks of Elizabeth, here and there, and how she'll never know what happened to him—to them. Then, instead of sinking into the depths, he's rising, being lifted! Someone is saving him. He tries to resist; it is the boy that needs saving! But the hand gripping his coat is persistent. He's hauled out of the water, spitting up, gasping for air. On this side, it is a cloudless night. Over there, a snowstorm. The stars` twinkles mock him, mock his failure. He hears a splash, and then silence. Tears freeze on his cheek. "Peter...!" he chokes at the night. What have I done? There is no answer, only terrible silence, and the stuttering of his heart. There is another splash of water, and he struggles to sit up, but manages to only twist onto his side in the snow. Before hypothermia pulls him under completely, he sees a small body being pushed out of the break in the ice. Peter! A man pulls himself out of the water after the boy. The man is bald...and wearing a suit. He's seen him before. Through the window into the other lab. It's him..._

"It...it's you..." Walter whispered, with widening eyes. The man's face was perfectly hairless, even his eyebrows, just as he remembered from so long ago. How long had it been? Twenty years? Twenty-three to be exact. His old friend hadn't changed at all—hadn't aged at all. Even the out-of-date suit was the same. "Have...have you come for Peter? I'm afraid I've lost him. You told me that he was important, that he had to live! For what purpose?"

The man's head shifted, tilted. "That line of probability no longer has any relevance," he said at length. "I wanted to see you again, Walter, while I am still able. Already the divide between this universe and the next is growing wider, the void between more difficult to traverse. I am...uncertain, that I will be able to locate it again among the realms of possibility. Not without a beacon, and they have all been allotted. The unnatural events occurring in this here and now have drifted its future apart from all others, save one."

"But why?" he asked, stepping closer to his friend. "Why has this happened? Why now? Is there a cure?" He glanced around the lab at all his useless equipment and shook his head. "I'm afraid I'm...quite at a loss at how to proceed, in spite of what I've told the others. There appears to be no biological explanation."

"I cannot say...," his nameless friend admitted. Walter thought there might have been a hint of pity in his voice when he continued. "If there is a course to set upon that might reverse the polarity damage, it is not apparent in the equations."

"What are you saying?" Walter said with dismay. "That there is no hope? I won't believe it. Anything that was done, can be undone, if one tries hard enough, and has the will and the imagination to make it so. Anything." Hadn't he proven that already?

The bald man regarded him without emotion. "Perhaps," he said after several moments. "It was your time's tenacity to survive, to persist, that drove my interest in the beginning. Perhaps something may be done..." He paused, tilting his head sharply, then pulled a small instrument from inside his coat. Walter scowled as he flipped it open and jabbed at it with his pale index finger. Was he making a telephone call? The device looked similar to one of those accursed mobile phones every one carried around these days. After a moment, the bald man looked up. "It is time. I will do as I can." He flipped the device shut and shoved it in his pocket, then settled his hat atop his head.

"But what about my son? What about Peter?" Walter objected, reaching for the man's arm. He touched his sleeve briefly, then remembering himself, let his hand drop away. "Is he alive? Please! You saved him before."

"Goodbye, Walter," came the solemn reply. "We may meet again, if the possibility exists."

At that moment, an excited shout came from the corridor outside. Walter glanced toward the lab entrance, then back to his old friend. He was gone, disappeared into thin air. Before he could contemplate this impossibility, the lab door flew open and the little girl, Agent Dunham's niece, rushed inside the room. Her face was bright with excitement.

"Dr. Walter!" she burst out, bouncing down the steps to the lab floor. "She's back! Aunt Liv is back!"

"She's back?" Walter gasped. His heart skipped a beat, then yammered in his chest.. Thoughts of his old friend and his less than good news vanished as completely as the man himself had. He staggered back against the piano. "Agent Dunham? And...and Peter?"

The girl motioned impatiently for him to follow. "C'mon! She says you have to come right away!"

#

#

Walter threw open the outer doors. "Peter!" he shouted, and leapt down the steps to the sidewalk. His knees ached at his poor treatment of them, but the pain belonged to someone else—someone whose son may or may not be alive.  _He has to be okay_ , he thought, fighting down a rising panic.  _He has to_. "Peter!"

The storm had passed, though the smell of rain lingered, and the gray cloud-cover still hung low in the sky. There was a crowd standing in a half-circle around the brown van that served as a gate. Astro stood at the ready, along with, Agent Dunham's sister with her arm in the sling, and Sonia also. They were all there. The van doors were open. Agent Francis was backing through, holding some burden. He saw a mop of brown hair. It _was_ Peter!

Walter flew across the intervening space, feet hardly touching the ground. The girl kept pace beside him. "Peter!" he shouted again.

The others looked back at him. Astral motioned for him to hurry. Her dark eyes were wide with worry.  _Oh my dear boy,_ he thought, pushing through the ring of survivors. Agent Francis stepped out of the van, holding Peter under both arms. Olivia followed a moment later carrying his feet. His son's eyes were closed, his face gaunt, as if his skin were too tight. A blood-stained bath towel was wrapped around his left shoulder.

"Is he alive?" he asked of Olivia, laying a trembling hand on Peter's cheek. He was covered in a thin layer of sweat, and worse, fever was burning him up from the inside out. "My god, he's on fire. We must get him inside at once." He grabbed under Peter's waist and one leg, and Sonia stepped up across from him and did the same. Agent Farnsworth ducked inside the van and closed the door to the street.

"He...he was awake...and then he just passed out," Olivia explained as they hurried toward the building with their burden. "I got here as fast as I could, Walter. I'm sorry I wasn't quicker."

"Ella, run ahead hold the door open," her mother directed, pointing to the top of the steps. The girl obeyed at once, scampering ahead.

"I'm...sure you did your best, Agent Dunham," Walter said, feeling numb. Peter's closed eyes were a magnet. A savage-looking scrape made a diagonal line across his brow. How much blood had he lost? His skin pallor suggested rather more than a little. Enough to require a transfusion? But the fever and sweat were at odds with each other. Peter should have been cool to the touch, his skin clammy, not burning with the intensity of an inferno. He bemoaned their lack of power, and the modern medical equipment that required it. They were in the dark ages. He met Olivia's gaze. "I never doubted you would find him. Not once..."

"How in the hell  _did_  you find him, Liv?" Agent Francis asked as they mounted the steps up to the Kresge Building entrance and passed inside the darkened interior. "Where was he?"

Olivia cast a worried eye down at Peter. "That's a long story, Charlie," she said, "and it can wait for later. Where are we taking him? The lab?"

Walter nodded. "Yes, for now. Though he'll need his own room, eventually, if he...he pulls through the worst of it. The lab is no place for convalescence. In the meantime, we'll need light—flashlights, as many candles as we can find. A gurney, fresh water and towels."

"I'm on the lights," Astrid announced, rushing past them.

"We'll help you. C'mon Ella," Miss Dunham said, pulling her daughter in her wake.

There was little talking as they maneuvered awkwardly through the dimly lit hallways and down to the basement level of the Kresge Building. Peter groaned softly as they carried him, but he never awakened. The clatter of their footsteps echoed in the quiet, the soft grunts of effort sounding like an orgy in process. Walter's lips curled at the thought of the early Sixties. Before Elizabeth and his Peter. His grin faded almost at once. He'd been a different person back then, wild and out of control, until she had come along. And how had he repaid her? By abandoning her when she needed him most? And by burdening her with an unimaginable guilt, the sort that would drive anyone to do what she'd done.  _Ah my poor, Elizabeth. I sent you to the gates of hell, then opened them and pushed you through._

Inside the lab, Agent Farnsworth, the little girl and her mother were busily lighting candles in a ring around one of the two gurneys, setting them atop any nearby surfaces they could find. Walter frowned at the lighting level. The yellow glow was paltry, but the best they could do, he supposed, as they gently laid Peter on top the gurney's thin layer of cushioning.

Walter collected his stethoscope and surgical gear, along with sutures and bandages and set them on a tray at Peter's side. His short, shallow breaths were awful to hear. They were coming far too fast, as was his heart rate when he listened through the stethoscope. None of the signs were good.

"I have flashlights, too, Walter," Astrid spoke up, holding up several in both hands. "They have the freshest batteries, though. I'm sorry there's not more."

"It will have to do, Astro," he replied, waving his hand absently. "Think nothing of it, my dear. The current state of the world his hardly your fault. Tell me, Olivia, what was Peter's mental state before he lost consciousness? Was he confused or incoherent? How long has he had this fever?"

Olivia wet her lips, eyes locked on Peter's face. "He had the fever when I found him," she said, with a surprising amount of concern adorning her features. "I gave him some Tylenol, but it didn't seem to do much. Last night he was coherent, but less so this morning. What are you thinking?"

Walter slipped on a pair of latex gloves and began unwrapping the towel from Peter's shoulder. "Confusion, pallid skin, increased respiratory and heart rate, low blood pressure; these are all signs of hypovolemia—or blood loss, if you will," he murmured, pulling the towel away from the wound. He sucked in a sharp breath. The wound underneath was a fright—muscle tissue torn and exploded outward through the layers of the epidermis. Extensive stitching would be required. The scar left behind was going to be memorable...if he survived. "Astro, shine your light here, on Peter's hand."

The young woman did as he instructed, with Olivia and the others looking on anxiously. "What are you looking for?" she asked, holding the light steady. "Why aren't you looking at his shoulder?"

"I'm testing his capillary refill response," he replied, lifting Peter's left hand above his heart. "It can be an indicator of hypovolemia..." Walter lifted the hand and pinched the tip of one finger gently for several moments, then waited for the blood to replenish, counting the seconds. It never did; the skin under the nail and the pad remained white as death. "I'm afraid he may need an immediate transfusion, after we have his bleeding under control. Are any of you A-positive?" he asked, looking around at the group. "I myself am a universal donor, but a matching blood-type would be far more desirable." He touched Peter's forehead and winced at his rising temperature. "This fever he carries though, it worries me, aside from his other injuries."

Olivia shook her head, as well as her sister and Agent Farnsworth. Agent Francis and his wife exchanged glances. "I'm A-negative," Sonia told him, looking away from her husband. "Peter can have whatever he needs, Dr. Bishop, if it will help."

"Thank you, Sonia," Olivia said, giving her a smile. "Walter, Peter thought he might have gotten some kind of infection while he was in the river. He was worried about sepsis."

"Sepsis...?"  _Dear god_. The air rushed out of his lungs. He couldn't breathe. The possibility of sepsis or toxic shock hadn't even occurred to him, yet, though it likely would have in short order, along with its dire ramifications if gone untreated.  _But...I can't treat a blood infection, or any infection_ , he despaired. His world was falling apart, piece by broken piece.  _Not without any equipment, and not without antibiotics. Peter._  He swallowed, and lowered his head. His son was going to die, and there was not at thing he could do about it. "Yes... That...that would make unfortunate sense, given the...the severity of his wound, his time spent in the water. God knows the Charles is not the cleanest of rivers. Unfortunately, without any antibiotics...I'm afraid I—I...can't..." He pulled at his hair, hovering on the edge of a black hole. Despair stood just behind him, hands curled into claws, readying to shove him off.

Olivia reached out a hand and slung the backpack from her shoulder. "Walter! Calm down. I brought some antibiotics back. Peter was trying to reach a pharmacy when I...found him. I took everything I could find," she explained, spilling a myriad of orange pill bottles on a nearby table. "Hopefully they're the kind we need."

Walter smiled, and found himself on the verge of breaking down. His see-sawing emotions were doing him no good. He had to remain calm, if he was to be of any use. He sniffled and shook his head, glancing between Peter and Olivia. His son truly was remarkable. As was his rescuer. "Agent Dunham, you're...you're quite the lifesaver," he told her, stepping back from the brink of oblivion. "Thank you for finding him. I...I don't believe I can ever repay you. Especially now, as there are no gift or flower shops still open to the public."

Olivia lowered her gaze and shrugged as if she were embarrassed by his praise. "It was nothing, Walter. I was just doing my job..." She glanced down at Peter, and seemed about to say more, but instead ran her hands through her hair, tucking her locks back behind her ears.

"Is Mister Peter going to be okay?" Ella asked, stepping up next to her aunt. She stared at the wound in his shoulder with wide eyes. "He doesn't look very well, Dr. Walter."

"No, he certainly does not, young lady," he agreed. "Our first task is to disinfect and repair the wound in his shoulder. After that...well, I suppose we'll just have to wait and see, won't we?" He glanced at the others.

"What do you want us to do, Dr. Bishop?" Agent Francis asked, frowning at Peter's still form. "There anything we can do to help?"

"Yes. We'll need to get your lovely wife prepped for the transfusion," he said, casting a smile in Sonia's direction. "IV poles, saline...oh, and the iodine antiseptic. In the storage room off the office. We'll also need infusion sets and tubing, surgical tape from the cabinet over the sink, and...uh, some Red Vines, if possible. Yes. Red Vines would be delightful."

"Red Vines, Walter?" Agent Farnsworth rolled her eyes. "Really?"

"What?" he shrugged. "They're delicious..." He thought of his bald friend and his even more ominous tidings. Lines of causality and the future.  _It is relevant. We are relevant._  They were more than shadows on the backside of a broken mirror. The future was very real, and very relevant to those unfortunate enough to be on the losing branch of history. Perhaps a course correction was still possible, despite what the man had said. Had he not done it before? Will and imagination could manufacture miracles. Was his son not evidence enough? He picked up the scalpel, and began cutting away Peter's shirt. "Come now, Astro. It's time to save my son's life."


	11. The Shifting Wind

**-November, 2008**

Wincing at the biting wind that swept in from the west, Charlie stared up at the bungalow with a skeptical frown. The old two-story had blatant red siding on its lower floor, an ugly yellowish color on the upper, with a lime-green front door that completed the obscenity. Had he been out scavenging alone, he would have certainly skipped the house. But today he was not alone, and he doubted Olivia had spared the clashing colors more than a passing glance.

"You sure about this one?" he asked, giving her a sideways look. "What's wrong with that one over there?" He nodded toward the next door neighbor, similarly styled, but with a more traditional appearance. They were the last two houses on the block, and he doubted he had enough space in his bag for both of them.

His former partner never turned her gaze from the flamboyant structure. "This is the one, Charlie," she said with a note of confidence. "I know it is."

"Oh yeah?" He glanced between the two houses. There was nothing to indicate that one might have more supplies than the other that he could see. "And how do you figure that, Dunham? You got some special powers you haven't told me about?"

"Nope. Just a gut feeling. C'mon," she clarified, and started toward the house.

Charlie stared at her back for a moment, then hurried after her, snugging his coat tighter. A meticulously laid brick walk led up to the front porch. He imagined that the home's owner had spent either a great deal of time or money getting it to match the sidewalk along the street as perfectly as it did. The brickwork seemed at odds with the strangeness of the home's coloring, but there was no accounting for taste. He waited, shivering despite his thick coat, and gazed out at the surrounding neighborhood as Liv stooped to examine the locks on the front door. They were in a fairly well-to-do area of Cambridge, with older homes packed together in tight rows set back off the street. Or it had been. Many of the affluent residences were charred husks; the raging fires in the early days of the disaster had jumped rapidly between them. This particular block was mostly untouched, however, despite most of the surrounding area being in a state of ruin. He shivered again at another chilling gust.

Temperatures had dropped steadily over the last two days, culminating with the frigid weather they'd woken up to that morning. The classroom Sonia and he had claimed as their own had been cold enough to partially freeze the bottle of water he'd left on the floor next to their mattress. They all needed more winter clothing, more blankets — more of everything. Food that wasn't spoiled was becoming scarce, requiring them to range further and further out to find enough for the group. The only good news was the declining population of infected. Where they'd gone was anyone's guess, but he hadn't seen a group larger than five in over a week, and not a single fresh among them. Maybe they'd all grown old. He wouldn't miss them if they had.

The splintering of wood pulled him back to the task at hand. He turned and found Olivia settling her crowbar on her shoulder. The lime-green door swung inward on silent hinges. He eyed the crowbar. She'd been using it exclusively after bringing Bishop back to the lab. Would she return it once he was back on his feet? He wouldn't put it past her to keep it. She was a woman after all, and one who seemed to get her way more often than not.  _Is there any other kind?_  he wondered, thinking of his wife. He estimated Peter's chance of reclaiming it to be slightly better than none.

"You first, Charlie," she said, motioning him inside. "Take the lower level, I'll head upstairs."

Charlie nodded and stepped in front of her. The interior was fairly dim, but not unnavigable. A lush entry rug with intricately-woven patterns held his gaze for a heartbeat. Before the end, Sonia had been talking about finding something similar for their foyer. "Be careful, kiddo," he said, glancing back over his shoulder. Olivia nodded, and he hefted his Louisville Slugger, then plunged through the doorway.

Stale air greeted him as he crossed the threshold. The old home groaned at their intrusion. Straight ahead, a stairwell loomed across from the entryway, with open doorways to either side. On a whim he stepped through the door on the left and entered a lavish sitting area. Olivia followed behind him and rushed up the stairs to the upper floor. He brushed past a wilted palm tree and entered an equally extravagant dining room. A cherry curio cabinet in centered on the exterior wall displayed an antique-looking set of china. Sonia would have loved them. He moved on, hearing the occasional squeak of footsteps overhead. Fine china and fine dining were things of the past. He passed through an empty kitchen, then stuck his head in a bathroom and an office or den, and another sitting room with a nice flat screen TV, until he'd completed the loop and was back in the entrance foyer and swung the front door closed. The place was vacant.

_"Clear!"_

"Clear down here," he called back up the stairs. "If there are any large fleeces, they're mine!"

 _"We flip for them, Charlie!"_ came an amused reply.

Pulling a pen light from his pocket, Charlie moved back to the kitchen and yanked open a pair of bi-fold doors he'd passed by on his way through. A plethora of canned food and boxed goods stuffed the pantry's shelves, including a familiar red, white, and blue label that caught his eye. He shook his head at the sight. Somehow she'd known. Liv's luck was spot on lately, but she would hear no complaints from him—not when her intuition finally led him to some good old-fashioned beef stew. Salivating at the thought of getting some meat, he dropped his bat and let his backpack slide to the floor.

He crammed it full. All the beef stew went in, along with baked beans, black beans, and even a can of lima beans, though he was no fan. The cream soups—mushroom and chicken, celery and broccoli—he passed over, as no one in their right mind enjoyed eating them alone. They weren't starving just yet. _Beggars shouldn't be choosers, Charles_ , his mother's voice scolded. He ignored her. A still-sealed bag of Doritos for Sonia to snack on went in also; she loved her Doritos. He hesitated over an unopened box of Lucky Charms, then stuffed them in. Kids liked that sort of thing, didn't they? A box of Ritz crackers looked tempting, but his pack was nearly full, so he let them be. They could always come back for the rest. On the top shelf he found a package of Twizzlers and managed to squeeze it in the front pocket. Walter would be ecstatic. Maybe now the old scientist would be able to focus on the tasks at hand. He searched around the kitchen for anything else that looked useful, and found a multi-pack of batteries in one of the cabinet drawers.

A bread garage on the countertop next to the refrigerator grabbed his attention. Bread that hadn't given way to mold was a rarity. It had been weeks since he'd seen any. He slid the garage door up—and turned his head away from the black putrescence growing within. A spiky scent wafted out of the box, singeing his nose.

Charlie wiped his mouth with a gloved hand. "Shit...that's awful."

It was odd that he could stomach looking at dead and mutilated walking corpses easier than a loaf of moldy bread. From the packaging, it had been a partially eaten loaf of white, but not a hint of white remained. He searched the cabinet drawers until he found a fork, and then pricked the bagging of the front-most loaf and pulled it away, dropping it in the kitchen sink. Another mold-infested loaf sat behind it. Cringing, he peeled it away, revealing a third loaf.

"And what have we here?" he muttered, reaching for the bread. He examined it under his light, and grinned at the results. She was going to flip. "Hey, Liv! I got something!"

Footsteps creaked down the steps. A moment later she was in the kitchen, her backpack full and slung over one shoulder. Her eyes darted around the room. "What'd you find, Charlie?"

Charlie pulled the unblemished loaf of bread from behind his back with a grin. "Only this," he said with all the nonchalance he could muster. "I heard you've been looking for one of these."

Liv's eyes widened. She snatched the loaf away and turned it over in her hands. "Finally..." she breathed, eyeing the bread with greedy eyes. "You know, the last full loaf I found got trampled while we were hiding under that truck." She looked up and met his gaze. "...The day John died."

He shook his head slowly. "Has it been that long?" he mused, picking up his backpack and setting it on the countertop. "You know, that seems like it happened years ago."

"Charlie, that was less than a month ago," she told him with narrowed eyes. Concern was plain in her voice.

"Was it?" Charlie swallowed and pretended to fiddle with one of the zippers on his pack. Each passing day blended into a continuous blur of sameness, with time measured in the span between the migraines that would strike without warning. He forced his hand to stay put, keeping it from wandering up to his temple. And he did have to force it. He'd found himself massaging it often, even when there was no pain. "What day is it then? I...I...lost track a while back."

Olivia set the bread and her pack down next to his. "Um... I think it's the fourteenth or fifteenth of November," she told him absently, and glanced into his backpack. "What else did you find? Was there anything good?" She reached over and pulled out the can of lima beans, arching an eyebrow. "Lima beans? Those for you?"

"Hey, it's something different from canned peas and green beans," he retorted defensively, hiding his shock at the date. "I've had enough of those to last me the rest of my life." Could it have only been three months since it had all gone to hell? Surely it had been longer. He felt decades older than he had before it all started.

She shrugged and replaced the beans in the pack. "Oh, was there any salt in here?" she asked, walking over to the pantry. "Peter wanted us to bring back any we could find."

"Salt...?" Charlie frowned at the strange request and shook his head. "I didn't notice any, but then again I wasn't looking. What the hell does he want salt for? Some kind of science experiment?"

Olivia lifted up on her toes, peering up at the top shelf. "I don't know," she said over her shoulder. "He didn't say. Just wanted me to find some salt."

"How's Bishop doing, anyway?" he asked, watching as she shifted the pantry contents around. "When's he gonna be back on his feet?" Whatever infection Peter had caught in the river, it had knocked him on his ass, quite apart from the gunshot wound, which according to Walter, was the least of his son's problems. It had been touch and go for several days, with Peter hovering on the edge of death until the antibiotics Liv found had finally kicked in. He'd heard someone say that his fever had hit one-hundred-five at one point. That was enough to make Charlie cringe. Back in college, a particularly virulent strain of the flue had put him on his back for over a week with a high fever, and chills enough to shake the bed. His temperature had never gone over one-hundred-three, and he clearly recalled wanting to die. He didn't envy the younger Bishop.

"Umm...any time now, I guess," she replied after a brief silence. "At least that's what Walter said. I...uh...I haven't seen Peter for a few days. Walter's been taking care of him. Along with Rachel and Ella, both."

Charlie grunted, uncertain of what to say to that. Was that irritation he heard in her voice? He suspected she wasn't even aware of it. Sonia had told him all about Rachel, and how much time she spent in Bishop's room. He had only seen Peter twice since the morning Liv had pulled up outside the van, shouting for his help. The visits were short, awkward, and to the point. He might have been wrong about the guy, but they were still far from friends. Nowadays he spent most of his time on the wall. It would be nice to have another body to take a shift. The thought reminded him that they needed to start heading back.

He zipped his bag shut and swung it over his shoulder. "What'd you find upstairs?" he asked, glancing into her open pack. "Anything useful?"

Olivia lifted a bag of salt from high up in the pantry. "Some flannels, a couple of decent sweatshirts," she reported. "Tampons and underwear for the women. Sorry, Charlie, but I don't think any men lived here. There was a boy, though. I found a surprise for Ella in his bedroom."

"Oh yeah?" He wondered if a present was what she'd been after all along. "What is it?"

She dug inside her bag for a moment, then pulled a clear freezer bag filled to the brim with multi-colored Legos from inside. "Before it all started, she was begging me to get her some for when she visited. Apparently, she can only read the same books so many times. Maybe they'll keep her occupied." She shoved the bag back into her pack on top of the salt, then zipped it shut. "You ready to get out of here?" she asked, glancing over at him.

Charlie nodded, reaching for his bat. Astrid was keeping watch while they were out. It wasn't that he didn't trust her, exactly. She was a fine agent, with better-than-average pistol scores. But after what had happened to Bishop, he didn't trust anyone to keep his wife safe. He returned Olivia's inquiring gaze. Except her, of course. "Yeah. We've been gone long enough."

#

#

On the street outside, he let Olivia take the lead. The sun stood high overhead in a vivid, cloudless sky. It provided little warmth. They trudged for several blocks, each submerged in their own thoughts. Piercing gusts of wind rustled the leaves blanketing the empty street. Charlie huddled deeper inside his coat, cursing the weather. If it really was the fifteenth, winter had come early.

The only sign they saw of the undead was a single hunched-over shape standing alone in an intersection several blocks away. They left it alone. On the horizon, the pointed rooftops of Harvard campus came into view. The familiar sight quickened his pace. The lab was on the far side of the campus.

"You know, Astrid's perfectly capable of taking care of things back at the lab, Charlie," Olivia said, matching his speed and giving him a sideways glance. "She's tougher than she looks."

Charlie grunted. "I know she is. I just don't like leaving Sonia there alone."

"She's not alone," Olivia pointed out, giving him a look.

"You know what I mean...," he said. A faint pulsing stirred deep inside his skull. He recognized it, knew what it meant. A precursor. "If those guys that shot Bishop show up—"

Olivia stopped short and grabbed his sleeve. "Charlie, they don't know we're here," she insisted. "No one followed us back, and it's been over two weeks. I'm not saying we shouldn't worry about them, but I don't think an attack is imminent."

"That doesn't mean they won't show up tomorrow, Liv."

"You're right it doesn't...," Olivia agreed, sounding confused. "But we've gone over this, Charlie. If anyone shows up—they'll call us." She pulled the small walkie-talkie from her pocket. One of the pair he'd found the other day. Battery operated and they had a range of a mile or so. He had stumbled across the pair of them in a random parked car, sitting on the passenger seat in plain sight. "These were your idea. We had to go out for supplies, and you were the one that insisted on coming along. Remember? Are you feeling okay?"

Charlie looked away from her worried gaze and thought for a moment. Her words struck a chord. It had been his idea, hadn't it? Yes. They'd been in the hallway outside the lab. He scrubbed a gloved hand across his mouth. What was wrong with him? The pulsing deepened, and the spikes grew sharper with every heartbeat. He gritted his teeth.  _Not now..._ , he thought in a panic.  _Not in front of her_.

Her face wrinkled with concern. "Charlie?"

"Sorry...," he swallowed, exhaling loudly through his nose. His stomach churned. There was no avoiding some kind of explanation, not with her right in front of him. "It's nothing...I've just been having these...headaches lately. Migraines, I guess. They come and go." The hammer drove the spikes deeper. Pain radiated down his spine, but he kept his voice even. "I...think it's just the stress. We're all under a lot, you know? They don't usually last too long." He left out the hallucination he'd had, and how sometimes he would see things out of the corner of his eye, but find nothing there when he turned to look. The wordless whispers. Having conversations with the undead like an insane person. That he was going crazy—that he might be crazy already.

"Are sure you're all right?" She pulled of one off her gloves and touched his forehead. As she pulled her hand away, the headache vanished as if turned off by a switch. "I don't think you have a fever, although in this weather it's impossible to say for sure."

"I'm okay," he said, stepping out of her reach. "It's gone now."

"Maybe you should let Walter take a look at you," she offered, watching him closely. "There might be something he can give you for them...some drug." She gave him a small smile. "I'm sure that sounds terrifying."

"You got that right...," Charlie agreed as they resumed their course. "Look, if they get worse, maybe I'll let him take a look," he lied. Let Walter drug him? Eating a bullet or going crazy might be preferable.

Olivia seemed to have accepted his response and they continued on. At the edge of the campus he gazed up the stately buildings rising toward the sky. They were relics of a dignified past that no longer held any relevance to current events. Just like himself. One in particular drew his gaze; a harsh-looking gothic structure that was all sharp angles and pointed rooftops. A tall, square tower rose from the nearest end with spikes of black ironwork for a crown. They moved into its shadow.

Charlie abruptly realized he knew the building. It was a theatre. He had been there before, years ago, with Sonia. They had seen some production, an opera, on their anniversary not long after they'd moved to Boston. He'd been younger then, and had never felt so out of place. But Sonia...she had savored every moment. She'd worn her mother's pearls and a little black dress bought just for the occasion. Her hair had been long then, and had she'd been the most beautiful woman in the room. He recalled her elation as they dressed, how she'd been so excited he'd had to help her with her earrings. Afterward, they'd gone home and made love in the dark until they'd collapsed, side-by-side, chests heaving, and covered with a fine sheen of their combined sweat. Her naked breasts had glistened in a ray of silver moonlight. The image was stamped firmly into his memory. He thought that maybe it always would be, that it had become a part of him, like a fingerprint or a scar.

The flutter of wings snapped him back to the present. A stream of crows burst out of the tower belfry overhead, cawing for all they were worth. The murder circled in a dazzling display of coordination and then headed east. As the crows disappeared over the treetops he thought of what else lay to the east, and the idea he'd been tossing around for the last few days. Olivia seemed oblivious to the disturbance, eyes distant and narrowed in thought. He figured it was as a good a time as any to bring it up. The two of them were the leaders of their little group, as much as anyone was. She would have to agree.

"So, I've been thinking about something, Liv," he began. "And hear me out before you say no."

She looked up from the sidewalk, eyebrows raised. "All right. What is it?"

"The Federal Building."

Olivia frowned. "The Federal Building? What about it?"

He hesitated, and then laid it out, watching her reaction. "...I've been thinking that maybe it might be a good idea to go there, if we can," he told her. "To see if there are any other survivors, and to—"

"Wait a second...," she rounded on him. "Are you telling me you actually  _want_  to go back into the city, Charlie? After everything you went through to get out?"

Charlie shrugged and looked away. "There's a lot less of  _them_ , lately," he said. "I know you've noticed."

"Yeah, I've noticed but...downtown?" She glanced to the southeast, toward the city and turned her head from side-to-side. "From what we heard...and from what you said, downtown was infested. Hordes of infected numbering in the tens of thousands. That's what you said. And you want to go back? Does Sonia know you've been thinking about this?"

"She does, and of course I don't want to go back," he answered. Sonia had agreed with his idea, had suggested he talk to Liv about it, on one condition. "But here's the thing, Liv. When we got out of there, the fresh ones were everywhere. We didn't understand what we were dealing with back then—how to avoid them, how not to draw their attention. How to kill them. It's different now. We know about the red light now so we can move at night if we have to, and there can't be many fresh ones left, if any. I haven't seen one in weeks now." At the skeptical look on her face, he tried a different approach. "What were Broyles's last orders for you?"

"That he wanted us to stay put at the lab," Olivia replied. "That he'd be in contact later that night. But...I never heard from him again. The phones went down, it was just...chaos. I assume he's dead." Her eyes blazed. "Why? Do you know something?"

"John and I managed to talk to him after that, I think," he told her. "After Boston General. He was trying to get back to the office, and was mad as hell. He told us that he was going to get some answers. That he knew someone who would have them if anyone did, and she wouldn't be putting him off again."

"She? Who was he talking about?"

"I don't know for sure," he said. "But I figure it had to be someone who had access to off-the-books research. Someone whose fingers were in everything. Now who do we know of like that?"

Olivia narrowed her gaze. "You're talking about Nina Sharp...and Massive Dynamic," she concluded, sounding surprised. "Did Broyles think  _they_  were behind it? Because that would be incredible. Frankly, I don't believe it. Nina Sharp may have had an ego the size of the Massive Dynamic building, but she didn't come across as someone intending to bring about the end of the world, Charlie."

"I'm not saying it was intentional," he agreed. "But who knows what was going on in Massive Dynamic's labs? And what are we doing here, anyway Liv?" He gestured at the empty streets and shook his head. "Scavenging? Living day to day, and just hoping that somehow Walter can figure it all out before we starve or get eaten by some fucking zombies? Maybe he can and maybe he can't, and maybe, he could if he just had more information. What if Broyles did make contact with Nina Sharp, or whomever he was talking about? What if what Walter needs is at the Federal Building? Some report or lead that Broyles never got a chance to tell you about?"

"That's a lot of what-ifs to risk going into the city for, Charlie," she muttered, brushing back a stray lock of hair. "I don't like it. What if you're wrong? And why haven't you mentioned any of this before?"

"Then I'm wrong," he said with a shrug. "If that happens, we'll raid the Federal Building's armory, then get the hell out of there. The weapons alone might be a good enough reason to go, considering what happened to Bishop. I never mentioned it before because there was no way I was going back there, but now...now I think we can make it."

"We?" she asked. "And who will be making this trip?"

He pointed a thumb toward her, then himself. "Not sure. You, me, Sonia…" Olivia raised her eyebrows at his addition of his wife, but made no comment. "We'll have to talk about. There's safety in numbers, but we can't leave the lab completely undefended."

"And Peter?" she asked, pursing her lips. "Are you ready to admit that you've been being an ass?"

"You're gonna bust my balls about this until I do, aren't you, kiddo?" Charlie grinned. He felt better already. The crushing weight on his shoulders seemed less indomitable. He supposed it was because they were being proactive, instead of lying down and accepting their fate.

"Yeah, I think I will." She waited expectantly, head cocked and hand on her hip.

He snorted, and looked up the blue sky overhead. "Fine. I admit I may have been wrong about the guy. That good enough?"

Olivia's lips ghosted into a smile. "It'll do…for now."

#

* * *

#

"Aunt Liv!" a small voice called out as Olivia followed Charlie out of the van and stepped out inside their little compound.

Ella stood on the inner wall in the back of a pickup truck, waving frantically. In an impressive display of agility, she ran and jumped along the wall of vehicles, then jumped down and raced toward them, scattering leaves in her wake. Her hair was braided in thick pigtails that swung and bobbed with each footstep. Sonia rose from her seat outside the double-doors, shielding her eyes against the sun with a gloved hand. They each wore the winter coats Olivia had found while out scavenging several days earlier, just before the cold snap. Ella was swimming in her wintergreen parka, but it would suffice until she could find something that fit her better. And she would find something, eventually. Time was all that they had these days.

Charlie threw a wave toward his wife, who hurried to meet him. "Just think about the Federal Building, Liv," he said over his shoulder. "We'll talk about it later..." He gave her a pointed glance, and then quickly moved ahead to intercept Sonia on the sidewalk. They hugged, and Sonia whispered something in his ear which elicited a low laugh as they hurried back toward the Kresge Building.

Olivia trailed behind them, glancing around the perimeter for her sister. Rachel was nowhere to be seen. She forced her jaw to relax. "Hey, baby girl," she said, smiling as Ella skidded to a stop in front of her. "What are you up to today? Did you miss me?"

Ella nodded and hugged her about the waist. "Uh huh...," she said, looking up with excitement. "What did you find outside, Aunt Liv? Anything for me? Were there any monsters? I haven't seen  _any_  today...are they all gone? Dr. Walter doesn't think they are..."

Reaching down, Olivia scooped her up with one arm and started for the building behind Charlie and his wife. Sonia flashed her a smile over her shoulder as they reached the top of the steps, before disappearing inside in front of her husband. "You know what? I did find you something, sweetie," she said, and gave her a peck on the cheek. "But it's a surprise, so you'll have to wait until we get inside, okay?" Ella opened her mouth to protest, but Olivia forestalled her with a look. Unlike Rachel, her niece never gave her too much trouble. "Where's your mom at?"

"Down in the basement with Dr. Walter," Ella replied, sounding bored. "He wanted to look at her arm again. Aunt Liv, what's that building over there? The big one with the green roof." Ella pointed toward one of the larger buildings rising up over the others on the far side of the quad.

Olivia knew the building, though not its name. During all the chaos at the start of the outbreak, Walter had pointed it out, bemoaning the destruction of all the historic books it contained. "I think that might be some kind of library, or maybe a museum," she said. "You'd have to ask Walter. He used to teach here, you know."  _Among other things_ , she added to herself.

It still amazed her that the military had contracted Walter and William Bell to conduct research into the gray areas of fringe-science out of a secret basement lab at Harvard. Had the university administrators been aware of what was happening beneath their noses? She wondered if such practices were commonplace, or if the Kelvin Genetics front had been an anomaly, a one-of-a-kind. Somehow she doubted it. After all, the U.S. Military was all about multiple layers of redundancy. Why have one ultra-secret lab when you could have two? Or ten? Maybe Walter and William Bell had only been the most successful.

"A library?" Ella said, twisting on Olivia's hip to look as they mounted the steps behind Sonia and Charlie. "Really? Do you think it has any books for me, Aunt Liv?"

"Sorry sweetie, but I don't think it was that kind of library." Keeping her face straight was difficult as the eagerness wilted from Ella's face like slow molasses. She set her down on the top step, and cupped her cheek. "But I promise I'll look for some more books you might like, next time I'm outside. Okay?" Ella gave the lime-green rooftop a wistful glance, then nodded reluctantly. Olivia pulled open the door. "C'mon, let's go see how your mom's doing, and then we'll take a look at your surprise."

Ella's eyes widened, her disappointment vanishing in an instant. "Oh yeah!" she said, then darted ahead, plunging into dimness of the Kresge Building's interior without hesitation. Her fear of the dark had vanished in the days since their arrival at the lab.

Following after her niece, Olivia smiled as Ella raced past Charlie and his wife and disappeared down into the basement stairwell at the far end of the corridor. The Francises had their heads together, and she could just make out the murmur of their voices echoing in the silence. She wondered if Charlie had told her about his migraines, and made a point to ask him. That was one secret she wouldn't be keeping, not if he had some sort of medical problem that needed addressing. Not that there was a whole lot they could do, if god forbid, it was something serious. She hoped he was right, and that it was just the stress of living in a world full of movie horrors come to life. It was a miracle they all weren't insane. She tried not to think about her episode on the bridge. She certainly didn't feel crazy.

Olivia didn't know what to make of Charlie's sudden desire to go back downtown, or the inclusion of his wife for the journey. Sonia had to have insisted on it. The woman had come a long way since emerging from the shivering catatonia that had gripped her for weeks. Why had he brought it up now? The idea was tantalizing though, if what he said was true. A chance for new information about the outbreak might well be worth the risk. It might be worth any risk. Such a trip into the city would take days, and who knew what they would encounter? Her family would have to stay behind. The thought formed a lump in her throat. It was a terrible risk. The local news accounts had been truly horrific. The single live video feed they'd seen before the networks had stopped broadcasting them had been something out of a nightmare. Civilians fleeing from a wall of freshes that charged down Congress Street straight at the cameraman, consuming and infecting everyone in its path. The reporter's screams had been audible for an instant before someone at the network had enough sense to pull the plug.

She would have to think about it, think about who would go and who would stay behind. They couldn't all go, certainly. Astrid had been hinting that she might like to be included in some of their trips beyond the perimeter, so that was something to consider. And then there was Peter. Swallowing, she pushed him out of her mind as she reached the stairwell to the basement.

A single, flickering candle on the floor marked the doorway. Candles had become scarce. Of the huge box of them Astrid had found, only a handful remained. They had been foolishly overzealous with them in the early days of the disaster and were paying for it now. With everyone else below, she blew the candle out, then headed down the steps to the lower level.

#

#

Olivia stopped at her room and removed the single article of clothing she'd taken for herself from her backpack; a dark, hooded sweatshirt with a giant letter B centered inside a yellow, spoked circle emblazoned on the front. She supposed it was one of the local sports team's logo, though wasn't sure which. All she knew for certain was that it didn't belong to the Red Sox. The shirt was lined with fleece on the inside and felt quite warm. She was looking forward to making it her new nightshirt. It felt odd to be wearing a stranger's clothing, but they had little choice. She took her share of the tampons, which amounted to little more than a handful.  _There might be enough here to make it through one period._   _Maybe_. If she stretched them. With four women in the group, they were a hot commodity. Her next cycle should be starting any day, and Astrid's as well, she recalled. It was the one time of the month when she actually envied the opposite sex.

 _They have it so easy_ , she thought, and tucked the tampons away inside the file cabinet that served as a chest for her things. Inside there was the water-stained photo of her and John, deodorant sticks, a toothbrush, and several pill boxes she'd taken from the pharmacy along with Peter's antibiotics. Her gaze lingered on the pill boxes. She wasn't sure why she had kept them, instead of giving them all to Sonia. She picked one up and read the label. Did they expire? Presumably so, though there was no date on the packaging. The likelihood of her needing them in the near future was negligible. She thought of John then, and their aborted future together, something she'd done her best to avoid—other than the single drunk night in her apartment with Peter. Charlie was right about one thing. It  _did_  seem as if his death had happened ages ago. She pried open the lockbox that contained her feelings for him, and found them as dry and brittle as dead leaves. She wondered if she was still human, if she was still capable of feelings—after all the horrors she'd seen...and been forced to commit in turn. Horrors whose intrinsic nature corrupted one from the inside out.

Olivia swallowed and let the box of pills fall from her hand, then slammed the drawer shut and left the room. She hesitated in the dark of the corridor, torn between two possible destinations—both of which needed attending. To the right was the lab, only a short walk across the hall. To the left and around the corner...awkward conversation and unpleasant silence. She walked down the hall to the lab. The other would just have to wait. At this point, he probably wasn't expecting her anyway. She yanked open the door.

The lighting was a little better inside the lab. Three squares of sunlight shone through the small windows set high on the only exterior wall. The space was a disorganized mess, with equipment strewn at random about on nearly every flat surface, but somehow Walter managed to make sense of the chaos...most of the time. She found her sister seated on the edge of a lab table, with Walter and Astrid standing to either side. Charlie and Sonia were on the far side of the room, going through the contents of his backpack on a countertop nearby with Ella looking on. Gene stood in her stall, watching them all stoically. The cow was thin—compared to the eight-hundred-fifty pounds Walter had required on her arrival—and getting thinner every day. Most of the hay supply was gone, despite their rationing. Olivia wasn't sure what was going to happen when they ran out completely, but she hoped Ella hadn't become too attached to the animal; she suspected it wasn't much longer for this world.

"Ah, Olivia. Come join us..." Walter invited her, looking up from Rachel's wrist as she closed the door behind her hard enough to rattle the glass in its frame. He waved her down the steps. "I have some good news."

From the pinched look on her sister's face, it was obvious she didn't agree with Walter's assessment. That look was never a good sign. "What is it?" she asked, hurrying down the steps. "What's wrong?"

"My wrist, Liv..." Rachel said, wiping her good hand across her eyes, which were already beginning to tear. "Look at it."

Olivia glanced at Astrid, who lifted her eyebrows then stepped back out of the way, giving her room to see. She saw the source of her sister's distress at once. The outside of her wrist had a large, bony-looking bulge right below her hand.  _Yes, that would do it_ , she thought. Rachel had always tended toward the melodramatic.

"So...what am I looking at?" she asked, feigning ignorance. The bruising had receded, at least, and most of the swelling gone. While not perfect, it wasn't  _that_  bad.

"Look at that!" Rachel thrust her other wrist out for comparison. "It's...it's...Dr. Bishop says it's just...going to be like that! That there's nothing he can do..." She pinched her nose, a precursor to the tears Olivia knew she was doing her best to contain.

Astrid put a comforting hand on her shoulder. "It's all right, Rachel," she tried to calm her down. . "I...I don't think it's that obvious. Do you, Olivia?"

Olivia kept her head down; Rachel would see right through her if they made eye contact. "I...uh...I don't think it's too bad either, Rach," she said, and then turned to Walter. "I thought you said you had good news...?"

"It  _is_  good news," he insisted, frowning at Rachel. "With a little effort on her part, I believe she will recover most of the wrist's full range of motion, in spite of the...protuberance. The results might have been far worse. She's rather lucky, I'd say. She might easily have been left with a gnarled claw for a hand..." He giggled madly and made an exaggerated hooking motion. "We might be able to name you Captain Hook, Miss Dunham!"

Rachel's face turned a deep shade of purple. "Dr. Bishop," she said, more angry now than tearful. "I don't find that very amusing, at all."

"What?" Walter threw his hands in the air. "It's true! And a regimen of daily physical therapy could prove very beneficial. I  _highl_ y recommend you do so."

"Walter, you're not helping," Astrid said, putting a hand to her forehead. "You might want to work on your bedside manner just a bit."

The old scientist let out a discontented grunt, then moved away from them, muttering something about ungratefulness under his breath. He walked over to one of the cabinets and began rummaging through it loudly, radiating disgruntlement.

Olivia relaxed, hiding a small grin behind her fist. If Rachel was angry, then she might be distracted long enough to see reason. She would still have use of her hand, and a bump was a small price to pay for it. She wondered if Walter had made her mad on purpose. He could be surprisingly perceptive in the midst of his rambling and erratic behavior—enough to make her doubt its authenticity on occasion. Like now, for instance. She slung her backpack up on the table next to her sister, hoping to continue the distraction. "I've got some things for you gals," she said, glancing between Rachel and Astrid. "And for you too, Sonia," she called over to her.

"What about my surprise, Aunt Liv?" Ella asked, dashing through the maze of lab tables to her side, followed by a curious Sonia. "Can I have it now?"

"In just a minute, sweetie," Olivia said. "Let me give out everything else first, okay?" Ella nodded impatiently, and she began emptying her bag.

She let the three women sort who got what amongst themselves, as she'd already had her pick. None of the clothes were exciting. She had chosen functionality over form when searching through the dead women's closets and drawers. Warm clothes were what was needed, and that was what they got. They all seemed relieved to have replacement underwear and socks, something she could appreciate. When she got to the tampons, all three of their faces brightened.

"Oh thank god," Astrid gasped with relief, reaching for her share. "You're a lifesaver, Olivia. I'm all out of the others, and I think I'm about to start gushing any minute."

Rachel and Sonia both spluttered at the comment, and Charlie, who had followed his wife over, wrinkled his face with distaste. "That's more information than I needed to hear, Agent Farnsworth," he said, rubbing his jaw.

"Oh please, you big baby," Sonia retorted. "Like you haven't heard me say the same thing about my period a million times." Her words brought on another round of laughter from the other women, reddening Charlie's face. Olivia grinned, enjoying his discomfort. There was little to laugh about these days.

"What's your period, Sonia?" Ella asked, looking up at the older woman.

Sonia glanced over at Rachel, mouth open. "Something you don't have to worry about for a few years still, Ella," Rachel evaded, sliding down on off the table. "Why don't we see what your aunt found for you, okay?"

Olivia nodded quickly. It seemed preferable than explaining the workings of the menstrual cycle to a five-year-old who was still freaked out by the sight of her own blood. She reached for the bag of Legos. "I know you've been getting bored here lately, baby girl," she said, "but hopefully these will give you something to do, for a while at least."

"What is it?" Ella wanted to know, lifting up on her toes in a futile attempt to peek inside the backpack.

She pulled out the plastic bag and held it up for her to see. Hopefully, she hadn't oversold them as they were just Legos, after all. To her relief, Ella's eyes widened, and she let out an excited squeal.

"Legos!"

"You like them?" she asked. Ella nodded eagerly, and Olivia passed her the bag.

"Oh, I used to love those," Astrid remembered, watching her with a smile. "When I was a kid, I had two giant bins of them that went under my bed in my room. I used to build these  _huge_  cities, I and my dad together. We had this thing where we would try and recreate famous skylines—New York, Chicago, LA...places like that... They weren't very good, of course, but we had fun building them." She paused, and her dark eyes turned inward and far away. When she went on, her voice was quiet and filled with melancholy. "One time we did Tokyo, and right after we finished, I tripped over one of the bins and went crashing through the half of the city like Godzilla. My dad tried to catch me, but he ended up destroying the other half." She sniffled, and tears slid freely down her cheeks. She let out a sad laugh. "After that, we always pretended to be giant monsters battling through the city after we were done..." She glanced around at the group, looking abashed all of a sudden. "I'm sorry, I don't mean to be such a downer, you guys."

"Hey, there's nothing to be sorry for, Astrid," Olivia assured her with a sad smile. "We all understand completely." The others nodded in agreement.

Ella held up the bag of colored blocks. "Can  _you_  help me build a city like yours, Astrid?"

"You bet I can, honey," she replied, lifting her chin high. "You're looking at the city building champion."

"Really?"

"Uh huh," Astrid grinned. "C'mon, I'll show you..." She guided Ella over to one of the lab tables that was mostly clear of debris. A moment later they were hard at work.

Olivia watched them several minutes, thinking of how focused she'd been on finding her own family. A guilty pang resonated through her chest. The junior agent hadn't mentioned her family much after the scope of the disaster had become clear. Her father had been her only living parent, and she had never reached him after the beginning of the end. He had an apartment somewhere in Dorchester, far to the south of the city.

"Hey, Dr. Bishop," Charlie called over to Walter, who was studying the pantry shelf with his usual intensity, arms crossed, chin resting on his palm. "I found something for you, too."

Walter spun around, eyebrows arched in surprise. "For me?" he queried happily. "Are you referring to these lima beans? They're an excellent source of fiber, as well as folate and magnesium for the heart. And a favorite of mine, in spite of the excessive flatulence that accompanies them." He flapped at the air in front of his nose, then gave Charlie a sharp glance. "How have your bowel movements been lately, Agent Francis? Are they regular? Given our poor diets, it wouldn't surprise me if you've been suffering some degree of costiveness. God knows I've had my share."

"Costiveness...?" Charlie scowled and shook his head. "I don't even want to know what that is..." He pulled the bag of licorice from his pocket and tossed them to Walter. "Here. I thought you might like these."

Walter fumbled the throw, then stooped to retrieve them. "Aha!" he crowed. "Finally, some more..." He turned the package over and frowned, his glee turning to disgust in an instant. "But...but these aren't Red Vines," he spat, shaking the package. "These are Twizzlers!"

"They're both red licorice, Walter," Olivia reasoned, confused by his sudden anger. "Is there a difference?"

"Is there a difference, Agent Dunham?" Walter said in disbelief. He rounded on her, eyes filled with outrage. "Is there a difference? Of course there's a difference! In addition to tasting like wax, do you know how many preservatives they bake into Twizzlers?" He turned the package over and began to read. "Glycerine, potassium sorbate, soy lethicin! Are you trying to poison me, Agent Francis?"

Charlie snorted and held out his hand. "Fine, then don't eat 'em, Bishop," he said with a shrug. "I'm sure someone else will." He turned to his wife. "You like those, don't you, babe?"

Sonia nodded and Walter pulled the licorice in close to his chest. "No! No. That's...that's quite all right," he said, dropping the package into the pocket of his lab coat. "They're better than nothing. I'll just have to muddle through." He shot Sonia a sly glance. "Though I will share them with you, my dear, if you'd like some."

"Why thank you, Dr. Bishop," Sonia grinned. She gave the scientist a playful wink, which drew another snort from Charlie.

Walter moved toward the office, passing by Ella and Astrid who were hard at work building their block city. Several tall towers already rose up off the table top. "Ah...Legos," he commented. " _My_  Peter had a rather large set of them when he was around your age, miss. He liked to construct bridges with them—over any span he could find around the house. I had high hopes for his future as a structural engineer—until I saw how truly dreadful his designs were. No tensile strength at all. He would have killed thousands of people."

Olivia exchanged glances with her sister who was watching the exchange with narrowed eyes. "And that's pleasant," Rachel grimaced.

"That's just Walter, Rach," she said with a shrug as he disappeared inside her old office and shut the door. "He doesn't have a filter."

From some of the stories Peter had told of his youth, Walter had always been like that. The thought reminded her that she needed to see him, that she'd put it off long enough. The two of them needed to talk, and alone, without interruptions. Even if there was an uncomfortable awkwardness between them now that hadn't been there before. In spite of her intention to breach the subject of her mother's necklace, she had never found the right moment. And now, unless he was utterly unobservant—which he most definitely was not—he had seen Ella wearing the cross. Olivia made up her mind.

"Hey, I'm gonna go pay Peter a visit, so I'll see you later." She took her sister's hand and pulled her into a hug. "And don't worry about your wrist, Rach," she whispered in her ear before heading for the door. "It's not that noticeable, really."

Rachel shrugged and nodded glumly. "If you say so, Liv. You want me to come with you?"

She looked back and shook her head. "No, that's all right. I...I kind of wanted to see him alone," she said, moving toward the exit. A small frown creased her sister's forehead, and Olivia pretended not to see it. "If you don't mind...," she added over her shoulder, and then walked out of the lab.

Peter's room was the last exterior classroom at the end of a long hallway off the main basement corridor. There were no candles to light the way, only morose strips of gray sunlight during daylight hours, cast through the narrow vertical windows in each classroom door. Going any farther away from the lab—and subsequently, his father—would have put him outside the building. Separation from Walter was the key when he'd chosen the room, back when it had become clear that returning to their hotel, or even stepping outside the building was far too dangerous. Before coming back to Boston, he had been a wanderer, never staying in one place for too long. Leaving was no longer an option. Now, Olivia thought, it was just simple seclusion he was looking for. Peter was a private person, much like herself. In her case, however, practicality had overruled, and she had chosen a room nearer the stairwell. He still held strong against such notions.

Olivia trudged through the patches of light, counting them down without thought. At some point in the last two weeks she had memorized their number without meaning to, or even realizing that she had. Eleven windows lay between their rooms. Seven windows in the corridor before the intersection, four after making the turn. The distance seemed longer than normal.  _Or_ , Olivia thought as she turned the corner,  _you're just dragging your feet, Liv. Admit it._ There was no point in denying it—she had always found lying to oneself a meaningless endeavor. The remaining four strips of light crossed the corridor at an angle, and then a fifth, at the far end of the hall. She took light footsteps, another habit she'd picked up over the last few days, when she had made this trip only to turn around and walk away without crossing his threshold. She would cross it today. She faltered when a rhythmic thumping echoed faintly down the corridor.

 _Thunk...thunkthunk._ There came a short interval of silence, and then she heard it again.  _Thunk...thunkthunk..._

The echoes repeated, growing louder as she drew nearer to Peter's room.  _What is that?_  she wondered with a frown, and increased her speed to a slow trot. The sound was new, one that she'd never heard in the Kresge Building before. It didn't belong there. Her mind conjured images of misshapen infected clawing and scraping their way into the building. More than once she had witnessed one of the undead trapped inside an enclosed space, refusing to acknowledge the door blocking their path. Maybe there was one outside the building? Bumping up against a window or door. Or...it could be something even worse: other survivors, looking for another way into the building, far away from the front entrance. Charlie's words from earlier rung in her ears.

_That doesn't mean they won't show up tomorrow, Liv..._

A sudden chill sucked the air from her lungs, and she began to run.

#

* * *

#

The door slammed open, and Peter jerked in his bed, missing the incoming tennis ball. The makeshift sling that cradled his left arm slipped off his shoulder, letting his arm drop off the edge of the bed as Olivia rushed inside, weapon drawn and at the ready. The faded yellow ball zoomed past his head and bounced off the wall behind him, then rolled forward and disappeared into the darkness beneath the professor's desk at the front of the room.

"Peter!" Her eyes flashed around the room, searching the darkened corners for what threat he knew not. After a moment of tense silence, she met his gaze.

He labored to a sitting position. "Olivia...?" He reached for the strap and settled it back into place, wincing at the stabbing pain in his shoulder. "Is...everything okay?" He looked past her out into the hallway for anything that might have caused her distress, then studied her face. The light was dim, but a hint of wildness remained around her eyes. "What's wrong?"

"What was..." Olivia relaxed and lowered her weapon, dropping it into its holster. "Was that a ball?"

Peter glanced over at the desk and nodded. "Yeah, I was attempting to break my own record of..." He stopped, noticing a rising blush on her cheeks that was visible even in the scant light. From the clothes she was wearing—her black peacoat and scarf, and a pair of warm-looking gloves peeking out from one of her coat pockets—he judged her to have recently returned from the outside. Scavenging most likely, and probably with Charlie. He wondered if they'd found anything good to eat, but that could wait. "Why?" he asked her. "What'd you think it was?"

"It's...nothing. I—I thought..." She looked away, lifting her long bangs from in front of her eyes and tucking them back behind her ears before turning back to face him. "Forget it. It's nothing. I'm sorry for barging in here like that, Peter."

"Not a problem. You can barge in any time you want, Agent Dunham," he told her with a toothy grin. "You know that."

The corners of Olivia's mouth turned upward for a moment in a rare smile. She glanced around the room, running her eyes over his things—what little stuff he had, at least. Her gaze lingered on his blood-stained coat, draped over one of the chairs, and on his backpack, sitting in front of it. After a moment, she swallowed and met his gaze. The expression on her face was unreadable, and could have meant anything. Embarrassment, possibly, mixed with curiosity? Her last visit had been days ago. And when he'd asked Rachel after her older sister's whereabouts, the story was that she was busy. Scavenging and taking watches. The need for a lookout was a new development, something they'd started doing while he'd been incapacitated sickness that had left him weaker than a newborn baby. Either way, it all amounted to the same thing in his book; she was avoiding him, and for reasons he could likely put a name to. He wondered what had changed to bring her to his door now.

"So. How are you feeling?" Olivia said, breaking the silence. She walked over to one of the student desk-chair combos across the room and sat down. "Walter told me you're getting close to being back on your feet."

"My father's a known liar, Olivia, so I'm not sure I'd trust anything he says," Peter grinned, fingering the healing wound on his shoulder. "But yeah, the fever's pretty much gone. My shoulder still hurts like a bitch, but I can move my arm a little bit without screaming, so hey, that's something. In other news, I can get up all by myself to go to the bathroom, which sure as hell beats the alternatives."

Olivia again smiled briefly, and stared down at her desk. He wondered again what had brought her to him. Clearly she wanted to talk about something, so why wasn't she? Another silence sprang up in the gulf between them, tense and unpleasant in its fabric. He despised it, and wished for the umpteenth time that he had just given back her things as soon as he'd recovered them—in spite of the uncomfortable questions his retrieval of them would have raised. What exactly had he planned on doing with them, anyway? Now, they were just a giant elephant hanging from Ella's neck for all to see, though only himself and Olivia seemed aware of it. The whole thing had been a spur of the moment; a quick decision made after witnessing her sadness in the aftermath of John Scott's death. She had lowered her mask that night, if only for a moment.

The silence between them lengthened. He waited for her to say something, but whatever it was, she was still working up to it. He rubbed at a kink in the back of his neck, then cleared his throat. "So...what have you been up to lately?" he said, just to say something, and despite already knowing the answer. "According to your sister, you've been busy, having all kinds of adventures without me."

At mention of her sister, Olivia perked up, sitting up straighter in her chair. A muscle in her jaw flexed. "Yeah," she nodded. "I've been outside a lot. Just got back with Charlie. Not sure I'd call it an adventure, though. It's pretty quiet out there."

"Find anything good?" he queried, settling back on his pillow. "To be honest, 'Livia, I don't think I can stomach another day of Campbell's soup du-jour. Walter insists that's all we have. I'm pretty sure he just likes feeding me the chicken noodle."

Olivia did smile then, a full smile that brightened the room. "I don't know, Peter...," she said in a mysterious voice. "You'd have to ask Charlie. I was on clothes detail. I think I may have heard him mention something about...beef stew..."

"Beef stew?" Peter's mouth watered. It had been ages since he'd had any meat, even if it was the pseudo-meat found in canned beef stew. "How many cans?" he asked before he could stop himself. "Was it Dinty Moore?"

"Dinty Moore...?" Olivia guffawed, and shook her head with amusement. "You're worried about the brand?" Her eyes danced, and she covered her mouth. Her chuckle grew into a ringing fit of laughter that went on for several moments, shattering the tension between them like a hammer on glass.

Peter savored the sound of her laugh, the curl of her lips. He found himself grinning widely. "What? It's the best kind. Ask anyone. I'll bet Charlie knows. Maybe it's a guy thing..."

"I'll take your word for it, Peter," she said, still chuckling, and wiping at her eyes.

He watched her as she recovered, relieved that he could still make her laugh—she needed to every once in a while—and that he hadn't ruined everything between them. They were still friends, if nothing else. She caught him watching her, and for once didn't look away. Her eyes were liquid, mesmerizing; the green in them gathering the light from the window, glittering with emerald-gold highlights. In the end, it was his turn to look away.

"So, uh...what else did you find? he asked, dropping his gaze to the blanket over his lap. "Anything good besides beef stew?"

"Umm...Charlie found a bag of Twizzlers..." Olivia said. "And I found you a bag of salt—"

"Wait. Twizzlers?" Peter interrupted her, holding up a finger. "He didn't give them to Walter, did he?" That was a mistake he had made once, and only once.

"Um...yeah." she said. "They didn't go over so well."

"Let me guess...Walter threw a fit," he said with a laugh. Olivia nodded affirmative, and he continued. "He hates Twizzlers. I found that out the hard way. Back when we were in the hotel, I think it was...after the old-man-baby case. I brought some up to the room. And he kept going on and on about how they weren't the same, and all the preservatives were going to kill him..." He grunted and shook his head, remembering his father's fury. "In the end, the only way to get him to shut up, was to go out right then, and buy him some Red Vines. I think our neighbors lodged a complaint with the hotel management from all the shouting. You have any idea how hard it is to find Red Vines at three in the morning in Cambridge? Twizzlers have really corned the gas station market."

"I can only imagine," Olivia said, clearly amused by his bad fortune. "But, your father must not hate them that much, Peter, 'cause he's sharing them with Sonia right now."

"What? Really?" His father must truly be desperate.

"Yep..." Olivia rose suddenly from her seat and walked over to his mattress. She stared down at him, with uncertainty clouding her features, then dropped down on the edge next to him. The mattress sagged to one side under their combined weights. "Peter, I have to talk to you about something," she started. Her gaze remained fixed on the window. "About something that's been bothering me for a while."

Cool sweat broke out on Peter's forehead. And here it was—the conversation he'd been dreading, ever since he'd first seen Ella wearing the necklace. And he had no explanation for her, not one that he could voice out loud. Not yet, at least. How could he explain it when he didn't fully understand it himself? That he liked seeing her smiles, and being the one to draw them out. That if he could lift the weight off her shoulders, even if just for a moment, it was worth the risk. It was too soon. Those were cards he wasn't ready to put on the table, not without some clue as to how she might react. "You...do?" he asked, swallowing through a lump in his throat and forcing a smile into place. "What about?"

Olivia smoothed her hair back, then twisted a loose string on the hem of her coat. She met his gaze after a moment. "You remember the guy in the suit and hat?" she asked. "The one I saw watching us while we were riding to Brighton?"

Peter blinked and sat up, crossing his legs under his blanket. "Of course," he said with a grin. Relief flooded his veins. "How could I forget? The guy that moves faster than a speeding bullet. You wiped out and then I ran you over right after that. I'm still sorry about that, by the way."

Her lips curled upward into an amused grin. "There was no harm done, Peter," she said, leaning back with her hands on the mattress near his shins. She nudged his leg with her elbow. "And in your defense, I did crash right in front of you."

"Yeah, you're right," he smirked. "It was all your fault, Dunham."

Olivia rolled her eyes, though her shoulders hitched with silent laughter. After a moment, her face turned serious. "Anyway...," she started. "I saw him again. The man in the suit and fedora."

Peter lifted his eyebrows. "Really. You saw him again? When?"

"The night I was searching for you..." Her eyes were distant, intent on the memory. "He was standing in the street in front of the building you burned down. Just standing there." Her voice dropped to a whisper and she met his gaze. "He...he was waiting for me..."

"He was what...?" Peter leaned forward, putting a hand on her thigh. "Olivia, did you talk to him?" She nodded, looking uncertain. "Who is he?"

Olivia leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees. She cupped her chin, and glanced over at him. "The whole thing was so strange, Peter," she said. "I...don't even know how to describe it. The guy had no hair—not anywhere that I could see. And the way he moved, his mannerisms, they weren't...normal. He...it was like he knew what I was going to say, even before I said it. Before  _I_  even knew I was going to say it." She shook her head. "Like he could read my mind somehow, as  _utterly_  insane as that sounds."

Peter remained silent, turning her words over in his mind. He had believed her before, of course, when she had told him about seeing a guy wearing a suit before the crash. It was certainly possible she had seen a survivor, possibly more than one, who had happened to be there and seen them pass by. A coincidence. But this was something altogether different. He could hear the truth in her voice, read it on her face. Her encounter with the man had shaken her. "So...what'd the guy want?" he asked. "What did he say to you?"

"I don't know what he wanted...," she said with a shrug. "He told me he meant no harm, and then he started talking about causality and probability, and that something had gone askew here and history not proceeding as intended, and also something about a beacon, whatever that is." She went on to describe the encounter in more detail, the odd cadence of his speech and his strange head movements, along with a type of gun she'd never seen before. When she was finished, she glanced down at his hand and Peter realized that he was still touching her. He felt the heat of her through the fabric of her jeans. Olivia made no comment, or any other signs of objection, but he pried his hand loose and pulled away from her. She went on as if she hadn't noticed. "What do you think it means, Peter?"

Peter fingered the roughness of his beard. His thoughts were awhirl. Causality and probability. The two were related, close cousins in the realms of philosophy and statistics. Probability theory was familiar to him, or at least its use at a poker table. Perhaps the man had been referring to a causal fork? But this was reality, not philosophy. The thought of someone standing in the middle of the street, waiting to discuss such abstractions with the first passerby who crossed their path—and after the fall of civilization, no less—was absurd. The part about history left a bad taste in his mouth for some reason he couldn't fully explain. He shook his head.

"I don't know what any of it means, Olivia," he said, meeting her worried gaze. "Did this guy say anything else?"

Olivia hesitated, wetting her lower lip. He saw something in her face then, a tremulous fear or, perhaps uncertainty. He thought she might be unsure that he believed her, and that whatever else she had to say, it would only make his doubt increase. He could have told her that what she'd said already was too ludicrous to have been anything but the truth, but some reflection in her eyes stopped his tongue. She put a hand on his leg through the blanket, and squeezed. "Peter...he knew who I was." Her voice lowered to a whisper. "He knew both of us."

"What? What do you mean he knew us?" he said, feeling slightly dazed by the revelation. "How? Who was he?"

"He didn't tell me his name, Peter," she replied, exasperated. "Before he vanished into thin air, he told me that you and I were different than before. In this place in time; those were his exact words. And that he...wanted to see for himself." She swallowed, and pushed back her hair. "...He acted like he knew something about us, but...I've never seen him before. I'm sure of it."

Peter pulled free of her hand and struggled out of bed. The floor was ice through his socks and his shoulder ached, but those were small things, and easily ignored. He needed to move about, to think, and her touch was anathema to clear thought. Besides, lying in bed all day was killing him, as surely as the bullet or the infection would have.  _Causality. Probability. In this place and time. Place in time._ He paced a circular track between the mattress and the door with the words echoing inside his head. They stirred something, some awareness, far back in the depths of his memory. But whatever it was, he couldn't summon the association. Maybe it was nothing. A movie, or some other scene lodged in his mind from long ago. Or perhaps it was merely something he'd heard Walter say once upon a time. He came to a stop across the room, next to the professor's desk. Olivia regarded him silently from the bed with a mixture of curiosity and expectation. He wasn't sure what to tell her.

"Olivia, who else have you told about this?" he wanted to know, hugging himself against the chill in the air. "Charlie?"

She shook her head. "No. Just you...," she said, and then reached down for the book he'd been reading during his convalescence. She lifted it and gazed down at the cover without expression. A fleeting smile creased her lips, and she looked up and saw him watching her. She dropped the book on top of his pillow. "The others... I didn't know how to tell anyone else without sounding crazy, you know? I swear I looked away for less than a second, and the guy just...disappeared. There was nowhere for him to hide. He vanished, Peter."

"So...what should we do?" he asked. "Should we tell Walter and everyone else?"

Olivia snorted a laugh. "You're asking me?"

"Well...yeah. You're the FBI agent," Peter grinned, gesturing toward her with his left hand. He winced at the tiny daggers of pain the motion sent through his shoulder. "You're the one in charge. I'm just an out-of-work conman."

"An out-of-work conman, huh?" she repeated with a small quirk of her lips. "You're more than that, Peter. And I think you know it—in spite of what you like to tell yourself. To Walter for sure. And also to...us." She gave him an intent, unblinking look that made his hair stand on end, then lowered her gaze to a spot on the floor tile. "You know...I never really thanked you for coming to Brighton with me. We wouldn't have made it back without your help, in spite of what happened."

He felt his cheeks start to burn and turned away before she could see. With a sigh, he scratched at the back of his head and stared out the window at the distant rooftops across campus. From his low vantage point, the world outside looked normal. "No thanks required," he said to the wall. "I didn't do anything you didn't do yourself, Olivia. Besides, I think we're more than even, don't you? I owe you one."

Olivia let out an irritated huff behind him. The back of his neck tingled under her gaze. The mattress squeaked, and there came the soft thwacks of her approaching footsteps. She stopped beside him and stared up out the window. "Charlie told me today that he wants to go downtown. Back to the Federal Building," she said, hugging her arms about herself. "...I'm not in charge here, Peter. This is all so far outside my range of experience, my training—it's like...we're in another universe. I...I don't know what to do anymore." She wore a look of misery for an instant before covering her face and rubbing at her eyes.

"Go downtown...?" Peter grunted, and shook his head. Was the man insane? Wasn't that where he had come from in the first place? Why would he want to go back? "I didn't know Agent Francis had a death wish," he said, trying to elicit a smile from her.  _So much for that_ , he thought, when none appeared. Olivia tried so hard for everyone, yet left nothing for herself. She deserved better. "And for the record, you're doing a good job here, 'Livia. As good as can be done, anyway, considering what's happened. There's no reason to beat yourself up." On an impulse, he took one of her hands and held it, palm up inside his own. His thumb traced a path along the soft indentation of her heart line. "Look at it this way. We're still alive, and that's all that matters. Nobody has training for the end of the world...or it wouldn't be the end. You know what I mean?"

Olivia nodded, and her lips unfurled into a melancholy smile. "Thank you, Peter," she said, gazing down at their conjoined hands. "After what happened to John..." She swallowed and cleared her throat. "You know that...that means a lot to me."

Peter shrugged, maintaining the contact between them. Her skin felt like spider's silk, soft and yielding, but containing a hidden strength. He soaked in the contact like a sponge, and reminded himself to keep breathing. "That's...what I'm here for, Dunham," he said lightly, in a vain effort to still his racing heart.

"Did you know he hated you?" she asked in a pensive voice, keeping her eyes averted. "John, I mean. You knew that, right? He really despised you, Peter."

"You don't say? I never would've guessed," he quipped, unable to control the wide smirk that forced its way to the surface. Of course he had known. It had been obvious from the first time John Scott had visited them at the lab after his recovery. And the man had told him as much, later. Olivia giggled softly at his remark, and his thumb continued traveling the contours of her palm, memorizing each line and divot, the calluses at the base of her fingers. "I...seem to have that effect on law enforcement officers, Agent Dunham," he said. "They seem to have a thing for me. Most of them, at least..."

Olivia snorted softly at his sarcasm, and lifted her head. There came a moment then, an instant, when it might have still been possible for him to pull away from her, to put a stop to, or at least postpone, whatever was happening between them. But then her emerald gaze locked onto his own and time lurched to a crawl. Her fingers curled around his thumb, sliding along its length back to his wrist. Peter inhaled a sharp breath at the tenderness in her touch. His heart flailed inside his chest, skipping a beat.

"Most of them..." she murmured. She turned his hand over, mimicking his movements over her palm.

"Most...?" he mouthed stupidly. What was she doing? His brain struggled to comprehend what was happening. The gold flecks speckling the green of her irises filled his vision.

Somehow they were closer, almost touching, though he had no memory of moving. The hands trapped between them the only hindrance keeping them apart. Peter drank in the soft lines of her face, the light dusting of freckles across her cheeks, the traces of a dimple around her mouth, which parted open ever so slightly. A smudge of dirt marred the skin on her forehead above her right eye, but instead of detracting from her beauty, it only increased her endearment.

"Uh huh..." she whispered. Her eyes took on a glazed aspect and wandered his face openly.

An irresistible gravity surrounded her. It pulled him inexorably downward. They were inches apart, then centimeters. Her lips trembled and the pressure on his hand increased. Her breath caressed his face, sending his pulse soaring. Before he could stop himself, he cupped her cheek with his right hand, entwining his fingers in the hair behind her ear. Olivia sighed at the contact, leaning into his palm. Her eyes slipped closed and she pulled him closer, twisting his shirt into a bunch, until no space remained between them. She lifted up on her toes, pressing herself up against him, and he sank to meet her halfway.  _This is really happening..._  The distant, but wondrous thought flitted through his mind. No sooner had her lips brushed up against his, sending an electric surge of excitement to his toes, than a loud knock at his door shattered the moment into a million cascading pieces.

Olivia flinched at the sudden noise, and then gasped and spun away from him. She backed away, eyes wide and mouth agape, putting several yards distance between them. Her fingers moved over her lips, her expression frozen in a fixture of unbridled surprise. Peter felt no less amount of shock himself. He stood in a daze, seeing her, but simultaneously re-living the instant before the knock at the door.

If he were honest with himself, the thought of what it might be like to kiss Olivia Dunham had crossed his mind before, many times—up to and including his first glimpse of her, a gorgeous woman in fatigues standing at the bottom of a staircase at his hotel in Iraq. He had wanted her then, of course he had, even after she'd told him she was a cop and had conned him into returning to the States with her. Indeed, her getting the better of him had only fanned the flames. But something altogether unexpected had happened instead. During the months of working side by side, lust had given way to some other jumble of emotions—emotions he wasn't at all familiar with. In his adult life, the rare encounters he had with women were strictly of the commitment free variety. Instead, something tender had taken root with Olivia, a glittering diamond in the jungle of his feelings that refused to be unnoticed or ignored. Was it love? He hadn't the faintest idea. Had he ever loved anyone before, besides his mother? All he could say for sure was that he liked everything about her. He had buried the feelings deep however, as that had seemed best for all involved; she loved John, and he, a criminal, would never be worthy of her anyway.

"Peter..." Olivia's low hiss got his attention. "Get the door!"

Peter blinked and came out of his stupor. Time had passed. How much he wasn't sure, but surely no more than several seconds. Enough for whomever was outside to knock again. Olivia's cheeks were scarlet, and a shadow moved outside in the hallway. He wasn't sure his face was any better.  _Please don't be Walter_ , he prayed, crossing the room. If his father had seen what had just happened—or almost happened—he would flip out. They would never hear the end of it. Ever. He pulled the door open, and to his relief found Charlie standing outside, with his wife not far behind him.

#

#

"Bishop," Charlie said with a nod of greeting. The older man frowned, and peered past him into the room. "Is Liv in there? I wanted to talk to her..."

"I'm in here Charlie," Olivia called out before he could answer.

"C'mon in, Agent Francis, Sonia," Peter invited them, motioning them in with his left hand out of habit. He grimaced at the shooting pain the gesture sent through his shoulder and stepped aside.

Charlie moved through the doorway, eying him up and down. "It's just Charlie, Peter," he corrected him. "You look a hell of a lot better than last time I saw you. Good to see you on your feet again."

"He looks better because you haven't seen him in over a week, honey," Sonia said, moving in behind her husband and giving Peter a wide smile. She wore a red sweatshirt with a pair of loose-fitting blue jeans, along with a wicked-looking combat knife on her belt. "How are you, Peter?"

"Feeling a lot better, Sonia, thank you." He flashed her his best smile. The change that had come over her while he was out was still something to behold. Olivia had told him early on that Charlie's wife had been a strong-willed woman before, though with an easy laugh and a penchant for telling bad jokes. It was all coming back to her now. She might as well have been a different woman altogether, so drastic were the changes. "Shoulder's almost as good as new."

"That's good to hear" Sonia grinned. "I bet you're tired of being holed up in this dungeon of a room." She glanced around the room, taking note of Olivia standing near his mattress. Her face was still a bright red and her hair was clearly mussed from the work his hand had done during their encounter. Sonia's eyes narrowed. "Hey, Olivia. We're...not interrupting anything, are we?" she asked, glancing between them.

"Um...no, not really," Peter said at the same moment as Olivia's rushed, "No, of course not!"

A momentary silence filled the room. He avoided looking in Olivia's direction. In his peripheral vision, he noticed her fixing her hair and looking very uncomfortable. Why did he feel like they'd been caught with their hands in the cookie jar? They were both adults. In an effort to appear casual, he sat down on the edge of the teacher's desk and scratched through his shirt at the healing wound in his shoulder. Lately it had begun to itch like crazy.

"Are you sure..." Sonia wanted to make sure, exchanging confused glances with her husband. "'Cause we can come back later..."

"No, we...weren't doing anything important," Olivia said with an air of casual dismissal that sank Peter's heart. A painful lump formed in the back of his throat. She dropped down in one of the empty student desks and thrummed her fingernails on its flat surface. "What did you need, Charlie?"

The older agent eyed them both with suspicion before turning to Olivia. "I wanted to see if you'd thought about my idea at all," he said. "About going downtown. With this weather, if we're gonna do it, it should be sooner than later. Did you tell Peter?"

"Yeah, she mentioned that...," Peter spoke up, throwing a glance Olivia's way. To his dismay, she didn't acknowledge him, or even look in his general vicinity. He tried to put what that might mean out of his mind. It hadn't been one-sided. "I don't understand. Why the hell would you want to go back there?"

"There's a chance that Broyles had information about the infection...Peter," Olivia said, with a slight hitch in her voice. "Something that might help Walter in his research."

"And you know this how?" Peter asked, catching Charlie's eye. "Last I heard, Broyles was most likely dead, and downtown was an infected wasteland."

"It was something he said the last time I talked to him," Charlie explained. "Right before we lost all communication. With the decline of the undead population, I think we have a chance to make it. I didn't before, or I'd have mentioned it sooner."

Decline of the undead population? None of his visitors had thought to mention that little tidbit. Peter looked back at Olivia for confirmation, who finally met his gaze. Her face was a blank mask of serenity. "What's he talking about?" he said. "There aren't as many of them now? When did that happen?"

Olivia shrugged. "Over the last few weeks we've been seeing less and less infected in the areas around the campus. I only saw one when we were outside today."

Charlie nodded his agreement. "She ain't kidding," he agreed. "It's like they all just up and...walked away. I heard your father mumbling something about migrations the other day."

Migrations? "So you think that because there's less here, it'll be the same downtown?" Peter shifted his gaze between the three of them. In his experience, such extrapolations rarely stood up to reality. Their combined luck could never be so good. "Somehow, I don't think it'll be quite that easy." Charlie started to protest, but Peter held up his right hand before the gruff agent could do more than open his mouth. "When do we leave? Soon?"

"We...?" Olivia gave him a look of worried disbelief. "Nothing's been decided yet, Peter. And besides, you're just now getting back on your feet. Your arm is still in a sling. I...I don't think that you should be rushing to—"

"If you're going, I'm going, 'Livia," Peter cut her off cleanly. Though she bristled at the interruption, he noticed something before she looked away. She  _did_  care. He could see it behind her eyes, a desperate worry in her glare. Though it made him breathe easier, he couldn't let the knowledge sway him; some things were more important than others. "If there's something at the Federal Building that can help Walter figure out what happened, then the more people that go, the greater chance that one of us will make it back alive. And unless one of you has suddenly developed a background in science—particularly biology—that I'm not aware of, you might not even know what you're looking at when you get there. I have to go...unless of course you plan on taking Walter...? No? I didn't think so."

"He makes a good point, Liv," Charlie said, sharing glances with her. "I told you before, the more the merrier. Four is better than three." He reached for his wife's hand and pulled her close to him. "Astrid will have to look after things here while we're gone. We'll just have to stock up before we go. If you're up for it, Bishop? How are you doing, really? Could you defend yourself if you had to?"

 _That's the question, isn't it?_  Peter mused, looking down at his bum shoulder. Was he being realistic? He swiveled his arm in its socket, testing his mobility. On a scale of tolerable to all-consuming agony, the pain was a moderate sting of sharp needles stabbing through his upper left torso. He wondered if the shoulder was permanently damaged. With an uncomfortable sigh, he let his arm fall back into place in the sling.  _Not good,_ he thought, sneaking a glance at Olivia. Her lips were pursed, forehead creased in a knowing frown. A frown that said  _'I told you so'_ , and that she had seen all she needed. "How soon is soon?" he asked shortly. "Give me another a week, maybe two, and I think I can manage."

Charlie fingered the day old growth of hair on his chin. "I'm not sure we can wait that long, Peter," he said. "If it's the middle of November now, then we're taking the risk of running into the Boston winter." He turned to Olivia. "What do you think?"

Olivia directed an unhappy gaze around the room. "So that's it, then?" she said, leaning her forehead on her hand. "We're going?"

"Liv, I think we have to try," Charlie insisted. "What if the answer we're looking for is there?"

"And what if it's not?" she asked. "What if we don't come back? What happens to the others?"

 _She's afraid to leave her family again_ , Peter realized at that moment. _That's why she's hesitating_. He should have seen it sooner. He wished he could tell her that everything was going to be fine, but that would be a lie, and she was far from stupid. Whoever went, they would be taking a huge risk—in leaving the lab undefended, and by venturing into a high population area. The hordes they had seen in Cambridge were tiny in comparison to those that must be downtown, where half a million people had been crammed together into a small space with bodies of water on three sides. And the Federal Building was in the heart of the city. It seemed unlikely that the infected had done them the favor of just walking away.

Before anyone could say another word, the door swung open and Walter swept into the classroom. Astrid, Rachel, and little Ella, holding what looked like a Lego vehicle, stopped in the doorway behind him. For once his father had forgone his grimy lab coat, and was wearing a simple checkered flannel button down shirt.

"Peter!" Walter exclaimed, brushing past Charlie and Sonia. "How are you feeling today, son? When I looked in on you last night, you seemed rather restless, tossing and turning on your bed. How's your temperature today? The fever hasn't returned has it? Perhaps I should just check and see—"

Peter pushed the hands reaching for his forehead away. This routine of his father's had to end. "Will you stop that?" he said. "I'm fine, Walter. Just like I was yesterday, and the day before that. You can stop worrying now, okay? And while you're at it, the thought of you peeking in here while I'm sleeping is profoundly disturbing."

Walter's hand lingered in the air between them, and then he nodded, and let it drop to his side. "Of course, Peter," he conceded with an obsequious smile. "I'm...I'm sure your right. Sometimes I forget you're not the boy I knew any longer, but a man grown." He swallowed and backed a few steps away, then gave the others a curious look, as if he'd just realized Olivia and the Francises were in the room. "And what's going on in here? Agent Dunham, Agent Francis. Sonia. Are you having a get well party for Peter? You should have told me. I could have supplied the psychedelics."

"Okay, first of all, Walter, it's not a party," Peter said, glancing over at the mother and daughter in the doorway. From her wilted expression, Rachel had not found the comment amusing. "And second, even if it were, there are children in attendance." He flashed Ella a grin. "Hey munchkin. What've you got there?"

"Hi, Peter," Ella greeted him, pulling away from her mother and crossing the room. She held her Lego creation up for his inspection. "Aunt Liv found me some Legos today. I made a car, and me and Astrid made a whole city! Do you like it?"

"Your aunt found them, did she?" he said, glancing over at Olivia. She returned his look with a slight upturn of her lips. It was some kind of progress. Satisfied, he leaned forward to examine the Lego vehicle. It looked like a crude multi-colored hot rod, one of those top-fuel dragsters with the long wheelbase and huge rear wheels. "Well, she didn't tell me that. Is it a race car?"

Ella beamed and gave her mother a pert look. "See? I told you it was a race car, Mommy. One of those ones Daddy used to watch sometimes. Don't you remember them?"

"I never said it wasn't a race car, Ella," Rachel muttered from the doorway.

"Can I see it?" Peter asked when the little girl turned back to him.

She nodded, but gave him a critical look. "Just don't drop it."

"No, I wouldn't want to do that," he agreed, lifting the car gently off her palm. If he had had a set of Legos when he was her age, he had no memory of them. It seemed sort of strange in hindsight, but then again he had Walter for a father. He eyed an array of black single dot bricks arranged between the rear tires. "Is that the engine at the back? Let me take it for a test drive." He carefully set the rickety car down one the laminate desktop and rolled it across to a waiting Ella, who giggled when it spun out of control and flipped in spectacular manner, sending several of its components tumbling to the floor.

"Don't worry, Peter," Ella said as she collected the scattered Lego pieces. "I can fix it all by myself."

Olivia watched her niece reconstruct the little car without expression. "You guys might as well come in," she addressed her sister and the junior agent. "Since we're all here, there's something we have talk about."

"Oh?" Walter said as Rachel and Astrid filed into the room. "And what would that be, Agent Dunham? Dinner, perhaps?" He smacked his lips and rubbed his palms together. "I was thinking that with the abundance of beans which you and Agent Francis were kind enough to provide us with, I might try my hand at making a nice pot of chili. Your mother's recipe, Peter. You remember it? It's been decades since I've had it. I believe we have most of the ingredients other than the tofu of course, which I can substitute—"

"Walter." Peter shushed him with an upraised hand. "Just...listen for a second, will you? This has nothing to do with dinner."

"What's this about then?" Astrid asked.

Peter cast a worried glance at his father. Without a doubt, Walter was going to hate the idea of him leaving again.  _If_  he could convince them to wait just a little longer. He noticed Olivia eyeing her sister and Ella over steepled fingertips without expression. After a moment, the skin of her cheeks tightened, and she turned to the junior agent.

"It's about the future, Astrid...," she began in a quiet voice. Her tone grabbed everyone's attention. "And what kind of risks we're willing to take to change it."

#

* * *

#

In another part of the city, a pair of doors creaked and pressed inward.

A weary man looked up from his place on the floor under the window as the vertical crack between the two doors widened. They were back. Torn fingertips wormed through the gap, grasping and reaching for purchase. Grunts and snarls, growls and hisses filled the desolate silence. The clamor continued, growing louder as more of them tried to force their way in. Additional fingers pushed through the narrow gap, from knee-high all the way to the top of the door frame. Were they climbing over one another in their efforts to reach him? He imagined a writhing wall of squirming bodies and snapping teeth on the other side of the door. The shiver that followed had nothing to do with the chill in the air. His eyes dropped to the fire axe, slipped horizontally through both door handles, and then to the wide rows of circular tables pushed up against the doors as well. The tables were just a failsafe. Whether or not they could actually keep the dead at bay was a question he hoped never to learn the answer to.

Somehow they remained aware of his presence inside the cafeteria. Could they smell him? His sweat, his living flesh? Was it sweet to them? Or was it his blood they heard pumping in his veins? The others were dead. All of them. Some were probably in the corridor outside, friends and colleagues turned flesh-eating foe. Not for the first time, he wondered if he was the last man alive on the planet, like in the movie he had watched with his son, just before everything had fallen apart. He hadn't had the heart to tell him the book had been far superior, even if Will Smith had been the lead. In any case, there would be no stories told of him, no legends of a great hunter among the new natives in charge. He let his head drop, pushing thoughts of his son away, of his daughter. His wife.  _Ex-wife_ , he corrected himself once again. They were gone now. Everyone was gone.

The pistol on the floor next to him was splattered with black specks of dried blood. Julia her name had been. He eyed the woman's rotting corpse in the corner across the room. He had long become accustomed to the stink of her. Somehow she had lasted longer than all the others, had held off the change through sheer willpower alone.  _I can feel it..._ , she had uttered with gaping, bloodshot eyes, moments before the innocent-looking bite on her shoulder had finally prevailed. Her haggard face had been tight with strain and streaked with sweat and blood.  _It's...turning me...inside out..._  What had she meant by that? Was it important? Or had it been her mind breaking in the instant before death? There was no way to know; he was not a scientist, nor a psychologist. Before the collapse, he had thought the woman was flighty, unsuited for her line of work. It wasn't the first time he'd been wrong about a woman, but it would be the last. He picked up the gun and scratched at a spot on the slide, but only for a moment. What did it matter? No one was coming. There was no one left  _to_  come. His failure tasted like acid on his tongue.

He released the magazine, dropping it onto his waiting palm, then held it up to the light from the window. Five brass shell casings were visible in the narrow slit on its side. Five shells, and one waiting in the chamber. Just enough to scratch the surface, or five more than he needed. The doors continued to groan under the pressure from the outside. Was the axe handle nearing its breaking point? It had held strong for days, though how many he couldn't say. He had lost count somewhere after ten. He slid the magazine back into place until he heard a satisfying click, then staggered to his feet.

His head swam as he reached the standing position, and he fell back against the window, chest heaving from the effort. His left ankle pulsed and throbbed. The angry knot in the pit of his stomach demanded sustenance. The lack of real food over the last month had taken its toll. While he had always been on the slender side, bones protruded in places where they never had before, even at his thinnest. His shirt hung from a skeletal frame and his belt was tightened to its last hole. His lips were cracked and his teeth felt different than they had before. His gums were drawing back, receding faster than his hairline had in his twenties. He must look a fright; skin stretched tight over his face, his cheekbones visible just beneath the surface. His body was consuming itself. Soon there would be nothing left of him, just a pile of loose skin and bones. And that wouldn't stay down long. Of the many possible ways he had thought about how his life might end, starvation had not been among them.

Which wasn't to say he had no food. There was some, in the cafeteria kitchen, although calling it food was questionable; bread crumbs, flour, some uncooked pasta, and an over-sized can of tomato sauce. Several red apples, closer to rotten than not, sat in the fruit section of the buffet line. And that was all there was left; everything else was already eaten, or spoiled and molded over. Poison. On a table next to the useless fountain drink dispenser sat two keg-sized plastic jugs, only one of which still held water—a hand span width at the bottom. Careful rationing had made it last thus far. He eyed the water from across the room. One mouthful would be heaven. He would have salivated at the thought of a drink, but he had no saliva left. He was drying up. Cotton lined his throat and mouth, and coarse sandpaper coated his tongue.

The water taunted him. He could almost taste it; the wet coolness of it, an elixir sliding down his throat. Even the mold-infested spaghetti on the buffet line looked tempting. He laid the pistol down on the window sill and screwed his eyes shut as waves of hunger enveloped him. Focusing on the pounding of his heart, he waited until the pain subsided to an ever-present throb. Then he peered out the window, searching for the sun. He had to crane his neck to find it. Off to the west it lay, peeking around the glass corner of the building, just above the horizon.  _Thank God_ , he thought at the sight.

The man took a breath, then hobbled across the room, using a nearby chair as a walker to keep the weight off his left ankle. He filled one of the fist-sized paper cups on the table halfway, then gazed down into its clear depths at the bottom of the cup. He wasn't sure what was worse: the thought of running out of water, or actually running out. Every swallow he took was one swallow closer to the inevitable. In the end, his incredible thirst won out and he took a sip. The water was cool but stale, and tasted like pure bliss. He savored its wet sting on his peeling lips. Another sip, and then it was gone. Resisting an overwhelming urge to pour another glass, he tore the cup apart and licked every drop from its inside, then let it fall to the floor with the others.

He pushed the chair over to the reach-thru buffet line, doing his best to ignore the scrumming of the dead outside in the hall. They were persistent, if nothing else. The narrowness of the corridor had saved his life, or prolonged it a while longer, at least. He would have been long since dead otherwise. With the limited space, they were unable to use their collective mass to force their way in. But if the corridor's narrowness had saved his life, it had also made leaving impossible. The dead were packed in layers outside, and he had only six bullets and a sprained or broken ankle to boot. He picked up a partially eaten apple. The two bites already taken had been his breakfast. Without looking too closely at the shriveling skin, he sank his teeth in. The sour flesh and the mushy texture turned his stomach, but he forced it down, everything but the seeds. Afterward, he eyed his remaining supply. Four apples left, and the worst of the lot. After he finished them he would be moving on to the tomato sauce, and then to the bread crumbs. He suspected he'd be dead before he got to the flour or dry pasta noodles. At least he hoped so.

Having eaten dinner, he felt a slight resurgence of strength and walked his chair to the kitchen door. He propped it open, letting some of the dwindling daylight in. He left his walker behind and levered himself through the kitchen, using counters and other equipment as crutches. He came to the industrial-sized cooler blocking access to the kitchen's rear entrance.

The thing was massive, clad in stainless steel, and easily twice the width or more of the Kenmore he'd had at his place. It weighed more than twice as much also, at least six-hundred pounds by his estimate. Maybe closer to seven-hundred. Whoever had pushed it in place, he judged at least three people had done the job. Instead of casters, the cooler sat on metal posts that refused to budge an inch. It might as well have been a brick wall. But he had to try anyway. The man moved into his usual spot, and started again to push on one corner. If he could just move it enough to wiggle past...

He pushed and shoved until his arms hurt, until his ankle felt as if the bones inside were grinding together. The pain was tremendous. He strained further, pushing with his chest, his knees. He had to get out of there. The man pushed harder still. He had to get out. His arms quivered with strain. He had to. Traces of fire spread throughout his shoulders and back, down his forearms to his palms. The muscles in his jaw ached. A grunt slipped through his clenched teeth and quickly escalated to a roar of primitive outrage. He'd been condemned to die inside a fucking cafeteria, with only corpses for company. The primal scream grew louder, filling the silence of the kitchen. He gave one final shove, putting everything he had into it, every ounce of fury. It was moving! He could feel it. The refrigerator shifted a millimeter, a fraction. And then, horribly, his right hand lost its grip on the smooth stainless steel. He came down hard on his bad ankle, which buckled like a paper bag, and then he was falling forward, face-first toward the metal edge of a work table. His head rung like a gong, and the world turned black.

Some time later, the man woke with a pounding headache. He found himself in the cafeteria kitchen, lying on his back at the foot of the giant refrigerator. The tile floor felt like a sheet of ice beneath him. "Son of a bitch..." he muttered, forcing himself into an upright position. He fingered his forehead and winced at the golf-ball-sized lump above his right eyebrow. His ankle burned worse than it had since he'd first injured it in the elevator shaft. With a groan, he pulled himself to his feet.

He slowly worked his way out of the kitchen, back to the chair he'd left propping the door open. After one step into the dining area he stopped and looked around. The light looked different somehow. He walked using the chair over to the window where he'd left his gun on the sill. The light  _was_  different. Outside, the sky to the east was blood red, with billowing clouds of orange and pink and red hues that spread across the horizon. He'd been out all night.

The dead pressed up against the doors, pushing them inward against the fire axe. Their hideous groans and hisses were the only sound. He eyed their reaching fingers, fighting off a wave of hopelessness. God he was thirsty, so incredibly thirsty. His throat felt as if it were wrapped with parchment paper. He gazed down at his service weapon. The black hole of its barrel looked inviting, as if it might be a solution to all his problems. Instead of reaching for the pistol, he gazed down at the dead milling about on the street far below. They were everywhere, as far as he could see.

With a sigh, he sank to the floor under the window and held his face in his hands. It was over. He had failed.


	12. The Leavetaking

**-December 2008**

Ella jerked in her sleep and came awake with a sharp gasp. The nightmare in which she'd been immersed faded almost at once, leaving behind trace evidence of its existence in a fluttering heartbeat. All she knew for sure was that she'd been locked in a room somewhere by herself, and something had been trying to get in. The details faded, taking with them the mind-numbing terror that had accompanied them.

_It was just a dream, silly_ , she thought, and rubbed the crumbs of sleep from her eyes.

Taking a deep breath, she sat up and looked around the classroom they now called home. Outside the window, the night sky had a pinkish tinge, with only but the brightest of stars still visible against the backdrop of night. It would be morning soon. She wondered if her Aunt were awake yet; they had watched more than one sunrise together since coming to the lab. Her mother lay beside her on the mattress, buried beneath her blankets, chest rising and falling in the midst of sleep. Ella held still, watching her for a moment, just to make sure she hadn't been disturbed, then carefully pulled her legs from under the covers.

She swung out of bed, careful not to disturb her mother, and pulled on her shoes. The air in their room was freezing cold, and as she bent over to pull the velcro strap tight, her breath rose up like little puffs of smoke that vanished almost immediately. The smoke made her think of her Daddy's friend, the one Mommy had always made go outside with his stinky cigarettes. Was the man one of the dead-faces now, like it seemed everyone was, except for them? Uncle Peter said the monsters were everywhere now, over the whole planet. She wasn't sure she believed him though. How could they be  _everywhere_? But Aunt Liv had not disagreed, so maybe it was true. She finished with her other shoe, then pulled on her coat and slipped out the door, leaving her sleeping mother behind.

The hallway outside was filled with alternating patches of blackness and grayish light. Ella stood still and listened for a moment, wondering if there was anyone else awake. After several heartbeats, the quiet murmur of voices reached her ears, and then a low laugh coming from the direction of Miss Sonia's room. She tiptoed forward until she was even with the narrow window set in the Francises' door. She liked Miss Sonia. Aunt Liv had told her that she had been a kindergarten teacher before the monsters came to life. The smiling woman reminded her of Miss Lisa, her preschool teacher back in Chicago. Miss Sonia was one of those who would be leaving today. Lately, she had been going to the outside with Aunt Liv and Astrid, finding food and clothes and other things. Things they would need for their journey. Ella had watched their return once, from her hiding place in the wall of cars. Miss Sonia had not been smiling then. There had been blood on her hands and clothes. No one said it, but Ella knew just the same; they had been killing the dead-faces. Another laugh sounded through the door, a man's—Mister Charlie's, of course—and she crept closer to the window.

Their room was pitch dark, or near enough to make seeing inside impossible. Mister Charlie had hung thick blankets over the windows—to block out the morning sun, according to Aunt Liv. She had the same in her room, and Peter also. Ella cast a glance back down the hallway, then put her ear to the door's cool surface. She could hear them better now.

_"...your head this morning, honey?"_ Miss Sonia asked. _"You haven't had any more of those migraines have you? I still think you should let Walter look at you..."_

_"It's fine, babe,"_ Mister Charlie said in return. _"Really. I haven't had one in days, not since we made the decision to go. I think it was just stress. And I'll pass on any examinations by Dr. Bishop. The guy's a mad scientist, literally."_  Ella frowned at his description of Dr. Walter. She liked him. He was funny and kind and told the most wonderful stories, and wasn't grumpy all the time like Mister Charlie was.  _"There's nothing he can do anyway. It's not like he's got an MRI machine stashed in the basement."_

Ella wondered what a migraine was, and an MRI machine. Was Mister Charlie sick? Maybe an MRI was some kind of machine that would make him better. She would ask Dr. Walter, later, after they had left. She wouldn't forget.

_"Well, it would make me feel better if you let him, Charlie. Who knows what kind sicknesses the dead are carrying, aside from whatever causes the infection. They are decaying bodies, after all."_

_"I'll think about it. Maybe when we get back, if they're still happening."_

_"Fine..."_ Ella thought Miss Sonia sounded a lot like her mommy, when Daddy was still alive.  _"Just don't let anything happen to you, mister. I couldn't bear to survive the apocalypse without you, you know."_  She heard a wet, smooching sound and cringed. They were kissing. Yuck.  _"Do you think Peter is in good enough shape to go? It's only been a little more than a month since he was injured."_

She heard Charlie grunt, then tensed, ready to flee at the squeaking of a mattress.  _"He better be. We can't afford to wait any longer. The weather's already bad, and it's only gonna get worse. But he's right, we do need someone who knows science with us, and he's all there is."_

_"I guess. Do you think there's something going on between him and Olivia? Has she said anything to you about what happened when she was out looking for him? They've both been acting strange with each other lately."_

_"You expect me to know that?"_  Charlie replied with a chuckle.  _"No, Liv hasn't said anything—like that. But then she wouldn't._ _I thought women could sense things like that. Like it was some sort of inborn ability."_

_"I have sensed it, which is why I asked, buddy,"_  Sonia said.  _"I think...I think they either hate each other, or they might be—"_

_"I don't want to know,"_  Charlie's voice interrupted.  _"It's not my business. I can tell you one thing, though, I don't think they hate each other. You about ready? I want to take a look around outside before breakfast."_

_"Yep, just let me tie my shoes..."_

Ella's stomach did a somersault. They were coming! She pulled away from the door and searched for somewhere to hide. Her five year-old mind wasn't sure what would happen if she were caught listening at Miss Sonia's door, but she did know that it would be bad. Bad enough that her mommy might not let her go exploring anymore, that she might be forced to stay inside Dr. Walter's smelly old lab. And the top floor was still a mystery! From up there, she might be able to get a better look at the library across the big field of leaves. But there was no time to lose. The only place nearby to hide was another classroom across the hall, and she raced to the door and pushed inside.

The classroom was full of old desks stacked high with cardboard boxes. The boxes were full of old books, thick and heavy ones with wrinkled and faded covers that were covered in layers of dust. She had been in the room before, weeks ago. She ducked down as the Francises' door opened and pressed herself into the corner next to the chalkboard. A tall shape moved in the hallway through the window, followed an instant later by a shorter one. Mister Charlie said something she couldn't quite make out and his wife giggled, and then their voices grew quieter and disappeared as they moved toward the front of the building.

Ella counted to fifty in her head, before peeking out into the corridor in time to see the double doors that lead outside swing closed. They were gone. She chewed on her lip, thinking about what Miss Sonia had said. There had been a girl in her preschool, Jolie, who had liked to push her down on the playground. When she'd told Miss Lisa that she hated her, her teacher had said it wasn't right to hate, even someone like Jolie. So how could Aunt Liv and Peter hate each other? And why? The thought made her sad. Had Peter done something bad? She wondered what it could be. He'd been stuck inside for weeks while his shoulder healed. Maybe she should just ask him. He would tell her. They were friends, weren't they?

She hurried to the basement stairwell and flew down the steps without hesitation. It was much darker below, but the lack of light didn't bother her much anymore. She had grown used to it, and could hardly imagine what had scared her so the first time she'd been downstairs. What had looked like bites and claw marks were simply dings and dents from being old. She'd let her imagination run wild, so Astrid had told her. The building was ancient, older than even Dr. Walter, and her mind made up stuff to fill in the blanks. What that meant exactly, she wasn't sure. Could her brain do stuff she didn't want it to? How? The idea was more than a little strange, but Dr. Walter was a doctor  _and_  a scientist, so maybe he would know if it were true or not.

There was no one inside the lab, but Dr. Walter's snores echoed in the stillness, even through the walls of his bedroom. She stood inside the doorway and listened. The snoring reminded her of Daddy, and how she would wake up in the morning sometimes to find Mommy snuggling in her bed.  _He snores too much..._ , Mommy would say, or, _I couldn't sleep, sweetie, your father was too loud._  It had never seemed that loud to Ella, though—not like Dr. Walter's, at least—but she woke up with her mommy a lot, so it must have been true.

Out of habit, she glanced over at Gene's empty stall and lowered her head, feeling sad all of a sudden. She had woken one morning to find the cow missing from the lab. Gene had died during the night. Her mother and Aunt Liv had sat her down that same morning and had told her the truth after she'd asked. Mister Charlie had buried her in the field, next to a giant tree. A small pile of dirt and a pitchfork stuck in the ground by Dr. Walter marked her grave. She missed the cow, but even she could tell that it had been getting sick from not eating enough. She wondered if they would all die the same way. After a few minutes of melancholy, she left the lab behind.

Her aunt's room was close, across the hall and down a little way. Ella approached the room slowly, being careful to make no sounds that might give away her presence in the hall. The flicker of candlelight shone through the door's window. Aunt Liv was awake. She peeked in through the bottom corner of the glass. Her aunt was sitting at the end of her bed with a blanket wrapped around her, staring down at something she held in both hands. A picture frame? A candle glowed on the floor next to her, bathing her face in orange light and dancing shadows. She looked beautiful in the candlelight, but different than normal. She wiped a hand across her eyes, and Ella heard a sniffle through the door.  _Why is she so sad?_  Ella thought, and all of a sudden felt bad for being there, for watching her aunt cry. Should she leave? Or go inside? She was still trying to make up her mind when a heavy hand closed on her shoulder and turned her away from her aunt's door.

"Ella, what are you doing down here?" Peter said in a low voice, when they were far enough away. He was tall, like her daddy, and towered over her. "I don't think your aunt would like you spying on her, do you?" In the shadows of the basement, she couldn't see his face very well, only hear his voice, and it sounded scarier than normal, much scarier. She was in trouble.

Ella panicked. She opened her mouth, but no sounds would come out. A horrible, icky feeling settled deep in her tummy, a feeling that made her want to hide and curl up in a little ball. "Uh...I—I...wasn't spying on her, Peter," she managed to say, and then the words poured out of her mouth. "I—I promise. I just wanted to see if she was awake...she's leaving today, with you and Sonia and Charlie and...and I just wanted to see her before she left, because she's...she's leaving today..."

The dark outline that was Peter stared down at her silently. After a moment he let out a quiet laugh. The hand on her shoulder disappeared. "You're gonna have to work on that, kiddo, if you intend to make any sort of career out of it," he said, and to her enormous relief sounded like his normal self again. "Stick to some version of the truth and keep it simple. That's how all the best cons are done." Ella had no idea what a con was, and told him so. "Well...it's sort of like...like a trick you might play on someone..." He stopped and chuckled again, ruffling his hand through her hair. "Forget about it. Your aunt would so not be happy with me. Since you're not up spying on your fellow survivors, what are you doing up so early? I don't think the sun is even up yet."

Ella lifted her shoulders. "I don't know, I just woke up," she told him. That was the truth, wasn't it?

"That's better, keep it simple," Peter said. "You eat any breakfast yet?"

She shook her head. "No, not yet. But I'm not hungry, Peter." In truth, there was nothing good to eat. She was tired of cereal with no milk, and didn't even like oatmeal, not anymore. Nor did she care for the beef jerky that Charlie and Peter had found a few days ago. The saltiness burned her lips. She wondered where they had found it all. Her stomach chose that moment to growl.

"Not hungry, huh?" Peter questioned, and turned her toward the lab. "C'mon, Miss Bond, let's see what we can find to eat."

#

"And that's perfect," Ella heard Peter mutter as they walked inside the lab. He stopped at the top of the steps and stared toward Dr. Walter's room, whose snores were still loud enough to be heard. He shook his head and then plunged down the steps to the lab floor. "I don't suppose you have a muzzle, do you?" he said, glancing down at her.

"What's a muzzle, Peter?" she asked, watching as he lit a candle on one of the tables. She followed him over to the food shelves. "Is it something inside you?" She noticed that he moved funny, keeping his hurt arm close to his body. She remembered what Miss Sonia had said.  _Was_  he okay to go with them? But then Mister Charlie had said he had to. Why? He had only taken his arm out of the holder-thingy the day before.

"You mean a muscle?" he said. "No. A muzzle is something altogether different." He picked up a box of cereal and gave it a shake. "Cheerios?" Ella wrinkled her nose and shook her head, and Peter put the box back on the shelf with a grin. "All right...I can't say I blame you for that. I was never much of a fan of them, either. I was always partial to Kix for some reason. They were pretty simple as far as cereal went, just little puff balls of grain and corn. Good though, especially if you drowned them in sugar, which my mom hated, of course..." He reached for the box of oatmeal, then stopped when he saw her face. "Let me guess...you're tired of oatmeal too, and probably of everything else we have here, aren't you?"

"Kind of...," she said. "I used to like oatmeal, before. And Cheerios."

"Yeah, I know what you mean." Peter pulled two of the paper packages from inside the oatmeal box and walked over to one of the lab tables. A stack of bowls and forks and spoons and knives were laid out in piles on top of a white towel. He grabbed two bowls from the stack and emptied a packet of oatmeal into each. "I'd kill for some pizza, or for some bacon and eggs. You like bacon?" he asked, walking over to the refrigerator.

Ella nodded eagerly. "I love it!" When had she last had any? It must have been at her house in Chicago. Her daddy had always cooked the bacon, her mommy the eggs. She hadn't been allowed to help with the bacon, only the eggs. _The oil is too hot, Ella,_  Mommy had said when she'd ask, though her father would let her flip one strip over sometimes, when Mommy wasn't around. It had been a game between them. One of the pops had stung her arm once, and Daddy had told her not to tell Mommy. She never had. It was their secret.

"Me too...," Peter said over his shoulder. He grabbed a bottle of water and returned to the table. "Although my mom was a vegetarian, so we didn't have it around much when I was growing up."

"What's a...vegetarian?" Ella wanted to know. The word sounded familiar. Had she heard it before? Maybe on TV.

"A vegetarian...," Peter explained as he poured the water into a funnel-shaped glass cup, "is someone who doesn't eat any meat, ever."

"Really?" She frowned, and tried to picture what never eating meat would be like. No hot dogs or chicken nuggets or hamburgers? Was it for being in trouble? "Why would anyone do that?"

Peter shrugged, and carried the water over to one of the little stands that made fire. "Well, there's a case to be made that it's healthier to eat plants instead of meat," he said, "but it's not something I could ever subscribe to. I'm a meat-eater, always have been. Give me all the bacon and rare steaks and cheeseburgers you can. What about you?"

"I'm a meat-eater, too," Ella grinned, and watched as he set the little glass of water on top of one of the stands. She'd never heard him talk about his mother before, or Dr. Walter, either. She wondered where she was, if she was one of the monsters now. She decided to ask him. "Where's your mom at, Peter?"

Peter's hand froze as he reached into his pocket. His face went still, and Ella could tell he didn't like the question. She almost apologized, but then he spoke before she could get the words out. "She...uh...she died," he said after a moment. His voice was terribly sad, and he looked down at the floor for a moment before pulling a lighter from his pocket. "She's not one of the infected, if that's what you're thinking. It...it happened a long time ago, before you were born." He cleared his throat, then waved her closer. "You want to help me light this burner?"

Ella nodded and moved to his side, thankful her mother was still asleep. Peter showed her how to use the lighter, how to drag her thumb over the little roller thing and press down on the red button at the same time. It took several tries, but she finally got the hang of it. The burner's tip sprouted a blue flame and she jerked her hand away, feeling the heat of it.

"You're okay...," Peter said, prying the lighter from between her fingers. "The fire only burns upward." He put his fingertips near the flame, almost touching it off to one side. Ella inhaled and covered her mouth, but instead of crying out, he grinned and showed her his hand. "You see?" he asked, and Ella nodded, tucking the information away. Peter always told her stuff like that; things she didn't know before.

She sat down on a stool and stared into the blue flame, cupping her chin in both hands while waiting for the water to heat up. Her mind returned to what else she had heard Miss Sonia say upstairs, about Aunt Liv and Peter. Did they hate each other? She turned her gaze from the burner and watched him through the gaps between her fingers while working up the courage to ask him.

When the water was ready, Peter poured some into her bowl and stirred the oatmeal in, until it was thick and soupy. "There you go, kiddo, breakfast of champions. It's the last one," he said, sliding the bowl across the table. "Sorry we don't have anything else, believe me. We're lucky we still have propane to heat the water with. When that runs out, we're all gonna be in trouble."

"It's all right, Peter," she said, watching as little clouds of steam rose up from the oatmeal's surface. Ella blew on the first spoonful, then tested it with the tip of her tongue, before swallowing it down. At least it was the cinnamon kind; the apple kind tasted really gross. "I know it's all we have. Aunt Liv says that we have to do what we have to do survive, even if it means eating stuff I don't like."

Smiling, he took a bite of his oatmeal. "Well, your aunt is right about that," he confirmed, and then stared down into his bowl, stirring it with his spoon. "She usually is, about most things."

Ella swung her legs on the stool and continued to eat her breakfast. He didn't sound like he hated her, but she still had to make sure. "Peter, are you and Aunt Liv friends?"

"Are we friends?" he repeated, looking up with a frown. "She saved my life, so I'd like to think so." He started to take another bite and then stopped with the spoon raised halfway to his mouth. "Why? Did you hear something different? Did your mom say something?"

"So you don't hate each other then?"

"Hate each other?" He chuckled and shook his head. "That's ridiculous. Why would you think that, Ella?"

"I was just making sure," she told him, relieved that Sonia had been wrong. She'd known it had to be a mistake. "When I was in preschool, Miss Lisa, told us we shouldn't hate people, even people that are mean, like Jolie was."

"Is that so?" Peter grunted and took a spoonful of his oatmeal. "I guess Jolie was a friend of yours?" Ella shook her head, and described how Jolie used to push her and the other kids around at her school. "Well, I hope your preschool teacher doesn't mind me hating the guy that shot me," he said, then added under his breath. "The whole attempted murder thing is a little hard to get past."

"Peter, what's...attempted murder?" Ella asked as the door to the hall swung open behind them.

#

* * *

#

_"That's ridiculous. Why would you think that, Ella?"_

Olivia hesitated with her hand on the doorknob, surprised to hear Peter's voice from inside. It was too early for him to be awake. She'd been half-expecting to have to wake him up herself. Most days he stayed abed until the sun was well over the horizon.  _Not that I've been keeping track of him_ , she told herself, listening to them talk through the door. There could be no avoiding him today, or for the foreseeable future.

Finding Ella up already was no surprise; she seemed to be waking earlier each passing day. More than once she had found her wandering the halls before sunrise, or woken to her niece's smiling face at her bedside. She never minded being woken up, of course, quite the opposite. Every moment spent with her sister and niece was a bonus, time stolen after the end of the world. There weren't many left who could say the same about their families. And today she would leave them behind again.

The weeks had flown past since the decision was made to attempt the journey to the Federal Building. They couldn't wait any longer. Peter's shoulder was as good as it was going to get, unless they waited until spring, and that was out of the question. The season was turning, days growing shorter, and the warm ones growing fewer and far between. After daily scavenging runs, the lab was well stocked with food and water. Enough to last several weeks, by her estimate. And she had been outside the perimeter enough with Astrid to feel comfortable leaving her with the task of acquiring more, should the need arise. Which, god forbid, it never would, as long as everything went according to plan. It had all to go according to plan, or splitting the group would doom them all.

Inside the lab, Ella had said something about preschool and one of her teachers, and the tone of Peter's response was typically cynical. Olivia swallowed the expanding lump in her throat. She turned the knob and walked inside just in time to hear Ella ask what attempted murder was, of all things.

Peter looked up from a bowl of oatmeal and Ella spun around on her stool with a wide smile. Walter's snores carried through the wall of her office. Peter wore his new coat, an expensive-looking parka Sonia had found somewhere off campus while out on a run with Charlie. It was a nice coat, all black with red highlights on the edges, and looked even nicer on him. She peeled her eyes away from him and smiled down at her niece.

"Hey, Aunt Liv!" Ella waved, wearing an exuberant grin. "Peter made me breakfast today."

Unlike her mother, her niece was always happy in the morning.  _The two of us are similar in that way,_ she thought. It was a bond they shared, watching the sunrise together. The prior morning was only the latest since she'd brought them back to the lab.

"Good morning, you two," she greeted them, walking over to their table. "You're up early today, baby girl. Peter." His eyes narrowed, furrowing his brow into the quizzical expression he wore frequenlty since that day in his room. Or at least, the few times she'd allowed herself to be in the same room with him, and never alone. Some might call it cowardly, but she was stuck in the middle with him, unable to decide how to proceed. She forced her lips into a casual smile. "What are you guys talking about? Did I hear you say something about attempted murder, Ella?"

"My fault," Peter admitted, gesturing with his spoon. "I may have mentioned our biker pal in the humvee in a less than friendly manner." He was eating with his right hand, she noticed, and his left arm, though out of its sling, was buried deep in the pocket of his coat. "...You hungry? There's some hot water left, and I think I saw another packet of maple brown sugar in the box. You want me to get you some before Walter wakes up? It's his favorite, too, you know."

_He shouldn't be going,_  Olivia worried, lifting her gaze to his face. His beard was trimmed jaggedly, and she suppressed a sudden desire to grab a pair of scissors and fix it for him. Clearly his right hand was not up to the task of keeping it in check. Their eyes met, and neither of them looked away. She'd never told him maple brown sugar was her favorite, though from how vehemently he and Walter had fought over it in the past, it was certainly his. She wondered how he had known it was hers, too. Usually she deferred to the others' preferences if there was a conflict, just to keep the peace. "Thanks for getting her breakfast, Peter." She nodded at Ella and gave him a smile. "You go ahead and eat, I can get my own."

In the oatmeal box she found a plethora of the universally-hated apple packets and a single maple brown sugar. She grabbed a bowl and spoon, and found a beaker of hot water on the table near the Bunsen burners. As she prepared her bowl, the two empty packets Peter had left behind caught her attention; one was cinnamon, Ella's preferred flavor, and the other was one of the apples. Her eyes were drawn to the apple packet like a magnet. She cast Peter a covert glance, watched him take a spoonful and swallow methodically. Almost as if he felt her gaze, he lifted his head and she quickly looked away, feeling her cheeks grow hot. She carried her bowl to the table and took a stool next to her niece.

Ella was nearly finished with her breakfast, but from the remnants left in the bowl, she appeared to be eating the cinnamon flavored variety. "Is that the cinnamon, sweetie?" Olivia asked, watching Peter in her peripheral vision. "That sure was nice of Peter to give you the last one. Did you tell him thank you?"

"Thank you for getting me breakfast, Peter." Ella gave him an adoring look that spoke volumes as to how much time the two of them had been spending together. Rachel was right about him; he was good for her. "Did you know that the cimmanin is my favorite kind?"

"I thought it might be your favorite, kiddo. You're welcome," Peter said, smiling down at her.

"I'm gonna go play with Legos," Ella announced, and hopped off her stool. She hurried to the play table, where all the vehicles and contraptions she'd built over the last few weeks lay scattered across its surface. "Do you want to build something with me, Peter?"

"Sure, I'll be there in a minute, kid," Peter agreed. "One last time before we go." He cast a glance Olivia's way, then began collecting the dirty bowls and spoons.

Heat suffused Olivia's cheeks. Her heart ticked a beat faster. She looked down and spooned up hurried mouthfuls. He always treated her differently than the others. Always. Even when they'd been at odds at various times over the course of their relationship, he was always a gentleman. Was it just gratitude for her having saved his life? She swallowed and took another bite. No. He had recovered her things on his own, long before she'd saved his life. There was more to it. He'd been deferential to her, almost from the very beginning, back when he'd decided to stay in Boston. Even when he'd had every reason to leave. Just because she asked him to.

She eyed him through her lashes as he moved away from the table, taking his and Ella's bowls with him. Something was growing between them, and had been for a while—maybe since the moment she'd met him in Iraq. She couldn't pretend to be blind or ignorant to it. Not any longer, not after what had happened in his room. She had initiated  _it_. And  _it_  was a tremulous thing, a flower sprouting in unfertile soil. The question was whether or not she wanted it to take root. Did she? She had before, despite her better judgment, and had been happy for a while, until it all had been snuffed out by an infected's bite. Any one of them could die without warning on their journey. Just as John had. Wasn't it better to be alone, and not take the risk of losing someone again? That was the easy way, the path of least resistance. Peter would never force the issue, of that she was certain. She watched as he cleaned the two bowls out with a paper towel, holding them in place awkwardly with his left hand.

Or, she could take a chance and let things proceed as they would. She could risk more heartbreaking loss and devastation, and just perhaps, if she were lucky, there could be more. The flower might bloom into something beautiful, something full of hope, something worth fighting for, worth surviving for. The bowl Peter was working on slipped from his left hand. It tumbled to the floor with a hollow crash. Walter's constant snores stuttered, and then resumed at their languid pace.

Olivia hid a smile behind her hand as he stooped to retrieve the bowl, then felt bad for doing so at the way his jaw clenched. His shoulder still troubled him, that much was obvious. According to Walter, such an injury normally required several months to heal properly, not a mere five weeks, and a loss of some motor function was not unheard of.  _He should be staying here to heal_ , she thought again, keeping her eyes on him. But they couldn't wait any longer, could they? They may have waited too long already. The harshness of the Boston winter was almost upon them.

The bowl slipped from Peter's hand again and he mouthed a silent curse, frustration plain on his face. Olivia had seen enough. She slid off her stool and moved to his side. It was the closest she'd allowed herself to be to him since the moment in his room. "You don't have to do that," she said, smiling up at him. "Let me get it. It's only fair..."

He glanced down at her briefly, then shrugged and resumed cleaning Ella's bowl. "It's all right, I can do it."

"Peter..." She laid her hand over his, and heard the sharp hiss of his breath. "There's no need. Let me help you." For a moment, she thought he would insist. Like any man, he could be stubborn when he wanted to be, and he more so than others. Especially when dealing with Walter, who thankfully was still asleep.

Peter looked down at her with a self-deprecating smile. "Fair enough," he said, and ran his good hand through the thick waves of his hair. It grew shaggier every day. "I've never been a fan of doing the dishes anyway, even when I wasn't an invalid."

Olivia snorted and rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. "You're hardly an invalid, Peter." She nudged him in the side with her elbow. "If you're that bad off, maybe you should consider staying behind, and letting Astrid go in your place."

"Do you want me to stay behind?" His voice was casual, but the question hung in the air between them. In the background, Walter's snores and the plastic tinkle of Ella's Legos filled the interval of silence.

_Of course I want you to stay behind_ , she thought, wiping the last bit of oatmeal from Ella's bowl. The rational part of her knew that he could take care of himself, even with his bum shoulder. Everything he'd gone through the night he'd been shot proved that, a thousand times over. But the other part of her, the part that wanted to fix his beard and trim his unruly hair, that side of her wanted to keep him out of harm's way, just like everyone she cared for. She froze at her involuntary classification of him, hand outstretched toward the last bowl. Had she just made up her mind? She kept her eyes downcast when she finally replied. "It...doesn't matter what I want, Peter."

"It matters to me."

At his quiet tone, Olivia met his gaze. He regarded her calmly, but there was a hint of something else, deep inside their cobalt depths. The gashes on his forehead from his misadventures were healed. Pink scar tissue ran in a jagged line above his brow. She could keep him safe, this time. "...Then I think we both know that if circumstances were different, there's no way in hell I'd let you go," she told him in flat voice, and dropped her eyes back to the dishes. "You can barely even lift that arm yet, and it's your left arm. But...this was the hand we were given, and we all have our parts to play. That's what we decided. Even Walter agreed...and I thought he  _never_  would."

Peter chuckled and the tense atmosphere dissipated. "I'm not sure I'd call it agreement," he said with a crooked grin, "so much as resignation. In the end, I think it was the prospect of new research opportunities that made up his mind. Between me and his research, I'm not sure I'm number one."

"I doubt that very much, Peter," she said, shaking her head. "You weren't here when I had to tell him you'd been shot."  _Or to see the hope dying in his face when I did_ , she added silently, hearing again Walter's lamentations in the basement storage room. No, his research was most definitely not more important than his son.

His grin faded. Before he could say anything more, Astrid and Rachel walked into the lab, followed by Charlie and Sonia. Peter gave her a little nod, then left her alone with the dishes. Olivia's gaze followed him to the Lego table where he sat down next to Ella, much to her delight.

"Good morning, guys," Astrid greeted them, walking down the steps to the recessed floor after the Francises. The junior agent's pistol peeked out from under her maroon coat and a pair of ear muffs dangled from her left hand. She had taken late shift in the van the night before.

"Hey Liv," Rachel grumbled, looking as if she'd just awoken. Her disheveled hair lay in tangled golden knots over the patchwork blanket thrown over her shoulders. "Ella, how many times have I told you not to sneak out of the room without me in the morning? I don't like you wandering around down here alone."

"But Mom, I stayed inside...," Ella said without looking up from the structure she was building. She glanced over at Peter. "Peter was with me the whole time, weren't you Peter?"

Peter cleared his throat and met Olivia's gaze before answering. "More or less, Rachel...," he replied, and massaged the back of his neck, a clear sign he was holding something back if she'd ever seen one. She wondered what it was. "I found her in the hall outside the lab, a little while ago. I think she just wanted breakfast. I got her some oatmeal."

She watched as Rachel regarded her daughter with a set jaw. Her sister was a tough mother, but she never stayed angry long. After a moment, she sighed with resignation. "Thank you, Peter," Rachel said, smiling sweetly in his direction. "You're a lifesaver." She and Astrid pulled up stools at the Lego table and looked over Ella's work. "What are you building this time, sweetie? Is that a church?"

"No, it's the library across the field, silly," Ella answered in a tone that was awfully tart for a five-year old. Olivia waited for the inevitable explosion from her sister, but none came, and Ella pressed a block into place and lifted a little rectangular structure for her mother's inspection. "See, Mommy? It has a green roof and the giant windows and..."

Charlie and Sonia approached, pulling Olivia's attention from her niece's explanation. "You eat yet?" he asked, holding up the variety box of oatmeal packets. He took a peek inside the box and frowned, no doubt finding its contents disagreeable.

"Yeah, we just finished up," she said, and passed them each a clean bowl. "What's the weather like out there?" From the pinkness of their cheeks, she suspected she wasn't going to like the answer.

"Oh, it's just peachy...," Charlie muttered, tearing one of the packages open and dumping its contents into a bowl. "Almost Floridian, in fact."

"My husband's trying and failing to be amusing." Sonia patted her husband on the shoulder. "What he really means is that it's fucking freezing out there, Olivia," she mouthed silently. "I'm not lying. How far do you think we'll be able to drive?"

"No farther than the Charles, if that...," she said, dropping her rag on the table. It was about what she'd been expecting. Her classroom had been an icebox upon waking that morning. She could only imagine what the first floor must have been like. Maybe she could convince Rachel to move down to her room while she was gone. "Whichever route we take, the bridges are all going to be blocked, or just missing altogether. Peter and I saw several that had been collapsed by the military. We'll have to see what the conditions are like across the river before we see about getting another vehicle."

"So it's time, then," Walter's voice said suddenly from behind. "You're really going to leave us here?"

She turned to find Walter standing in the doorway to the office. His snoring had stopped at some point, but she'd missed it in all the commotion. He was fully dressed, at least, which was a good sign. Other mornings they hadn't been so lucky. The knee-length tweed overcoat he wore exposed a pair of tan slacks and the collar of his flannel shirt stood out above the coat's floppy lapels. With the bright orange stocking hat covering his head, he looked fairly ridiculous, but quite warm. He looked past her to Peter, and a tremble fluttered his lower lip. She hoped he wouldn't break down in front of everyone; that sort of thing was contagious.

"Good morning, Walter," Olivia acknowledged him, leaving Charlie and Sonia behind and walking over to him. She noticed Peter rise from his stool out of the corner of her eye. "Today's the day; just like we agreed two weeks ago. We can't afford to wait any longer."

"I...suppose it was inevitable," Walter said softly. He swallowed and wrung his hands together in manic fashion. "The time has...flown past, and Peter's shoulder isn't much better than it was then. Is there no way you can wait a little longer? Perhaps waiting another two or three weeks, just to make sure that he has some of his mobility back would be best, don't you think, Agent Dunham?"

"Walter...," Peter started, stepping beside her. "We've discussed this a thousand times already. Unless you're planning on making the journey for me, someone with some kind of scientific background has to go. We're trying to save the human race here. How would you feel if there was a lead on a cure at the Federal Building, and we missed it because there was no one there to recognize it for what it was?"

"But son, what does that matter if I lose you again? What does any of it matter?"

"I'd say it matters quite a bit to everyone else, wouldn't you?" Peter replied. He caught her eye then, and Olivia gave him an encouraging smile before he turned back to his father. He reached out and put a hand on his shoulder. "I have to do this, Walter, and you have to let me, injured shoulder or not. Okay? There is no other option."

Walter's mouth worked, and then he nodded with reluctance. "I...I understand," he agreed, "Just...just try not to get shot this time, or...or..." He stepped forward suddenly and pulled Peter into an embrace.

Olivia sensed Peter's uneasiness at the close contact. It was in the stiffness of his back and the way his arms were rigid and outstretched behind Walter's back, as if he were unsure of what to do with his hands. Before long, however, he relaxed, folding his hands inward on his father's shoulder blades.

The sight brought to mind the day she'd brought Peter back from Iraq, and his reunion with Walter at St. Claire's just before his release. _I thought you'd be fatter_ , Walter's first words had been. Peter hadn't found the comment amusing, and hadn't been shy about telling him so in withering fashion. Then, Walter had reached in and tried to examine one of Peter's eyes, which had drawn a violent reaction that had revealed the true nature of their relationship. The two of them had come a long way since then. As had she.

"I'm gonna be fine, Walter," Peter said quietly.

"That's what you said last time...," Walter whispered, "and look what happened."

#

The others were already waiting when Olivia finally emerged from the Kresge Building, shielding her eyes. After the darkness of her classroom, the starkness of the noontime sun was blinding. She wore her black winter coat and thick gloves, along with a scarf and her beanie—a treasure she'd found just the other day, stuffed deep inside one of the coat's pockets. Her backpack lay heavy on one shoulder, crammed full of water and food, spare clothes and ammunition. In the hollow of her other shoulder, rested the solid weight of Peter's crowbar—or, more accurately, her crowbar, as he was in no condition to make use of it for the foreseeable future. Inside her coat, the comforting presence of her FBI-issued Glock completed her kit, and the others were similarly equipped and attired. Even Sonia, who, prior to the advent of the apocalypse, had never fired a gun in her life.

She hesitated on the top step leading down to the quad. A crisp wind whistled through the trees on the quad, over the rows of cars and trucks, and into the narrow gap that lay between the Kresge Building and the outer fence. She shivered as the wind fought to pierce the wool of her coat. It was fucking cold, as Sonia had so eloquently stated. A light drizzle the night before had left thin patches of melting ice dotting the concrete walkway, from the building all the way to the van-gate. Over the outer wall, the roof of the maroon Oldsmobile in which she'd driven Peter back to the lab was visible. The faint humming of its engine reached her ears beneath the whispering wind. White puffy plumes of condensation rose up from its rear-end and dissipated in the thin air. Over the last two weeks, Charlie had siphoned enough gas from surrounding vehicles to fill its tank with more than enough to make the journey.

"Are you coming or going, Liv?" Rachel asked from the doorway behind her. "'Cause I'd love it if you didn't have to leave again. If none of you had to. And so would Ella."

Olivia looked back at her sister, at Ella standing at her side. "You know that I have to go, Rach. This is just too important. C'mon, you two." She led them down the steps to the others, who were waiting at the open doors of the van.

"You ready?" Peter asked as she approached. He had foregone a stocking hat for a navy, Red Sox ball cap that Walter had produced from somewhere. "The Eighty-Eight's all warmed up. Should be nice and toasty."

She gave him a reluctant nod, then stepped across some invisible chasm on the sidewalk. A chasm that separated those who were going, from those who were staying. She ran her gaze over her family, re-imprinting their faces and the moment in her memory. A longing to be on the other side with them tightened her throat into a knot, but duty made no considerations for family or personal wishes. The job had to be done, and the task fell squarely on the shoulders of those best suited to accomplish it. Walter stood on the other side also, arms huddled around himself. He had eyes only for his son. Astrid was stationed next to him, with one arm hooked through his, whether for his comfort or hers, it was hard to say. Seeing the entirety of their little group together, the reality that she was leaving, that she might never see any of those staying behind again, struck home with a barbed point. Her heart ached at the sorrowful look on Ella's face; she tried so hard to be brave, but she was still only a little girl, not even six years old yet. Olivia's eyes began to sting and she swiped the tears away with the sleeve of her coat before they could fall.

"I... I guess this is it," she said, pinching her nose between her thumb and forefinger. She couldn't cry here. It would only make everything worse.

Rachel nodded slowly. "I guess so...," she confirmed, and pulled Olivia into a tight one-armed hug. There was a frantic edge to her embrace, that spoke of love and sadness, but mostly of fear. The feeling was reciprocal. "Take care of yourself, Liv. Can you do that for me? I can't do this thing without you."

Olivia nodded onto her shoulder. "I will," she promised in her ear. "As long as you do the same. Don't get too frustrated with Walter, he means well. And don't take any pills he gives you, not unless you run them by Astrid first. I love you..." She released her sister and dropped to one knee. "Come here, Ella."

Ella moved forward. Her pinched lips curled into a frown. "Goodbye, Aunt Liv," she said in a quivery voice that dropped to a whisper as she went on. "Do you have to go? Why can't you stay here with me and Mommy?"

"Sweetie, you remember my job, don't you?" Olivia placed a hand on either of her shoulders. "And how your mom used to say it was important? Well it's still my job, and it's still important, now more than ever. So I...have to go. Do you understand?"

"I think so," Ella nodded. A tear rolled down her cheek and she snuffed her nose. "But I'm scared, Aunt Liv."

"I'm scared, too, sweetie," she said, catching a glimpse of gold from inside the open neck of Ella's lapel. Her mother's necklace. She lifted it from inside her coat and held it up. "Do you remember when I gave you this? What did I tell you?"

Ella stared down at the cross of gold, then lifted her eyes. "That your mommy gave it to you," she recited, "and that it would keep me safe."

"That's right," Olivia dropped the necklace back inside her coat. "If you're ever scared, you just hold on to that, and think about what I said, okay?"

"Okay..." Ella agreed, then threw her arms about Olivia's neck and squeezed. "Bye, Aunt Liv. I love you."

Her cheeks were ice-cold against Olivia's neck. It was amazing how slight she was, how fragile. How could she be leaving them again? She had sworn to herself that she would not, and yet here she was. The knot in her throat grew painfully taut. "I love you too, baby girl..." she choked out.

Ella pulled away and looked up at Peter with a morose smile. "Bye, Peter," she said, and wrapped her arms around his waist.

"See you later, kiddo," he replied, and ruffled her hair. "Take care of Walter for me, will you?"

She nodded, and after Peter, it was the Francises' turn. Ella hugged them each about the waist in turn, though Charlie's was noticeably less enthusiastic. "Bye, Sonia. Bye, Charlie."

"Bye bye, honey," Sonia said, looking down with kind eyes. "Stay safe while we're gone. I want you to practice you're reading while I'm gone too, okay?"

As a former teacher, the two of them had been spending much time together, working on basic skills such as reading and writing. Ella was already fairly proficient at both for a child of her age. "I will," she said, then stepped back inside the circle of Rachel's good arm.

The others all exchanged their goodbyes, except for Peter and Walter, oddly enough, who merely eyed each other with mirrored stoicism. _Or not so oddly_ , she thought, all things considered. Afterward, there came a moment of tense silence, filled only by the gusting wind and the rumbling of the Oldsmobile on the street outside. The two groups stared across the gulf at each other. There was nothing more to say, no further goodbyes that needed airing. Walter abruptly tore himself free of Astrid's grasp and hurried back down the sidewalk toward the Kresge Building without looking back. Peter watched him go, lips pursed to one side. She thought he might call out or go after him, but he did neither, and she looked away before he noticed her regard.

"Well...you guys should get going," Astrid said as Walter disappeared inside the building. "I'll keep an eye on things here."

"Thanks, Astrid." Olivia gave the junior agent a warm smile. "Hopefully, we shouldn't be gone more than a few days. No more than a week." Hopefully. If all went according to plan.  _It has to_ , she prayed silently.

"Make sure Walter doesn't burn the place down while we're gone," Charlie added with a gruff laugh. He pulled open the van door and climbed inside.

Peter chuckled and reached for the backpack at his feet. "Now if only that weren't a distinct possibility," he quipped, slinging the bag over one shoulder. He followed Sonia into the van, leaving Olivia as the last to go through.

Astrid grunted, and glanced back at the Kresge Building. "Don't you worry about that, Agent Francis," she called after them. "I've got Walter under my thumb."

Olivia eyed the darkened interior of the van, and the waiting vehicle through the open doors on the far side. The others were piling inside. She steeled her resolve, then approached the open door and ducked inside. Before passing through, she glanced back and met her sister's melancholy gaze. Silent communication passed between them; wordless pronouncement of love and sadness and fear. "I'll see you in a few days, Rach," she promised. "And you, too, Ella. Thanks again, Astrid."

The junior agent nodded and swung the van's door shut. Before sliding out the other side, Olivia took one last look back through the window. They were heading back toward the Kresge Building, with Astrid holding Ella on her hip, who looked back and waved. Olivia's vision blurred, and she pressed her hand to the window, dragging the pads of her fingertips downward on the glass's smooth surface.  _Goddamn whoever's responsible for this_ , she thought, watching them until they had climbed the steps and disappeared inside the building. Someone, a person, or a group of people, more likely, had to be responsible—or their chances of finding a way to fix it were slim at best. She thought of something Peter had said once, something about the cause of the infection being natural, such as the Earth passing through a strange region of space. What chance did they have of finding a cure if it was something like that? Something natural and random, like an asteroid strike in the distant past?

_We're not extinct yet_ , Olivia told herself, turning her back on the Kresge Building.

She climbed out of the van, making sure to lock the door behind her. Outside their perimeter, the street was clear, as it had been for the last month, to the east and west, north and south. There was nothing, no movement at all other than slowly swaying tree limbs and the tumbling leaves. Could all of the infected have just up and walked away? Why? It hardly seemed possible...yet, the evidence stood before her. She had seen it with her own eyes, and had never been one to argue against facts. The slight revving of the Oldsmobile's engine drew her attention back to the present. She was standing in the middle of the street.

The others were already in their seats, with Charlie behind the wheel. She dropped her pack and crowbar into the open trunk alongside the others, then slammed it shut and slid into the backseat next to Peter. As the car accelerated away from the curb she twisted around in her seat, staring out the rear window at the roof-line of the Kresge Building, the brown van-gate, and the wall of cars and trucks just visible over the top of the outer wall. The wall of cars disappeared first, sliding out of view, then the roof-line, and finally the brown van, only after it had dwindled to a dark smear on the horizon.

Olivia settled back in her seat, and watched the vacant Harvard University buildings slide past outside the window.  _I_ will _see them again_ , she thought. It was not a promise, but a certainty.

#

The whole of Cambridge stood silent and abandoned, a relic of a past age, like the ghost towns of the American west. Instead of tumble-weeds blowing in the wind it was leaves—leaves everywhere. Cambridge had been a wooded township. The leaves covered every flat surface, sometimes drifting into massive piles up and over the parked cars, against the houses, the storefronts. There was no real color left in them, no autumn reds, yellows, or oranges left. All of nature had dried out. Turned brittle. Skeletal tree limbs danced and swayed to the wind's gusting music. The drab brownness of it all, the staleness, the totality of the unnatural stillness left a sour feeling in Olivia's stomach.

She supposed it was being in a city, in a purely human creation. Out in the country, where nature still held some sway over the land, the lack of people—of motion and movement and sound—would be far less apparent. In her mind's eye, she saw the former residents; the families, the women, men, and children on the sidewalks, in the stores and shops they passed by, playing in the yards, on their bicycles, young lovers out on a stroll, fingertips entwined. Everyone was gone, vanished off the face of the earth, with nothing left to show for their existence but empty husks. They passed another shattered storefront. The blackness of its interior seeped out onto the sidewalk.  _This is the carcass of humanity_ , she thought, leaning her head against the window.  _It's all decaying, day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute._  Until there was not a soul left.

Closing her eyes, she tried to shake herself free of her morbid thoughts. Charlie and Sonia tittered softly in the front seat. They spoke of trivial things, nonsensicalities that only couples who measured their time together in decades could pull of with such ease. Not that she had much experience with such niceties; the majority of her relationships had been measured in months, not years. She thought of John and their short time together, and of the man sitting next to her.

As if the thought had summoned him, a hand touched her thigh. "You okay?" Peter's voice was quiet, pitched to carry not much farther than her ears.

Olivia lifted her head from the window. Concern was written across the furrow of his brow. The sight of it stirred something inside her. She tried not to think of his hand on her cheek, the feathery brush of his lips against hers, if only for an instant. Now was not the time. "Just thinking...," she said with a slight shake of her head. After a moment, she elaborated. "What do you think it's like outside the city? You think there's any large groups of people left anywhere? Any government? Civilization?"

Peter shrugged and glanced out the window. They turned a corner, and the charred remains of a day care center slid past, followed by an impeccable discount fabric store, untouched by damage whatsoever. He grimaced and turned from the window. "Hard to say. It's more than possible, I guess." His voice lowered an octave, and he leaned across the gap between them. "You remember what we saw from your apartment that night?" he said in her ear. "There's certainly someone out there. I'm not sure I want to meet them though." His hand drifted to his left shoulder, where it massaged the gunshot wound through his coat. "Especially not after what happened on the bridge. Maybe it's just the cynic in me, but, I get the feeling that most of the ones who've survived, they're probably more like the bastard that shot me, and less like you. It makes a sick sort of sense, I'm afraid."

The shaft of light they'd seen; she'd all but forgotten it with everything that had happened afterward. As far as she knew, none of the others knew anything about it. She had looked for it on her turn at watch several nights, but it had never shown up. Why hadn't they told them? Wait. What had he said? "Like me?" she asked, arching an eyebrow. "And what does that mean, exactly?"

He gave her a lopsided grin. "One of the good guys...," he chuckled, drawing an over-the-shoulder glance from Sonia. "Or girls, in your case. You know what I mean, Olivia."

"You act like you're not one of us, Peter," she said just above a whisper. "The good guys, I mean."

Instead of making some sarcastic remark as she expected him to, his face clouded with an emotion Olivia couldn't put a name to, at first. Was it doubt? She studied his troubled eyes. No. She realized he didn't think of himself that way—as one of the good guys. It wasn't doubt she saw, but a sort of self-loathing. What had he had done, she wondered, during the years spent as a vagabond, drifting from place to place, for him to despise himself? He'd been a grifter. She wanted to tell him that she didn't care about whatever he'd done before. It was the past. All that mattered was that he was trying to be a better man in the here and now, with her, with Ella, even with his father. She wanted to say all that and more, but it wasn't the time or place.

"Am I?" he asked softly after a moment. "You...didn't know me, before."

Before either of them could say anything else, the Oldsmobile rolled to a stop. "If you two are done whispering back there," Charlie said. "I think we've come about as far as we can."

Cheeks burning, Olivia looked up and found his eyes narrowed on her in the rearview mirror. She ignored his questioning look. "Already?" she asked, straightening and turning away from Peter in one motion. The intersection ahead was blocked by a massive pile-up, vehicles joined together in eternal embraces of rusting, twisted metal. At least ten cars. "That was quick."

"Well, I wouldn't be getting my hopes up just yet," Charlie said. "We still have a ways to walk until we reach the river."

Peter leaned forward, squinting out the front windshield. "Shit. You couldn't get us any closer? We're still like ten blocks away, at least."

Charlie shook his head and exchanged glances with his wife. "Unlike you two, we've been watching the side streets," he explained. "They're all jammed, just like this one. We could probably backtrack a bit, maybe come in more from the north, but I don't know that it would save us any time. What do you think, Liv?"

Olivia pretended not to hear his little dig, and twisted in her seat, taking in the view from all sides. They were stopped in a wide intersection in the eastern part of Cambridge, north and west from the Longfellow Bridge, where they had decided to try to cross the river first. It was one of the eastern most bridges over the Charles in Cambridge, and a direct route to the Federal Building. The area was mostly commercial, with medium-sized office buildings dominating both sides of the street. In the distance, stood a tall, monolithian structure, topped by a giant sphere-shaped object; some sort of weather or radar equipment, she supposed. The tower had a grayish exterior, with a grid of rectangular windows on its wider dimension, and was as smooth and as featureless as concrete on its narrower side. It was a familiar building, the tallest in Cambridge and part of the MIT campus, if her memory served her right. She eyed the gaping hole in one of the upper floors, then lowered her gaze to the street. Nothing moved ahead of them, among the parked cars, nor in the broken windows of the surrounding office buildings. The horizontal bar of the stoplights in the intersection bounced rhythmically in the wind. If there were any infected in their immediate vicinity, they would have heard the car and been on their way.

She met Charlie's waiting eyes. "We might as well walk from here. We'll take a look at the bridge, and then go from there. Agreed?"

"Sounds good to me," Sonia said over her shoulder. She pushed open her door and got out. "This car stinks to high heaven..."

Charlie shut the engine off and followed his wife outside, leaving Peter and herself in the car alone. He appeared less than happy with the decision to get out and walk. "Coming, Peter?" she asked, glancing over at him with her hand on the door handle.

"Have I ever mentioned that I hate the cold?" he asked as the trunk lid opened behind them. "I've told you that before haven't I? In fact, there's not much that I hate more."

"Nope. Never. C'mon, it'll be fun." She shoved open her door and got out.

"Fun?" he called after her. "You're starting to scare me, Olivia..."

#

The walk as it turned out, was not so fun after all. In the corridor-like spaces between buildings, the cold wind tore at her coat and bit at the fabric of her jeans as they moved eastward toward the Longfellow Bridge. The iron crowbar on her shoulder felt like a bar of ice through the thin cloth of her gloves. Olivia found herself switching hands frequently, and shoving her free hand deep into the pocket of her coat, scrounging for what little warmth she could find there. She noticed the Francises doing the same with their matching aluminum baseball bats. Sonia had played softball in college, and had a deadly swing. Of the four of them, Peter was the only one with no weapon on his shoulder. A simple long-bladed knife hung from a sheath on his belt. It was all he could manage with his right hand—and that poorly, so he claimed. She worried about him, about what might happen if they were surrounded again. Two hands had been a requirement for survival outside the boathouse.

_That isn't going to happen_ , Olivia thought, eyeing him askance as he walked at her side. He'd produced a pair of black sunglasses from somewhere, and they looked very nice on him, she had to admit. She turned away from him before her glance could turn into a stare. They would be careful. They had to be careful. Methodical, with no foolish mistakes. It was the only way they were  _all_  going to make it back alive.

The streets were still and silent. They moved forward in short bursts, staying low and keeping their eyes peeled on the dark places in which the infected might secrete themselves. Broken glass crinkled under the soles of their boots. Clumps of sodden trash— mostly sheets of blank printer paper, from the look of it—decorated the sidewalks. It was everywhere, as if paper had rained down from the sky. She glanced up at the fractured office buildings, imagining what concussions had rocked the area. She'd probably even heard them, back at the lab. There certainly had been no shortage of explosions. The mangled remains of cubicled office spaces were outlined in more than one shattered window. What had been the point of any of it? she wondered, returning her gaze to the street.

Just ahead of them, Charlie stopped all of a sudden, pulling his wife down next to a parked car as a furious baying broke out somewhere to the north. Olivia sucked in a breath at the noise; it had been months since she'd heard a dog or a cat, or any household animal for that matter. The out-of-place sound seemed fairly close, possibly less than a mile away, though it was difficult to tell the distance with corridors of buildings reflecting the sound back at them from competing directions. She pulled Peter into a recessed store entrance.

He cocked his head and listened with narrowed eyes. The howling died out almost as soon as it began. "I haven't heard that in a while," he said, peering to the north. "Sounded big, like a Rot or some kind of Sheperd, or maybe even a—"

A flurry of barking erupted once again, somehow more desperate than before. Intertwined with the barking was a guttural roar that was ferocious enough for a mountain lion, though that seemed unlikely given the location. She'd never heard anything like it.  _It's probably a wild cat or a raccoon_ , she reasoned,  _Or maybe even a fox or a coyote_. She recalled hearing something about increasing coyote sightings on the outskirts of Boston before the outbreak. The competing howls of animal rage ebbed and flowed. Abruptly, the dog's tenor changed, turning from anger to high-pitched squeals of pain that lasted for an instant only. The empty silence that followed put her hackles up.

"What the hell was that?" Peter's voice was a whisper.

Olivia swallowed and shook her head. "I have no idea. It sounded like some kind of wild animal," she replied, scanning the northern side of the street and feeling decidedly uneasy.  _Are there bears in Massachusetts?_  she thought, watching as Charlie and Sonia rose slowly to their feet.

"In Boston?"

"I don't know, Peter...," she said, shrugging her shoulders. Her hair felt as if it were standing on end. Who knew where animals were anymore? There had been no humans around for months. The earth's greatest predators had vanished in the span of several weeks, and that had to have caused some lasting effect. Maybe they were expanding their territories, moving into areas previously untenable. She shifted her grip on the crowbar, feeling its heft. It was not reassuring, nor was her pistol's weight on her belt. "Let's not stick around to find out."

"I'm right behind you," Peter said, following her out of the recessed entryway.

Charlie settled his baseball bat up onto his shoulder. "So that was a little weird, don't you think?" he said as she joined them. "Haven't heard a goddamn dog for weeks, and then we have world war three erupt on our doorstep."

"No weirder than anything else that's happened, Charlie," Olivia countered, adjusting the beanie's position atop her head. "Although...I feel better that we didn't try coming in from the north. We should go. I was hoping to be over the river by now."

"What was that second one?" Sonia asked with a frown. Her eyes roved the surrounding buildings. "It didn't sound very nice. Was that even a dog?"

"If that was a dog, it was definitely more Cujo than Lassie," Peter remarked, absently fingering his shoulder. He'd been touching it a lot, Olivia noticed. She wondered how much pain he was in, and if he would tell her the truth if she asked. "Not something I'd care to encounter with anything less than a deer rifle, or even better, a tank."

"It doesn't matter," Olivia said, though she silently agreed with him. Whatever it was, it had sounded big and unpleasant. "It's nowhere near us, and we've only got a couple more blocks until we're at the bridge. Let's go."

There was no further discussion of the strange animal they had heard, but it lingered in the back of her mind as they crept forward, more alert than before. As they drew nearer to the bridge, the lines of traffic became less orderly, more desperate. At a fork in the road, four lanes converged into two, and chaos had ensued. Cars and trucks were packed together in a tight wedge from sidewalk to sidewalk. Fenders were rumpled, door panels crushed. Trampled bodies lay in heaps in what gaps there were between the vehicles, and on the sidewalks up against the buildings. Some still moved and twitched. The sour stench of death permeated the area. They moved further into the cloud. The drivers must have climbed out the windows to exit their vehicles, she realized. Dark stains dotted the pavement. A single shoe was wedged beneath the front tire of a white Cadillac, with a foot still inside. The attached leg disappeared beneath the vehicle's frame and quivered grotesquely as she moved past.

She could envision what had happened; the mad rush to leave the city, only to find themselves trapped, infected in front and behind. Had they fought amongst one another before the freshes had overtaken them? Before the freshes had eaten them, and in turn, created more, spreading the infection exponentially. What about the infected girl she and Peter let leave the scene of the accident? Had she been the sole source on this side of the river? How many deaths lay at her own feet? Undoubtedly thousands, tens of thousands, maybe. The number kept her up at night, huddled alone under her blankets. That small part of the whole was her fault, despite what Peter and Charlie had said. She should have been quicker to realize the direness of the situation. Walter had told her.

"Well this looks like it must have been a great time," Peter commented, grimacing down at the shoe and leg as he moved past. The leg continued to twitch as it disappeared from view. "You think any of these people woke up that morning thinking the world was gonna end?"

"I know I didn't," Sonia said. "I didn't even know anything was wrong until I turned the news on that first night." She glanced at Charlie and shook her head with rue. "I was waiting for your call, honey. You never did."

Charlie grunted and scrubbed a gloved hand through his dark hair. "I was a little busy at the time, babe," he said in dour tone of voice. "Trying to stay alive, avoiding being eaten. You know how it is. John and...I were at ground zero, at Boston General, freshes everywhere. They were like fucking locusts. I still don't understand how it could have spread so fast."

"I know now," Sonia said quickly. "I'm not blaming you, Charlie. I never did, not even for an instant." She gave him a peck on the cheek. "I knew you'd come for me, though. I always knew."

Olivia watched their interaction, thinking of John, of what little he'd told her of the chaos at Boston General. She had not known. Part of her had held out small hope, but mostly he had been dead in her mind, until the three of them had walked up to the wall of cars back at the lab out of the blue, looking like they'd been through hell. She and the others had had it easy in Cambridge. With the warning Walter had given them, they had started building the perimeter wall right away, and not a single person had even tried to take shelter in the Kresge Building.

"What did you end up doing, Sonia?" Peter asked after they were clear of the wreckage. "How'd you avoid getting eaten?"

"I didn't leave the house," she replied with a shrug. "I kept the lights off, the doors locked, and minded my own business. Everyone else on our street up and left. I watched them all go from my bedroom window. Most of them didn't even take anything with them—just what they were wearing. I think they thought it would be over in a few days, and they could just go back to their lives." She let out an uneasy laugh. "You know, I never even saw one of the infected until we were on our way to the lab. Except for on TV, of course, and those didn't even look real then. It was like something out of a movie. For a little while, a part of me thought it was all some kind of hoax. I mean, this is real life, right? Who knew George Romero had all the answers?"

"Ah...a fellow Romero fan, are you?" Peter grinned, and fell back a step, to walk beside Charlie and his wife. "Which one was your favorite, the black and white or the color version?"

Olivia stopped listening to their banter as the street began to widen ahead of them. She increased her speed, sensing that they were nearing the river. The east and west lanes split apart, dividing around a wide block of weathered concrete that rose up from the asphalt. The mass of concrete bore the barest resemblance to some ancient pharaoh's tomb, ancient, large, and imposing, with protruding columns topped with curling ornamental stonework. Sparse vegetation shot up through the cracks around the edges, adding to its weather-beaten appearance. She took the eastward lanes around the concrete sarcophagus, running her fingers along the crumbling cement until it came to a sudden end, dropping off at the subway line emerging from underneath—coincidentally, the same line she and Peter had explored on the way to Brighton. She had forgotten that the Red Line rose from below street level here, and crossed over the Charles down the center of the Longfellow Bridge before dipping back below ground after a stop in Beacon Hill on the other side.

She leaned over the guardrail and peered down into the blackness of the subway tunnel, thinking of Peter and her insane plan to seek out the undead that day in Harvard Square. Had they really done that? What could she possibly have been thinking? And why hadn't he tried to stop her? _He did try_ , a voice reminded her.  _You didn't listen, remember?_ Yet he had gone with her anyway, despite clearly not wanting to go, and had nearly been killed alongside her for his loyalty. Would he always go with her into the dark places? Would he always have her back? A faint smile curled her lips, and she found herself wanting to explore the idea, wanting to find out.

Her eyes followed the two parallel lines of track until they disappeared under the curved archway of the concrete overhang. What had happened to the massive horde of infected? Was it still down there, waiting for some unwary explorer to stumble into their midst? She hoped to never find out. Several bodies lay across the tracks below, limbs twisted unnaturally, obviously crushed from a fall over the guard rail. Were they infected? She stooped for a handful of gravel and rocks and tossed them over the edge. The rocks showered down on the corpses, plinking off the metal rails and wooden supports. The noise was slight, but enough. The bodies began to stir. Sullied fingers reached out, scratching, clawing futilely at the air for a hand hold. A pair of high heels scraped a track through the gravel and bits of broken glass. The heels' owner lifted its head and snapped its teeth at the air.

"What's down there, Liv?" Charlie asked, walking up beside her. "Infected?"

Olivia glanced back at Peter and Sonia. They had lagged behind a little, and were having an animated discussion about something or other. Horror movies from the sound of it. She looked back at Charlie and nodded. "I think they fell over the guard rail."

"Or they were thrown over," he added, gazing down on the slithering corpses. "Check that out." He pointed out a red-bricked, four-story building across the street.

She saw nothing out of the ordinary at first, just another bombed out building, but then noticed the symbol above and left of the entrance, all that remained to give a clue of the building's former occupants. A red cross, just above and left of the entrance doors, which looked as if they had been forced open. The two adjacent structures were untouched by fire, or any form of damage that she could see, other than a few broken windows. "That was the Red Cross building. You think there's still anything worth taking in there?"

Charlie let out a grunt at the question. "I doubt it. Maybe whoever was inside there...," he said, twisting to look back as the burned building receded behind them. "Maybe they didn't feel like sharing. And somebody else wasn't too happy about that."

"So they trapped them inside and burned the building down around them. That's lovely." She shook her head at the depravity men were capable of. None of it was news to her; she'd witnessed it firsthand when she was still a little girl.

"That's my guess," he shrugged, and looked disgusted. "Maybe they waited outside, just to make sure nobody got out, or to deal with those that did."

Olivia didn't know what to say to that. It was as good an explanation as any, and only reinforced Peter's assertion of the kind of people most likely to have survived. She looked back at him. Peter had seen the infected on the subway rails below, and was regaling Sonia with tales of their experience in the Red Line. The two of them seemed to be becoming fast friends, she noticed. Not that it was a surprise. She looked over at Charlie walking next to her. "They seem to be getting along pretty well," she commented as a bubbly laugh of disbelief erupted behind them. He was at the part where they were running for their lives through the dark.

He eyed her sideways for a moment before replying. "You were right about him," he admitted finally. "I was wrong. Your sister told me about what happened on the bridge before he got shot. Why didn't you tell me that part?"

_Tell you that he faced a similar choice to the one you made and found a different solution?_  Olivia thought.  _No thanks._  She shrugged her shoulders instead. "I told you he saved her life. What more was there to tell? That should have been enough."

Charlie looked uncomfortable and cleared his throat. "I guess you can't teach an old cop new tricks," he said under his breath. He inclined his back at his wife and Peter. "Did that really happen? You actually went down into the subway looking for them? Why am I just now hearing about this?"

She felt a singe in her cheeks, and it was her turn to be uncomfortable. "He's...exaggerating," she deflected, brushing a stray hair from her eyes. "there weren't _that_  many of them." If anything, Peter was downplaying the severity of what had happened, but Charlie didn't need to know that.

"Is that right? Maybe you're the one I should be worried about, Livvy."

The group continued on, following the concrete guard rail of the subway line, which rose in a gentle incline until it was level with the street. Soon the buildings fell away from the sidewalk. A wooded area sprang up to their right, bisected by a winding footpath. An assortment of wooden benches lined the path, all with a view of the river, which flowed past silently beyond the copse of trees. Sparkles of sunlight on the water reflected through the bare branches of the oak and maple, honeylocust and ash. Beyond the trees was the bridge abutment. Matching stone towers sat on either side of the street, squat and pointy, the little towers were replicas of their much-larger counterparts at the bridge's apex. Most of the bridge itself was hidden from view by a slight rise in the street's elevation, and the long line of cars—all lanes headed west, out of the city.

Across the river rose the Boston skyline, a patchwork mishmash of structures with varying shapes and sizes that scraped the sky. Hancock Tower stood out above the treetops to the south, the most prominent building in the area, tall and wide but narrow on its edge and covered with a mirror-like exterior. A vertical gap ran the full height of its narrow side, giving the famous building an appearance of being two separate buildings squashed together. The skyline as a whole looked different, somehow. Gritty, was the word that came to Olivia's mind. A near uniform, blackish tint gave the looming structures a harsh, gloomy aspect. Ash and soot from the firestorms. She and Charlie came to a stop at the front end of a Fed Ex delivery truck parked halfway on the sidewalk, blocking off a pickup truck that had attempted to skirt the line of traffic. The driver's door of the pickup truck hung open, listing in the wind. Had a scuffle ensued?

She glanced at Charlie, who scanned the far side of the river with wooden intensity. A vein in his temple pulsed, a muscle in his jaw flexed. Peter and Sonia approached. No one spoke as they eyed their destination. A chilly wind that took her breath away blew in off the river, carrying with it a subtle undertone of rotting fish. She shivered at its prickly bite, and noticed Peter doing the same.

"Was it like this when you left?" Peter asked as the wind slackened.

Charlie's face was tight as he shook his head. "No. We made it out just as the bombs were starting to drop."

"Where'd you cross over at?" Olivia inquired, running her gaze over the river in both directions. Trees blocked the view to the south. To the north and perhaps a half-mile away were the Museum of Science grounds, situated on a thin, man-made stretch of land that spanned the river from bank to bank.

"On the Washington Street Bridge," Charlie replied. "We found a bank not far from the river on the other side and rode out the worst of it inside the vault. By the time it seemed safe to come out...we couldn't even see the city anymore..." He paused, and pressed two fingers to his temple, applying pressure. "It was just black smoke...smoke everywhere. And infected."

"Well...at least the infected aren't a problem at the moment," Peter remarked, stepping past them toward the bridge. "Let's go. The Federal Building isn't getting any closer just standing here. Maybe we'll get incredibly lucky, and it'll be clear the rest of the way."

With an unspoken agreement, they followed him out onto the bridge, moving in a single file line. The sidewalk disappeared, leaving only a narrow walkway between the guard rail and the outside lane. The road sloped upward gently toward the bridge's midpoint, where four stone-block towers were arranged in a quadrangle. The domed peaks of the first two towers grew steadily larger. Faux arrow slits were cut into the towers' side at irregular intervals, giving them a medieval look. Frigid winds whipped in from the east, snaking through the gaps between vehicles with a chilling efficiency. Olivia nearly lost her beanie to one particularly strong gust, just managing to grab it as it started to lift off. Peter was not so lucky, however, and his Red Sox hat was ripped off his head, setting his wavy hair free. He cursed and made a feeble attempt at grabbing at it, but the hat's destiny was out of his hands, literally and figuratively. She watched Peter's reaction with muted amusement as the ill-fated hat tumbled into the dark waters below and disappeared. Her amusement was short-lived. Moments later, the Longfellow Bridge ended abruptly, barely a quarter of the distance across the river's span.

"Well shit..." Peter said, stopping near the edge of the broken concrete. "So much for being lucky. Wish we would have noticed that before walking all the way out here..."

Olivia stared down at the roiling water below, and over at the other edge, seeing the telltale blast points. The missing section was at least one-hundred feet wide, she judged, from supporting pier to supporting pier. There was no way they could have seen the gap sooner, short of walking down to the waterfront beforehand; the bridge's own curvature and the abandoned vehicles had hidden the break from view. Unlike the other two bridges they had seen demolished, there was no sign of the displaced vehicles, structural steel members, or concrete decking below in the water, though from the violence of the swirling eddies in the current, it was all there, just below the surface.  _Goddamnit_ , she thought, turning her back on the break.

"What is it?" Charlie called up from the rear. "Why are you stopping?" Olivia realized they would have no view of the bridge ahead, yet, just as she had not.

"Fucking bridge is out," Peter announced. "The gap's gotta be at least thirty or forty yards wide. We're gonna have to find another way."

"Are you shitting me? Son of bitch..."

Sonia squeezed past Olivia and peered over the edge. "Why would they do that?" she asked with a frown. "Why destroy all the bridges? Were they trying to keep people from going downtown?"

"Who the hell knows?" Charlie's voice was grim. He spun on his heels, searching the river to the north and south.

Sonia's question cast a shadow across Olivia's mind. The others' discussion of favorable alternative routes faded into the background. Were they trying to keep people out, or infected in? Why destroy the bridges, instead of barricading them off? The answer came to her a moment later. A barricade could be moved, eventually, with enough effort.  _They_  had wanted something permanent, something that couldn't be moved. Why? She searched across the gap for anything moving on the other side but saw nothing. As before, the bridge's curvature blocked most of it from view. It wasn't until she cast her gaze further, to the far bank that she saw them—infected meandering through the trees at the river's edge. They were little more than stick figures at that distance, but they were there. Their stutter-steps were unmistakable. She thought she saw others then—many others—beyond the tree line, walking the road that followed the river's path, but the tiny shapes were too distant to be sure.

"Let me see your binoculars, Charlie," Olivia said, propping her crowbar against the guardrail. She held out her hand.

Charlie's eyes narrowed, but he let his pack fall from his shoulders. "Did you see something?" he asked, unzipping the backpack's main pocket and digging through its contents. He pulled out a pair of binoculars with a cord wrapped between the lenses and held them out.

"Maybe..." She lifted the binoculars and focused on the far bank. A plethora of sailboats, most burned to the waterline filled her vision. Beyond the sailboats was the far bank and the line of trees. Infected by the score wandered at random near the water's edge. She shifted her view to the right, following the river bank to the south. The stream of undead never stopped or thinned until the view of the shore was cut off by the next bridge downriver, which had a section of its span missing three-quarters of the way across. Chunks of rubble and partially submerged vehicles stood out in the water below, and infected roamed the remaining stretch of bridge above. She shook her head at the sight, and wondered why they didn't wander off the edge into the river; several were perilously close to doing so, yet turned at the last moment. Some instinctual shred of awareness, perhaps? There was still so much they didn't understand. She put the unanswered questions out of her mind. They needed to be smarter from here on out, and that started with not blundering forward blindly.

"What do you see over there, Olivia?" she heard Peter ask.

Olivia lowered the binoculars and handed them to him. "Infected. They're all over the far bank, just past what's left of those boats," she told him, and then turned to Charlie. "I think we need to get a better look at the area before we go any farther. I want to see if there are even any bridges left that are still standing." She looked past him, eyeing the structures on the Cambridge side of the river. "Maybe one of those apartment buildings?"

"I thought we always avoided buildings like that...?" Sonia questioned, looking worried. "That's what you told me, honey—that they were deathtraps."

Peter passed the binoculars back to Charlie. "I think Olivia's right," he said, inclining his head in her direction. "We need to find some high ground." He pointed a finger south over the river. "The Harvard Bridge is out also. I thought about maybe finding a boat like we did before, but the docks down at MIT look like they've been bombed to hell and back. All the docks I can see on both sides of the river look that way."

Charlie sighed and met his wife's gaze. "I don't like it, but I guess we don't have any choice, babe." He shivered, and blew into his palms. "I sure as hell ain't swimming across—not in this weather."

There was a moment of silent communication between Sonia and her husband, and afterward she nodded and shrugged as if the matter were settled. "All right. Where should we go then?"

Olivia was about to suggest a tall hotel building they'd passed earlier, but noticed a slow grin appearing on Peter's face as he stared off to the north. "You got an idea? I know that look, Peter."

"Oh yeah...," he said, showing all of his teeth. "I know just the place. It'll be perfect."

#

They headed northeast on a one-way street parallel to the Charles. Olivia was up front with Peter, with the Francises trailing behind. No one had spoken since they'd left the bridge behind. On their right was a thin line of trees and then a sidewalk with a handrail that guarded a short drop to the river's edge. On their left, a continuous line of squat office buildings. Empty vehicles were parked at random on both sides of the street in uneven, broken lines. Car doors hung open on rusted hinges, as if the occupants had been forced to flee. The pavement was littered with trash and leaves and more than a few suitcases, abandoned in their owners' haste to leave the area. A persistent wind stirred the leaves and trash in delicate tumbles, scraping and scratching softly on the pavement.

Where had everyone gone? She still couldn't imagine how _everyone_  could have been turned. They had to have fled the city. She thought of the beam of light in the night sky, and again wondered what they might find at its source. Sanctuary? Civilization? The light had not appeared again, or she simply had been unable to see it from the lab.

Her elongated shadow stretched out in front of her at an angle, reminding her of how quickly daylight was fading. The time had flown by. Sunset would be upon them soon, no more than two hours away at most. The subject had not come up yet but it would; Charlie had already cast a worried eye in the sun's direction. They had left the lab much later than she'd intended—past noon, by her estimate. Walter had prolonged their departure with various tasks he claimed couldn't wait, though why he needed Peter's help organizing the basement storage room at that moment wasn't clear. She suspected he was merely stalling, gaining a few more precious moments with his son and supposed she couldn't fault him for that; she had spent every moment with her sister and Ella. None of that changed the fact that it was going to be dark soon, however, and a decision would have to be made. She cast a glance over her shoulder. The sun's reddish globe hovered just above the horizon.  _Make that less than an hour_ , she thought, amending her previous estimate.

"Where exactly are you taking us, Peter?" she asked, glancing up at him. They had passed by several office buildings back near the bridge she thought were tall enough to get a good view of their surroundings, but he had never given them a second look. "It's gonna be dark soon."

"I know, it's just ahead," he said, thrusting his hand at a gathering of buildings on the next block. "You see the one that's shaped like stair treads?"

Olivia nodded, seeing the odd-looking building in the distance. It was familiar, in a passing sort of way, as if she had seen it before, but its strange construction hadn't registered. She could see the resemblance to a set of stairs, with each tread being an apartment's private balcony. The building grew narrower at each floor until the top floor stood alone, overlooking those beneath. She guessed that lush plant life normally decorated the balconies like a terraced garden, but only withered plant-life remained with the onset of winter. It was an elegant building, and with the wide view of the Boston skyline across the river, the rent would not have been cheap. As they drew closer, she noticed what looked like a large communal balcony several floors above the street level, again heavily gardened with evergreens. Miraculously, the building seemed to be untouched by any damage.

"You've been here before?" she asked as they came to a stop in front of a pair of recessed doors centered beneath a pearl-white lattice archway. The two doors had deep cherry frame, with rectangular panes of glass set horizontally in matching wooden grids. The door handles were shaped in golden semi-circles that formed a whole when the two doors were shut, as they were now. They were garish and vulgar-looking, in her opinion, not at all like the simple lines of her building in Brighton.

"Not inside, at least," Peter said, glancing back at Charlie and Sonia. "But I've always been curious. I remember watching when they built this...from right over there." He nodded back toward the river. "I think I was like ten years old and rode my bike here. The condos and apartments in here cost a small fortune, or did. None of my former...acquaintances, were the sort of people that lived anywhere near a place like this."

She had to smile at the image of a ten-year old Peter, watching the construction in fascination from the seat of his bicycle. Did he have a lot of friends back then? Or had he been a loner like herself, watching the other kids play from a distance, unable to summon the nerve to join them; always feeling different—like an outsider. It was a question for later, when they were alone. Other matters took precedence. "I see...," she said, grinning faintly and peering through the glass doors. It was difficult to make out anything through the tint. "I thought it might be something like that." The doors were still whole and opened outward, so no infected could have wandered inside, though that was no guarantee the inside wasn't crawling with them. She had seen it before.

Charlie and Sonia approached. "This it?" he asked, looking up at the penthouse high above.

Peter nodded. "Yep. Fifteen floors or so. Should be plenty tall enough to get a good view of the area."

"You know, I recognize this building," Sonia said, staring up at the layered balconies with interest. "I saw it in one of those Boston real estate magazines. There were supposed to be some pretty nice apartments in here—very luxurious and  _very_  expensive. I'm talking three to four thousand a month."

"Why do I get the feeling that had something to do with why you brought us here, Peter?" Charlie asked. "I'm pretty sure we passed buildings that were taller than this one." His voice was gruff, but not overly irritated. Olivia took that as a good sign; he really had turned the corner regarding Peter Bishop.

Peter chuckled and scratched at his beard. "I'm not gonna lie, Charlie, that may have had something do with it," he replied with a smirk that Olivia found contagious. She covered her mouth before any of them could see. "But there's also this," he continued, "the sun's gonna be down soon, and while I may have built the red head lamps so we can travel at night, it's not something I particularly want to do again, not unless we have to. Especially considering what we may be heading into. So I figure if we're gonna crash somewhere, it might as well be in the lap of luxury, you know what I mean? Sure as hell beats the lab..."

Charlie snorted softly, but a faint smile creased his lips. "I guess..." He eyed the building entrance, fingering the handle of his baseball bat. "What do you think, Liv?"

"I think we should check it out before it gets dark," Olivia told him, and then put her own words into action. She moved under the archway and reached for a door handle. Locked. Cupping her hands, she squinted through the tinted glass at the shadow-filled interior. As expected, it was dark inside the building. Her own reflection stared back at her from another set of glass doors; an entrance vestibule. What lay beyond was anyone's guess. She inserted the angled tip of the crowbar into the gap below the lock and pressed her weight against the curved hook. The wooden door frames groaned and then splintered open with a crash, shattering a single pane of glass opposite the lock. Shards of broken glass showered onto the brick-work at her feet. She winced at the noise and glanced at back at the others. "We don't know what we're walking into...," she said softy, squeezing the cool metal of her crowbar. Her gaze lingered on Peter's face. "Try not to get separated."

"I'll take point," Charlie offered, and stepped past her into the vestibule with his baseball bat gripped in one hand. The interior doors were unlocked and he cracked one open slightly, enough to get a glimpse through the narrow gap. "It looks clear, but it's pretty dim inside. Stay close by me." His gaze rested on his wife as he spoke.

Sonia followed her husband inside the building, leaving Olivia alone with Peter. Their eyes met for a heartbeat, and she smiled faintly before ushering him by her. He drew the long knife from his belt as he passed. Though he mostly complained about his right hand being less than stellar, there was no sign of impairment in his grip.

She followed him inside, narrowing her eyes at the dimness of the apartment building's interior. The doors opened into a long corridor with high ceilings. At the opposite end was another pair of glass doors. The front entrance, she realized; they had come in through the back. In between was an ink-like darkness at the building's center. Charlie and Sonia waited just ahead, peering ahead toward the far tinted glass. Not liking the look of what lay ahead, Olivia grabbed her headlamp from her backpack and fit it in place, and the others did likewise. Peter's eyes glittered with irritation as she helped him fit his elastic band over his head, but he made no comment nor did she. He despised being an invalid; she knew it, and he knew she knew it. No words were needed, only acceptance. She was going to protect him, whether he liked it or not.

Charlie headed down the corridor, throwing the beam of his light out ahead of them. Their footsteps were silenced by plush carpeting that glowed pink under their headlamps. No one spoke as they moved forward. She listened for any out-of-place noises but heard only Peter's light hitches of breath. A faint odor of putrescence hung in the air. The scent grew stronger as they moved toward the center of the building. A pair of matching doors appeared out of the darkness on either side of the hall. Each led to a short flight of steps down to first floor apartments. Both hallways were clear of infected and they moved on, deeper into the blackness. They came upon a small kiosk containing a grid of mailboxes behind a wide countertop. A concierge's desk. She heard Sonia's sharp intake of breath ahead of them and saw the source of her surprise a moment later.

A dead man wearing a suit stood in the back corner of the kiosk. In front of the counter lay a formless mass of ragged clothes and torn, graying skin lay sprawled across the carpet, unmoving. Olivia wondered how long it had been standing there...waiting for some unfortunate soul to pass by in the dark.

"I got it..." Charlie hissed and moved toward the infected with exaggerated care, keeping the red light directed on its gaunt face.

He had never had reason to use one of the headlamps before, Olivia knew. Perhaps he doubted—just as she had—that they worked as well as advertised. He stepped behind the counter, bat upraised. When Charlie was within five steps of the creature it stirred and came to life. Before it could do more than growl, he crushed its skull with a grunt of exertion. The infected pitched to the side and fell against the desk, knocking over a plastic something or other. The mound on the floor stirred at the sound, and Sonia brought her bat down in a vicious arc on a circular lump that Olivia could only assume was a head. The crunch was wet and horrific. A plume of foulness filled her nostrils, and bits of rotten flesh splattered across the carpet. She saw a reddish-black morsel attach itself to Peter's boot like wet clay. He cringed and kicked it aside, and then stepped around the body after Sonia. Olivia followed. They crept through the darkness toward the light of the front entrance, passing by closed doors along the way. None led to a stairwell upward.

At the front entrance, the corridor ended at a tee, with doorways to additional first floor apartments. "Make a right," Peter called softly ahead to Charlie. "The east wing will have the best view."

Charlie nodded and they turned the corner, moving down another hallway, shorter than the first and bathed in darkness. The first signs of the building's inhabitants became apparent. Articles of clothing were strewn about; shirts and undergarments and slacks, remnants from an upended suitcase lying in the center of the hallway. A pair of pink slippers was stationed side-by-side on a doormat; a cloud of death lingered outside the apartment door. Olivia checked the door knobs as they passed, but all were locked tight. The silver gleam of metal resolved into a pair of elevator doors as they neared the end of the hall. To the right of the elevators was the door they'd been looking for—the emergency stairwell.

"Be careful in here," Charlie whispered, loosening his pistol in its holster. "There ain't gonna be much room to maneuver if we come across any infected." He opened the door carefully, shining his light inside the doorway before entering.

Inside the stairwell it was blacker than black. Olivia followed Peter up the first flight of steps, around the intermediate landing, and up to the second floor landing and the entrance to the second floor apartments. She cracked open the door and looked around, sweeping her light to the right and left. The corridor was empty and silent. At the far end, a square of yellow sunlight fell across the carpeted hallway, cast by an open apartment door. She stared at it for several moments, wondering whether it was worth it to investigate. As she made up her mind to leave it alone, a shadow moved across the patch of light. She held her breath, keeping her eyes peeled for further movement.

It happened.

Another silhouette crossed the light, moving in the same direction as the first. They weren't alone—but then again, she already knew that. Hunting down every one of the undead was impractical; the building was simply too big. So she pulled back, letting the door swing quietly shut, and then hurried after the others. Peter was waiting for her at the fourth floor landing, where the stairwell came to an end.

"We have to find another way up," he whispered as she climbed the last few steps. The door was propped open by his foot. Red headlamp beams flashed in the hallway outside. "What took you so long? You find something?"

"There were infected on the second floor," she reported, noting the worry etched across his face.

"How many?" he asked with a note of alarm.

"I didn't get a good look. They were inside an open apartment. At least two, for sure."

Peter's hand closed about her forearm. "I assume they didn't see you...?" She shook her head and he let go, sighing with relief. "That's good. 'Cause these doors all swing into the stairwell."

Olivia smiled, and he pulled open the door and led her out onto the fourth floor, where two separate red beams marked the Francises waiting further down the hall. Their flashlight beams illuminated a narrow table sitting nearby against the wall.

"What's the matter?" Charlie said as she and Peter joined them. He spoke softly, his voice pitched not to carry far.

"Nothing to worry about up here. A couple of infected on a floor below," Olivia said just as quietly. A faint odor of rotting flesh hung in the air. She searched for its source but there was nothing in view. Oppressive darkness lay outside their cone of light. From what little she could see, the fourth floor was similar in shape to those below, though the carpeting was gone, replaced by hardwood flooring of varying shades of cherry. Abstract oil paintings lined the hall in between apartment doors. The paintings looked expensive, though she was no expert. For all she knew they could have come from Wal-Mart, though that seemed unlikely. The low table was covered with a thin cloth, and held three white vases with delicate filigree stenciled on the outside. Wilted flowers hung limp over the vases rim. Someone's job had been to care for them—someone who was undoubtedly dead. She shook her head, and wondered if the opulence level would continue to increase with every floor upward, culminating in the penthouses on the top floor. "Which way do we go?"

Peter squinted into the surrounding blackness. "I say that way." He directed his light off to their left down the corridor past a bank of elevators not far away. "At least, the tallest part of the building is that way. There's gotta be a stairwell back there somewhere, and not far from these elevators. It'd be a code violation for there not to be," he explained, giving Olivia a wink, at which she rolled her eyes.

"Makes sense to me," Sonia offered quickly before anyone could object. The older woman frowned and looked around with unease. "We should keep moving. I...I don't really like standing around in here. Gives me the willies—like we're in a tomb or something."

"Can't argue with that, babe," Charlie said with a grunt. "This place creeps me out, too..." He turned on his heels, and his elbow grazed one of the vases, wobbling it on its base.

"Charlie, look out!" Olivia whispered hoarsely. The vase tipped dangerously toward the table's edge.

With a curse, Charlie saw what he had done and reached out in a desperate attempt to stop its fall. What happened next was a chain reaction of ill-fated events, proceeding one after another in horrifying fashion. A strange stasis surrounded Olivia, and the others also, it seemed, who could only watch as chaos unfolded between one heartbeat and the next.

In his haste to stop the vase from falling, Charlie's baseball bat clanged off the edge of the table. He flinched as a sonorous peal echoed down the corridor, knocking over another of the vases and dropping the bat at the same moment. Olivia watched in stupefied fascination as both vases exploded on the hardwood floor in a thousand pieces of splintered porcelain, and the aluminum baseball bat rang like a gong, bouncing several times and before rolling away. An imaginary ringing continued unabated in her ears, long after the metallic echoes faded away.  _That wasn't good_ , she thought, scanning the darkness outside their circle of light; it seemed to press inward. Charlie backed away from the remaining vase on the table, hands upraised with dismay. Sonia stared at her husband, mouth stretched open in disbelief.

"Son of a bitch..." Peter uttered in the aftermath. He gazed down at the mess of decayed flowers and the rolling bat with a stunned expression. "So much for being quiet... Why don't you shout next time, Charlie? Just to make sure they can  _all_  hear us."

"Fuck off, Bishop," Charlie spit in a hard, but quiet voice. He reached for his bat, giving Peter a furious look. "You think I meant to do that?"

Olivia recovered from the sudden shock and stepped between the two men before anything else could be said. "Hey. That's enough, both of you...," she hissed, sending a piercing glare Peter's way. "It was an accident. Let's just find that other stairwell before—"

She broke off, spinning around as the stench of death intensified, wafting over them. Shuffling footsteps sounded in the corridor behind them, back near the stairwell down to the first floor. An instant later, an infected woman in a ragged, low-cut dress stumbled into view, and then several others behind it—men and women, all impeccably dressed in similar attire.  _Were they attending a dinner party?_  she wondered distractedly. More ragged outlines moved in the blackness behind them, a long line that appeared endless. Their tired groans filled the air. Had they been seen yet? There was no way to tell, though in several seconds it wouldmake no difference; the infected had certainly heard the ruckus and were coming to investigate. The entire building must have heard. They had to get away. The close quarters, being surrounded in the dark—it was the nightmare scenario. The undead reached the stairwell, blocking off their retreat. Should they fight their way back to the lower levels? She backed away from the approaching undead, pulling Peter with her by the arm of his coat. He didn't resist. Keeping her voice low, she urged the others onward. "Go. The other way. Now!"

"How will we get back down?" Sonia whispered. Charlie glued himself to her side, shooting frantic glances in all directions. "We'll be trapped in here..."

Olivia threw a glance over her shoulder. The infected were fading into the blackness behind them, but still following. Peter trotted at her side, with Charlie and Sonia just several yards in front of them. Their footsteps clattered on the hardwood floor louder than she would've liked, but there was no avoiding it. "We'll find another way down," she promised as they retreated past the elevators.

The corridor turned to the left just ahead. They rounded the corner and skidded to a halt. A wall of gaunt faces and gnashing teeth moved toward them, blocking their path. Their gold-filled eyes burned with a pinkish tint under the light of their headlamps. Behind the initial group, more infected stumbled in their direction, ten, twenty, maybe more. Their silhouettes were a squirming mass against the backdrop of several open apartment doors, far down the corridor.

"Oh shit..." Peter muttered under his breath. He stepped in front of her.

Olivia moved forward and shoved him to the side. What was he thinking? While it might be noble of him—from some strange and inexplicably male point of view— _he_  was the one who needed protecting, not she. "Where's the other stairwell?" she asked, searching the nearby doors. She prayed Peter was right, that it was close by, and that she hadn't just sentenced them to death by pressing onward. "Where is it?"

"There!" Charlie pointed out a sign next to a wooden door to their left.

The stairwell was closer to the approaching infected. Abandoning any attempts at stealth, they rushed toward the closed door. Charlie and Sonia reached the doorway first. He threw himself against it, sending the heavy door slamming back against the wall inside the stairwell with a resounding boom, and disappeared inside with Sonia right behind him. The infected in the hallway lurched forward, homing in on their location. Olivia calculated their speed; it was going to be close—possibly even a tie. A desperate shout echoed from inside the stairwell.

_Charlie. Oh god..._

Peter plunged through the doorway just ahead of her and disappeared. Hands curled into claws reached out, grabbing at the air between them. They brushed against Olivia's hair, gnarled fingers tugged at her coat as she slipped in front of them into the darkness of the stairwell. She slammed the door shut in the face of the nearest infected, a groping male still wearing a pair of spectacles that reminded her of Walter for some reason. She thought it might be the hair. Instead of latching closed, the door bounced open. In panic, she threw herself against it as fingertips curled around the wooden edge at eye level. A great pressure pressed against the door, forcing it inward. She strained against the mass of undead, pushing with her shoulder, but the soles of her boots slid on the slick concrete of the stairwell. The door moved an inch, and then two. She couldn't hold them. The clamor on the other side of the door grew louder. She perceived other sounds behind the frenzied adulation for her flesh: heavy footsteps, grunts; the ring of a baseball bat on metal; feminine shriek echoing from above; Peter calling her name. The door continued its inward travel, inch by inch. An arm reached through the opening, and flesh cold like ice felt along her face, fingernails scratching, gouging. Repulsed, she twisted her head away from the reaching fingers, but they dragged along her cheek back to her ear and took hold in a crushing grip. Thoughts of her encounter with Greg's corpse flickered through her mind, and how she had let her hair rip free in order to escape. A stinging thread of fire spider-webbed across her scalp as the hand began to pull. Tears stung her eyes, and Olivia bit back a scream, trying to shift the crowbar to her other hand. Before she could manage to do so, the long blade of a knife flashed in her headlamp and sank deep into the forearm of the infected clutching her. The heavy blade cut through the decaying skin and muscle with ease, down to the bone. The hold on her ear vanished, and then Peter was beside her, pressing his back against the door. Together, they forced it shut.

"Sorry...I thought you were behind me...Olivia..." he panted. His face was tight with strain, pupils dilated until only a hint of blue remained. "You know...I'm beginning to think this...this may not have been one of my...best ideas..."

Olivia snorted a laugh out through her nose. "Yeah...you...and me both..." she said between shaky breaths. She heard more shouting up the stairs; her name, Peter's. They had to get up there. "The door won't latch. I think the catch is locked open."

"Of course it is, that's perfect. They're probably all like that. I think...there are some in here...with us, up above."

The undead surged against the door, forcing it open for an instant before they were able to push it back in place. "...We're gonna have to run for it," she assessed, looking over at him, at his left arm, still thrust deep inside his coat pocket. "I'll go first and clear the way."

Peter met her gaze, and for a wonder, she didn't flinch away from what she saw in his eyes. Perhaps they mirrored her own. After a moment, he gave her a reluctant nod. "All right... I'll see you on the other side, Olivia Dunham."

Olivia pushed down a tightness in her throat.  _This isn't the end_ , she told herself. "Stay with me, Peter."

She filled her lungs, and then pushed off the door and charged up the steps into the blackness above. A bobbing red circle at her feet told her that Peter was following—not that she needed the confirmation. The sudden volume increase from the infected below was confirmation enough. They were in the stairwell, below for sure, above...possibly. She took the steps two at a time, holding the railing with her free hand. The coldness of the metal bar numbed her hand after a while, but she hardly noticed. Several floors up, she came across a body lying crosswise on the landing. An infected; the side of its head caved in by a powerful blow. She passed it by without slowing. Up and up they went, until her thighs and calves began to burn. They passed other bodies on the way, skulls crushed in similar fashion. The ringing of metal and undecipherable voices continued to trickle down from above.

The door leading out of the stairwell pushed opened as she crested another floor—the eighth, from the little sign mounted on the wall—and she found herself face to face with an undead man wearing no clothes. Its flesh was mottled and gray. Olivia had only an instant to notice this oddity before it became aware of her and charged, fingers stained maroon with blood reaching for her throat. She batted the hands aside and thrust the crowbar's tip through one of its yellowed eyes.

"Ugh...what the hell?" Peter exclaimed, cringing when he saw the naked corpse a moment later. They couldn't help but notice the corpse's extreme endowment, and the savage-looking bite dangerously close on its thigh. "Now that's something I didn't need to see. How does that even happen?"

Olivia had no answer for him. Before she could even begin to formulate a reply, the door began to swing open again, revealing a multitude of infected in the hall outside through the widening crack. Peter threw himself against it, slamming the door shut with a thunderous boom. "C'mon, Peter!" she shouted. There was no longer any point in trying to remain quiet—the building's occupants were fully aware of their presence.

They raced up the stairwell. She could hear them now; infected above and below, and to the sides. They were being surrounded. Like they had been outside the boathouse. Bodies careened down from the floors above, bursting into the circle of her light. She thrust and stabbed, parried and riposted the incoming infected, slowly working her way up the steps. She sensed more than saw Peter behind her, finishing off those she knocked aside with the heavy blade of his knife, crushing with the soles of his boots. They struggled onward, carving a path ever upwards. Her arms began to tire, fingers cramped in a death-lock. It was a measure of her exhaustion that she lost track of what floor they were on. Tenth? Twelfth? She wasn't sure. Time proceeded in blurred flashes of darkness and red light, of snapping teeth and the rise and fall of the crowbar, seemingly alive in her hands. Blood spattered her face, foul and bile-inducing—in her mouth, her eyes, slicking the octagonal surface of her weapon. Suddenly, there were no more in front of her. The stairwell above was clear and they had a moment of respite. Surely they were close to the top. She leaned on her knees and sucked in a ragged breath, feeling as if she'd just run a marathon.

Then something prickled the back of her neck, a trace ill-intent that sent a shiver of fear racing down her spine. She spun around, searching for Peter. He was on the landing below, squatting over an undead boy who'd been no older than twelve by her estimate. Its shorter height had thrown off her blow, and she had only grazed the top of its head and merely knocking it on its side. Bodies littered the concrete all around him, some her work, others left behind by Charlie and Sonia, of whom there was still no sign. His knife flashed, sinking into the soft skin under its chin, but that was not what had drawn her attention. She frowned, searching the darkness for the source of her uneasiness. Peter rose from his crouch, looking around for another target among her leavings. What was it? What had she felt? The prickle of fear intensified, became gut-wrenching; something was happening, or about to. She could feel it. Most of the bodies on the landing were still, but not all. He bent over another and prepared to drive his knife home.

She saw it happen in a blur stop-motion. Out of the blackness, an infected woman clawed its way onto the landing, scurrying forward on its stomach. It was right behind him.  _He doesn't see it!_  She stumbled down the steps toward him, trying to call out but she couldn't breathe, couldn't speak. He didn't see it! Peter yanked his knife free and stood. A coil tightened somewhere deep inside her, a knot of tension that built up in layers upon itself, a crank winding tighter and tighter. She had to stop it. She couldn't lose him, not when she might have just found him. He gazed up at her with a tired smile that slowly turned into a questioning frown. The infected woman slithered forward, zeroing in on the back of his leg. She wasn't going to make it. Its mouth opened.

"PETER!"

Olivia found her voice at the last instant, while, simultaneously, the coil inside her released all at once. As if the force of her shout held some kind of substance, the infected woman's head inexplicably snapped back with an audible crack, then lolled to the side, neck obviously broken. Peter spun around the her shout, dancing to the side, leg flying out in a desperate kick at the flailing dead woman, but it was already tumbling back down the steps.

Stunned, she followed its progress to the landing below. The crack of its neck breaking reverberated through her skull like a bouncing pinball.  _What was that? What was that?_  Her mind raced. Something had...happened. She had done something. Her shout had...affected it, somehow.  _I felt it._ _That's impossible._ She felt herself falling into that dark place again, like the night on the bridge. When she had gone to that  _other_  Boston. Something impossible had happened then, too.

"Well, that was disturbingly close...thanks for the...warning." She became aware of Peter standing next to her, eyes fixed on the dead woman. Had he seen what had happened? His face flickered with confusion as he glanced between the infected woman and herself. She had a sneaking suspicion that he sensed something was amiss. The infected was pulling itself up the steps again, head dangling like a pendulum between its shoulder blades. "They're nothing if not persistent." He shook his head, then appeared to notice her state of shock. "Hey, you all right?" A furrow of concern ran across his brow.

Olivia nodded, still too stunned to speak.  _What's happening to me?_  "Peter, I...I..." she whispered, putting a hand to her head. A wave of dizziness sent her staggering against the railing. Her legs wobbled dangerously, suddenly unsuited for the task of holding her weight.

"Olivia...?" Peter reached out a hand to steady her.

Lights flashed in the stairwell from above, glints of red that refracted strangely in her vision. She blinked, trying to clear her head, which felt like a balloon on her shoulders, attached by a string and just as empty. Accompanying the lights was the rush of footsteps. Charlie's voice called out. She heard her name, and Peter's, and then she was looking up at him. She was sitting down. No, she was on her back. What was happening? The stair treads were blocks of ice through the thin fabric of her jeans. A voice called her name again. She felt a hand cupping her cheek. Peter's face loomed large in her vision, tinted red. _Peter..._ , she thought through a fuzzy haze.  _I'm so tired..._ Her eyes refused to stay open.  _We have to keep going... We have to..._ Peter's face flickered, and then darkness swept her away.

#

She woke to the sound of a door closing, and then of voices. They were close, yet distant somehow. In another room?

"... mean she just collapsed? Like she fainted?" She recognized the gruff tone at once. Charlie. "I don't understand."

"I mean she just collapsed...mid-sentence," someone else spoke. Peter. He was okay. Something relaxed inside her. "I'm not sure she fainted..." She heard a strange something in his voice. "It's probably just exhaustion—Olivia's been going nonstop since this whole thing started. It was bound to catch up with her at some point."

"What should we do?" A feminine voice. Sonia. "It's been almost an hour..."

"Nothing we can do, and considering we were planning on crashing here anyway, I say just let her sleep."

Over an hour. Olivia forced her eyes open.  _No. I'm fine. I can sleep later._ She stared up at an unfamiliar ceiling.  _Where am I?_  The apartment building. A bedroom. Thick blankets covered her to her chin. The blankets were heavy, and warm enough for an oven. The mattress beneath her felt like something out of a dream, toeing the fine line between softness and firmness in divine fashion. She flexed her toes, noticing a distinct lack of footwear. Above her, a ceiling fan with carved leaves for blades was frozen in place. Across the room was a wide window, casting a paltry light. Sunset was giving way to darkness. A long dresser sat against the wall to her right, above which hung a mirror in an intricate frame of sculptured metal. The wall on the other side of the bed had two open doors, one which led to a walk-in closet, and the other to a short hallway that ended in what looked like a large family or living room. Through the fading light she could see Peter, outlined against a sliding glass door, and the Boston skyline beyond.

_What am I going to do with you?_ she thought, studying his profile for a moment through the open door. How did she really feel about him? Things started coming back to her, their mad rush up the stairwell, the infected woman who'd caught him unaware. It had been about to sink its teeth into his leg. _And I...did something, didn't I?_ _Touched it, somehow_. It was impossible.  _No more impossible than the dead rising or a man that can vanish into thin air,_  she thought to herself.  _Or falling into another world..._  She couldn't think about that now; other matters took precedence. Namely, the plans they needed to make, the route they would take into the city. Whether or not she was developing a peculiar form of madness, or experiencing waking dreams or hallucinations were problems for another time.

She sat up, tossing the mound of blankets aside, and inspected herself in the mirror. Her face was clean, the blood and grime she distinctly remembered dripping in her eyes, wiped away, hair pulled free of her ponytail. The holder sat on the dresser next to her things; coat, beanie, and gloves, all carefully arranged. Her boots sat side-by-side on the carpeted floor beside the bed. Someone had tucked her in. Sonia again, she suspected, recognizing a woman's touch in the efficient placement of her belongings. She swung her legs over the side of the bed and considered grabbing her boots, but then decided against it, relishing the feel of the plush carpet through her socks; it had been ages since she'd felt such. The strange dizziness she'd experienced in the stairwell was mostly gone, and she crept down the hall to the family room, passing by another bedroom and an office, followed by an open bathroom door along the way. The apartment smelled faintly of vanilla, and struck a chord of homesickness as she stepped out into an expansive family room.

Charlie noticed her first. His eyebrows shot upward. "Liv! You're awake."

"Hey..." She moved toward them, returning Sonia's smile of surprise.

Peter turned toward her with a look of relief. "How are you feeling?" She could almost feel him weighing her movements, cataloging her condition. "You had scared me for a minute there... What happened?"

Olivia shrugged and pushed a stray lock of her hair behind her ears. From the intensity of his gaze, she wasn't sure if he was referring to her having passed out. "I'm fine. A little tired, maybe. I'm...not sure what happened. I just...got really lightheaded, all of a sudden. Maybe I haven't been eating enough lately. I feel fine now though." She avoided his searching gaze and looked around the family room, taking in the austere decor of the apartment. White was the prevailing color; carpet, walls, leather sofas arranged opposite each other. A narrow coffee table made entirely of glass sat in front of a gas fireplace with a wide television mounted on the wall above. The sliding glass door opened on a private balcony with a spectacular view across the river. Her crowbar sat against the wall next to the door to the hallway. "How did I get up here, anyway?" she asked, gazing out at the city.

"Charlie and I carried you, honey," Sonia replied. "With Peter giving us words of encouragement, of course, and opening doors along the way. We had just made it to the top when we heard your shout. You were only a few floors below us."

Charlie nodded in agreement, looking uncharacteristically guilty. "It's my fault we got separated, Liv, I thought you two were right behind us. By the time I realized you weren't, we were too far ahead, with infected above us and below."

Olivia shook off the apology. "Doesn't matter, Charlie. It's nobody's fault. And we did all right, didn't we, Peter?" she said, giving him a sideways glance. He had wandered over to the balcony door and was staring out over the city. His right hand massaged his left shoulder absently.

Peter let out an amused grunt without turning away from the window. "Sure, though to be fair, you did most of the work," he clarified. "I just cleaned up the mess."

"What's it like outside this apartment?" Olivia asked, turning the subject to safer territories. "How easy is it going to be to get out of here?"

"It ain't good," Charlie answered with a grunt. His face was grim. "We cleared most of this floor, but the stairwell is still packed with them."

"I think the entire building followed us up here, Olivia," Sonia added, looking and sounding worried. "Getting out isn't going to be easy."

"Actually, that won't be a problem at all, Sonia," Peter disagreed, turning from the glass door. "I've got a plan. It's part of why I suggested this building in the first place, just in case something like this happened."

"Oh yeah? And what's that?" Charlie said.

Peter tapped the glass door behind him. "These balconies are all offset, like a set of stairs, all the way down to the ground, more or less. We can just climb down to the street."

"Climb down? From a fifteen story building?"

"You say that like it's strange or something," Peter said with a chuckle. "Go look if you don't believe me. Even I could do it, and that's with only one good arm, Agent Francis."

Charlie eyed him doubtfully, then slid open the glass door and walked out to the balcony, with Sonia following close behind. The glass door slid shut behind them and Olivia found herself alone with Peter. Did he suspect something had happened in the stairwell? She longed to ask him, to tell someone what was happening to her, but couldn't summon the nerve or figure out how to bring it up. Not with sounding crazy, at least.

Instead, she sat down on one of the leather sofas and scrunched her toes in the thick carpet, letting the resistance ease her tension. Her mind lingered on the moment in the stairwell, replaying the instant when she'd seen the crawling infected about to take a chunk out of his leg. It was impossible, and yet she'd felt something. Something tangible. Energy was the only word she could think of to describe it; her energy. It had built up and then released in some indescribable way. The strange and sudden weakness she'd experienced had followed mere seconds later. What did it mean? Did it mean anything? Maybe it didn't. Maybe her mind was cracking. She rubbed at her eyes with increasing pressure, until colored spots danced in her vision.  _This can't be happening. It can't have happened._  She had to have imagined it. When she looked up, Peter was sitting on the adjacent couch. He wore a speculative look, eyes narrowed, the deep crease between his brows prominent.

"Are you sure you're okay, Olivia?" he said after an interval of silence. His voice was quiet, serious in a way she wasn't sure she'd ever heard before, absent all traces of his typical humor and sarcasm. "I wasn't kidding earlier, you know, you did have me worried for a few minutes." He grunted, and raked his fingers through his hair. "Actually, for more than a few minutes. Anything like that ever happen to you before?"

_Yes!_  Olivia shouted in her head. _I fell into another world!_  She took in a deep, shuddering breath and lowered her eyes to a spot on the floor. "Um..no. Nothing like that. I...I'm fine, really."  _Tell him!_  She opened her mouth, but the words wouldn't come. The glass door slid open, accompanied by a blast of cool air. She exhaled with relief at the interruption.

"I hope you're not afraid of heights, Liv," Charlie said, walking through the gap between the couches. He peeled is gloves off and tossed them on the coffee table. "'Cause that's gonna be a hell of a climb, but...I think it'll work."

Olivia put a smile on her lips. "Heights aren't a problem for me, Charlie. Did you get a look at any of the bridges over the river?"

"Nah, it's too dark to see much of anything. We're gonna have to wait until morning."

"Well, I'm glad that much ado about nothing is settled," Sonia said, glancing between them. "Now, I'm starving. Anybody checked the kitchen yet? No offense, Peter, but I don't think my stomach can tolerate any more of your and your father's...jerky, today."

"None taken," he replied, chuckling, and scratching at his beard. "Once Walter insisted on taking over, it became his baby. According to him, Gene would have wanted it that way."

Olivia grinned despite her former anxiety as Peter and the others filed out of the room. That had been a day to remember, with Walter all but in tears while overseeing the butchering of Gene alongside Peter. Rachel and Astrid had taken Ella on a walk, then put her straight to bed without allowing her downstairs to witness any of the carnage, and there had been plenty. She, Charlie, and Sonia had been covered in cow's blood from head to toe. Their clothes had to be thrown away. Peter's shoulder hadn't allowed him to participate to any great degree, and he'd remained relatively blood-free, though he had offered plenty of advice. Apparently, he had once worked at a meat processing plant, which she had a hard time picturing. Peter, the butcher? She wondered if there were any occupations he hadn't done at one time or another.

"You coming, Liv?" Charlie's voice from around the corner interrupted her musing. "There's some good stuff in here."

"I'll be right there," she replied, knees cracking as she rose to her feet. She fended off a wave of unsteadiness that dissipated after several heartbeats. Food sounded good—particularly food that wasn't Gene, of whom they had brought plenty.

#

It turned out, the apartment's former inhabitants had left the pantry well stocked with an assortment of non-perishable food items; from a large amount of canned tuna, to crackers and a massive jar of honey-roasted peanuts. In the refrigerator were bottles of water, Gatorade, and to the surprise of everyone, several untouched six-packs of beer. They dug in with a fevered gusto, and she immediately felt her strength return at the sustenance—perhaps it had been a lack of food, after all. She hoped fervently it was so.

Later, Olivia found herself seated beside Peter on the couch opposite Charlie and Sonia, nibbling on the remainders of the peanuts. A red and orange fire flickered inside the fireplace under the television. In what proved to be a stroke of luck, Sonia had made the discovery of the night; that the gas fireplace still had pressure in the lines. The fire provided some warmth, enough to raise the temperature in the room to a somewhat tolerable level. On the coffee table between them were a plethora of empty glass bottles and crushed aluminum cans. Outside, the sun had long since sunk below the horizon, leaving only the moon's light to navigate the apartment. She fell into her typical rhythm for such social situations, listening and observing more than talking, smiling at the banter, the exchange of stories, and a string of jokes told by Sonia that had her sides aching. She put what happened in the stairwell out of her mind, to be dwelt upon later.

An alcoholic haze descended, and for just a little while, she could imagine that things were normal—that this was her apartment, or Charlie's, or even Peter's, in some other reality. They might be having a dinner party, with drinks and who knew what else afterward. Rachel might be in the backroom with Ella, putting her down for the night. Was John there? In her head, he might be; he'd always enjoyed being the life of the party. Though he certainly would have had more than a little competition in the form of Peter, whose nomadic, less-than-legal lifestyle provided an excellent backdrop for all manners of tales, some of which she was sure he was exaggerating. He must have been; if he'd been living such a life, why would he have given it up to remain in Boston? Whatever Broyles had been paying him, he had to have given up much to stay.

She observed Peter's profile over the rim of her beer as he regaled them with a tale of some Iraqi oil magnate whom he'd been running a scam on, to the tune of over half a million dollars if his story was to be believed, much to the astonishment of Charlie and his wife. Sonia's eyes were wide open with disbelief, and Charlie wore a look of scandalized amusement. It pleased her to see Peter and Charlie getting along, and a camaraderie—if not quite a friendship—developing between them. As the story went on, she realized it must have taken place just prior to her meeting him. Had he really left that much money on the table? He had never mentioned it, not that it would have made the slightest difference to her; she had been determined to see him come back with her. And he had still chosen to stay.

_You're not so bad as you like to think you are, Peter_ , she thought, popping several peanuts into her mouth and then swallowing them down with a mouthful of beer.  _Not by half_. A faint smile ghosted across her lips.

The hour grew late and the fire began to flutter before finally going out. "Well, I've had enough...," Charlie announced, standing up with a tired yawn. "It's been fun. You ready to hit the sack, babe?" At his wife's nod, he pulled her to her feet, then stared down at them with a look that was unreadable in the faint light. "Well...we'll see you kids in the morning. Good night, Livvy, Peter."

"Good night guys," Sonia said over her shoulder.

"Good night," Peter and she echoed simultaneously as they disappeared down the hallway.

The bedroom door clicked shut, leaving the two of them alone in the family room with a thick silence. Olivia took another sip of beer and fell back on the cushion. She wasn't sure of the time, but her internal clock told her that it was still well before midnight, and not quite her bedtime. If she went to bed now, she would just lie awake, possibly for hours. She watched as Peter took a long pull from his beer, finishing it off in several large gulps. He threw a glance her way and caught her stare. A mischievous grin crooked his lips, which she found herself matching.

"Hey, give me some of those...," he said after a moment, nodding toward the jar of peanuts squeezed between her thighs. Olivia passed the jar over without a word and he upended a handful into his palm, then tossed several into his waiting mouth. He held up his empty beer can. "I think there's a few left in the fridge. You want another? It's my treat."

"Your treat, huh..." Olivia rolled her eyes, and her head followed suit. "Sure, I'll have another, but you don't have to get it for me."

Peter snorted and shook his head. "Olivia, I get that you're a big, tough FBI agent who doesn't need anyone's help, with anything, but I think just this once, it'll be okay if you let me help you. You did pass out while standing up not too long ago. Remember that?"

Olivia regarded him steadily, uncertain whether or not she should be offended. She decided to have a little fun with him. "So I'm big now?" she asked, putting as much ice into her tone as possible. Her cool demeanor broke after a heartbeat and laugh bubbled up from her chest. How many had she had? Five or six? Seven? She'd lost count at some point, a clear sign of her deteriorating sobriety. The state of her bladder alone was sign enough, if nothing else.

"Definitely a poor choice of words," he chuckled, moving away from the couch. "I'm getting it. Don't try to stop me, Dunham." He disappeared into the kitchen, and she heard the refrigerator door open, followed by the clinking of glass. "You want a can or a bottle?" he called out.

"Bottle, of course," Olivia said with a chuckle. Who preferred cans over bottles if given the choice? She rose to her feet, steadying herself on the arm of the couch. "I gotta pee, Peter. I'll be right back." She headed toward the bathroom without waiting for his reply. The hallway was near black, but she accomplished the task with minimal difficulties.

On her return, she found the family room empty, and the sliding door cracked partially open. Peter was out on the balcony, outlined against the night sky. Waiting for her. She watched him unobtrusively through the glass for a moment, letting her mind wander where it would. They would undoubtedly talk...and perhaps more than talk. Their collision seemed inevitable and she was tired of fighting it, tired of feeling guilty about John; he was dead, and would want her to move on. Probably not with Peter, of course, but move on just the same.  _Whatever happens, at least I won't be alone_ , she thought, then buttoned her coat.

Utter silence greeted her as she stepped outside, sliding the door shut behind her. The temperature was frigid, and the concrete surface of the balcony felt like ice through the fabric her socks. A constant, gusting wind seemed to find every gap through her coat, chilling her to the bone. The sky was perfectly cloudless and stars numbering in the billions rippled on the river's surface. The moon stood straight overhead, bathing the balcony in an incandescent radiance. She shivered and stepped up beside Peter at the railing, huddling in close in an effort to use him as a windbreak. He passed her an open beer without comment, and continued to stare out over the river at the city. Olivia took a sip, noting the deep crease above his eyes. She wondered what was on his mind, what he saw out there on the water, or if he even saw any of it. He hated the cold—he'd admitted as much earlier that day—and it seemed odd to seek out its embrace now.

"What is it, Peter?" she said softly.

"You know, we missed Thanksgiving the other day." It wasn't a question.

"Yeah, I noticed." She hadn't wanted to make a big deal out of it since no one else had mentioned it. She had never celebrated it in any meaningful way anyway, except for the odd occasion when Rachel had been in town.  _He_  had spoiled most holidays for her, long before she'd reached her tenth birthday. "Was that a big holiday in your house when you were young?"

Peter snorted as if she'd said something amusing and finally turned to face her, leaning up against the railing. "No, not really. I think my mom always found it a little bit vulgar, considering what was really being celebrated. Walter always enjoyed it though, at least the turkey cooking part of it. I'm sure you can imagine how that went."

Olivia giggled, nudging him with her shoulder. "Yeah... As bad as I'm picturing?"

"Worse, probably," he replied, flashing her a wide grin. "Imagine my father, turkeys, and lots of experimentation. Pretty much full-fledged disasters more often than not. And we never even had any guests. What about you? What were holidays like in the Dunham household?"

She took a long sip of her beer, stalling for an answer. Should she tell him how she had spent more than one of her Thanksgivings cowering in a closet alongside a crying and hysterical Rachel, while her stepfather had raged outside? How he had beaten the shit out of their mother for burning the dinner rolls? Or how about later—after she had taken matters into her own hands and ejected  _him_ out of all their lives at the business end of a snub-nosed thirty-eight—when her mother lay dying in a hospice bed, body riddled with cancer. She'd spent both Thanksgiving and Christmas in a hospital room that year. Should she tell him about those things? And what would he think if she did? Would it be sympathy in his eyes? Or horror, after she admitted what she'd done—and how she felt no guilt for having done it, and indeed would do it again, given the chance? She could already see Peter's face; the way his eyes would widen, or perhaps he would lick his lips and then lean away from her, never looking at her the same way again. It had happened before. She took the easy way out.

"Our holidays were...average, I suppose," she said, leaning forward over the railing. Below, the building spread out before her, in a staircase of balconies all the way to the street. A wide rooftop garden sat between the two wings, several floors above street level. She wished she could have seen it in the summer, when all the flowers were in bloom, the rows of hedges trimmed neatly into some semblance of order. "Nothing to write home about."

She felt Peter stir beside her. He replicated her pose, resting on his elbows, letting his beer dangle over the balcony below. "That bad, huh?" he said in a subdued tone. "I know what that's like..."

With a start, Olivia peered up at him, surprised by his perceptiveness; she thought she'd been fairly circumspect. The moon was at his back, his face cast in shadow, unreadable. The contours of his face were recognizable though—the hard panes of cheekbones, the curl of hair at the nape of his neck. He was thinner than he had been—they all were. "What gave it away?" she asked.

"Nothing, really...something I recognized in your voice, maybe." He paused, taking another drink before continuing. "My mom and Walter, they had their share of...problems. I used to listen to them argue, sometimes. It was always worse in the winter, around Christmas. My mother...she...she was an unhappy person...no matter what I..." His voice hitched, and he cleared his throat. "...Well, anyway, she used to drink a lot, even more so around the holidays."

Olivia nodded slowly, getting a clearer picture of him in her mind, of what his childhood might have been like. There was much to read between the lines, and there was more than one kind of abuse. "What happened to her—your mother?" She had never asked him about his mother before, indeed had always had the sense that his mother was the last person he wanted to talk about. But...that was then, before what had happened between them.

"She...died." His voice was flat, emotionless. "After Walter was sent to St. Claire's, and I...left Boston for good."

_He blames himself_ , she thought,  _for whatever it was that happened_. It wasn't so surprising. Many kids thought they themselves were the source of their parents' strife. She, at least, had been spared that fate. "I'm sorry," she told him truthfully.

Peter sighed and lowered his head. "It happens to the best of us," he said, and then emptied his beer in long pull that tilted his head back. When he was finished, he made an awkward throw with his right hand. The echo of the bottle shattering on the balcony far below was small and inconsequential.

"Yeah..." She gazed across the river at the jagged outline of the city. The surreal, utter blackness where there should have been a cascade of lights gave her the chills. "My mom died when I was fourteen. Breast cancer."

"What about your father? What was he like?"

Olivia peeled back one corner of her bottle's label, the paper wet with condensation. "My real father was an enlisted man, and died in a helicopter accident when I was almost four..." She tried to pierce the veil of time and summon a clear image of his face, but he was only an indistinct shadow. "I don't remember much about him, his smile, a vague impression of his laugh, my mom crying when word came of his death. Rachel was still an infant at the time. I did have a stepfather for a while, though..." She hesitated, seeing the stunned look on her stepfather's face again in her mind's eye—as she always did when she thought of him; the outraged disbelief, the blood trickling from the corner of his mouth as he collapsed in slow motion. And then she had squeezed the trigger again. How different would her life have turned out if things had gone differently—if she had pulled the trigger a final time, or not at all? "And, well...suffice to say, he was a real bastard. He used to hit my mom, hit me...when I was nine he...disappeared, and we never saw him again."

She felt Peter stiffen for a moment, but then he relaxed and shook his head slowly. "Sounds like a real piece of work," he muttered. "Men like that, they deserve whatever happens to them—something extremely painful, with any luck."

"I can't argue with that," she whispered to the rising wind. After a few minutes of silence, she hooked her arm through Peter's, and turned him away from the railing. "Let's go inside, Peter...I think my toes are frozen solid."

He glanced down at her shoe-less feet. "That's because you aren't wearing any shoes, 'Livia," he said bland voice. "You do know it's winter out here, right?"

"How perceptive of you, Peter," Olivia smirked, giving him a little jerk toward the door. "You learn that at the special school for geniuses?"

"Ouch..." Peter chuckled as she led him back inside the slightly warmer apartment. "Touché, Dunham, touché."

In the family room, she glanced between the vague outlines of the kitchen and the hallway back to the bedrooms with uncertainty. For having passed out from extreme exhaustion just several hours ago, she felt surprisingly wide awake; sleep would be a long time coming. Perhaps it was the cold air. Beside her, Peter shifted uneasily in the intervening silence. She was acutely aware of his presence at her side, of the sudden spike of tension in the room. She realized she was holding her breath, and let it out in a slow stream. "You...uh...you want another beer?" she asked, swallowing, and letting go of his arm.

Peter froze for an instant, then scratched at the side of his neck. "Well...we should probably get some sleep, don't you think?" He took a half-step away from her, looking between the sofa and love seat, then met her gaze through the darkness. "I mean, we're gonna have a long day tomorrow...but...if you want to..."

"No. No, you're right..." She nodded quickly and looked away to hide her rising disappointment. He was right, but for some reason she didn't want the night to end—the normalcy of it all was addicting. And that was what told her that it had to end, and the sooner the better. Priorities had to be kept in line. "We should get some sleep. Who knows how bad it will be tomorrow."

"Then...I guess I'll take one of these couches," he offered, pressing his hand into one of the cushions. "Seems comfortable enough, better than what we have at the lab. You see any linen closets back there?"

Olivia shook her head. "No, but there were a lot of extra blankets on the bed I woke up in. You uh...you can have a few if you want."

Peter agreed and they crept through the darkness down the hall, past the bedroom Charlie and Sonia had taken. He stopped at the restroom along the way, and Olivia continued on, feeling her way into the bedroom, where she pulled up the blinds and shoved the curtains aside to provide some illumination, enough to raise the light level a hair above pitch black. While she waited, she examined the blankets—there were no less than five layers—and decided she could part with at least two of them. She grabbed a handful and started to pull them free, but then stopped, torn, stuck in a moment of numbed indecision.

Their intersection was drawing closer, the collision inevitable. Olivia could sense it on the horizon, its impending approach, speed increasing with every moment that passed spent together. _Is this what I want?_  she asked herself. Some small part of her thought of John, and was consumed with guilt; it was far too soon, and John had despised him. Another part of her voiced numerous abstract reasons why it was a bad idea, though she recognized them as her typical self-doubt when it came to men and relationships in general. But there was another voice, equally strong, that demanded she finish what she started that day in his room at the lab; their lives were too short, too precarious to waste another day, another minute. That she had felt inexplicably drawn to Peter—practically from the very beginning, and despite her feelings for John—was undeniable, though she'd done a good job of it for a time. He was a good man beneath his layers, loyal to his family, to those he cared about, almost to a fault—even with Walter, though he would never admit it. Like herself. Either of them might be dead tomorrow...and he would never take the initiative in the way John had; it wasn't his way. She let the blankets fall from her hand as shadow that moving in the doorway, resolved into Peter's outline.

"Hey." He leaned against the door frame, making no move to enter the room.

Olivia swallowed. Her heart felt as if it might burst from her chest. Surely he could hear its pounding—she could hardly hear anything else. She had felt the same way with John, just before she'd finally given in to his advances. Only this was far worse—she was the one doing the advancing. "Hey." Somehow she managed to keep her voice steady **.**

"So that was kind of fun tonight...," he said in a voice pitched low. "For a while there, it almost felt everything was normal, you know? That the world hadn't ended. Of course, reality had to kick in at some point, but it was nice while it lasted." Olivia nodded, but couldn't summon any sort of response—she seemed incapable of forming complete thoughts. After a moment, he cleared his throat and sighed. "Uh...I guess...I guess these are the blankets?"

"Um...yeah." She motioned vaguely toward the bed.  _That's all you've got?_  she berated herself.  _Say something else, anything else!_

Peter hesitated, then stepped into the room, a featureless silhouette moving through the shadow. She could feel nervousness poring off him in waves as he stopped at the foot of the bed and reached for the blanket on top—a thick comforter that looked black, but could have been any dark color. Knowing he was nervous also should have been comforting, but it wasn't. He started to pull the blanket loose, bunching it in his arms until it came free. Then he took a backwards step toward the door. He was going.  _Say something!_  she commanded herself. Her mouth opened but no words were forthcoming.

"Well...I'll see you in the morning. Thanks for the blanket." His silhouette turned to leave. He was leaving! "Goodnight, Olivia," he said over his shoulder.

"Peter..." she managed to gasp in a hoarse whisper, half reaching after him.

He stopped outside the doorway. "What's wrong?" There was a note of alarm in his tone.

Olivia's hand lingered in the air between them. She forced the words out, one after another. "Do you...do you want to stay...with me?"

His breath hissed, and then there was utter quiet for several agonizing heartbeats. "...In here?" he asked, sounding as if he were having trouble breathing.

_No, in Charlie's room_ , she thought, somehow feeling dazed and giddy at the same time. "Don't make me say it, Peter."

"I think I have to..."

He was covering himself, leaving a back entrance for escape if things went south. Was it a habit? An instinct?  _Who was it that hurt you, Peter, to make you_ _doubt yourself so greatly?_  She wanted to know—that, and more. There would be an even exchange of information.

"You know what I mean," she countered softly.

A silence fell between them, and tension she could have cut with a knife. The rushing of blood and her hammering heartbeat filled her ears. Olivia forced herself to look away from his outline, and let her coat fall to the floor before slipping underneath the covers. She lay on her side, burying her head in the soft pillow, and waited for whatever would happen next. She had stated her intentions, and whatever followed was up to him. Her eyes came to rest on the nightstand, on a picture frame she hadn't noticed before. Two people, faces hidden in shadow. The silence stretched out, becoming almost painful. Had she been wrong after all? Her cheeks began to burn.  _Oh my god..._

Light footsteps sounded on the carpet. Were they coming or going? She couldn't tell. Holding her breath, she listened as a slight scuffing filled the air. What was he doing? She resisted the urge to look; he had to choose her—uninfluenced. The noise stopped. And then the opposite side of the bed dipped, the mattress springs creaking slightly as he slid under the covers next to her.

"I hope you know what you're doing, Olivia...," he whispered in the dark. "Are you sure about this...about me? What would Charlie say?"

Grinning at the palpable wave of relief washing over her, Olivia exhaled and rolled over to face him. He was close, within reach, but not close enough to be imposing. It was just like him, ever mindful of giving her space. Some of it would have to stop of course, or they would never get anywhere. She reached out and touched his face, running her fingers through the scruff of his beard, eliciting a slight gasp which some part of her took note of. "I don't care what Charlie would say," she told him. "And I'm not really sure about anything, Peter, not anymore. Not after what's happened to me, not everything we've seen together. But this...thing between us, I know you've felt it, and...I...I don't really want to fight it anymore. Do you?"

Peter's teeth flashed white in the moonlight. "Sweetheart...I never did want to fight it."

Olivia's lips curled into a broad smile at the endearment. He'd called her that before, under far different circumstances. She'd been a different person back then, and so had he. "Call me that one more time...I'd really like that," she breathed, leaning into him, reaching for his lips.

The kiss was tentative at first, probing, lips dry from the cold. But this time, there were no interruptions, and for the moment, no more talking was required. There were only the two of them, the give and the take, an intoxicating blur of heat and wetness, and the taste of Peter in her mouth, his smell filling her nose, and all along the length of her, softness and hardness, all boiled into one. His hands were on her waist, then under the hem of her shirt, searing her flesh with their touch. She sighed and rolled onto her back, never breaking contact with his lips, and settled his weight on top of her. Where she had been cold before, she was burning up now, toes curling from the heat. She wanted more. She yearned upward, pushing back against his weight, sliding her hands into the back of his jeans and pulling him deliciously against her.

Then, without warning Peter gasped and fell to the side, groaning and hissing a string of low, barely audible curses under his breath. Olivia shot up straight, breathing hard, and utterly confused. "Peter?" she hissed. "What's wrong? What happened?" He was on his back, squirming in a patch of moonlight, in no small amount pain. His right hand clutched at his wounded shoulder.  _Of course_ , she thought, coming back to her senses.  _How could I have forgotten that?_

"Shit...," he panted, sitting up next to her after a moment. "That really hurt..."

"Are you okay?" She reached out, putting her hand on his good shoulder.

He nodded, and shook his head ruefully. "Would you believe I forgot all about being shot?" he said, peering over at her. "And that my arm can't support my own weight yet, not without feeling like I'm being stabbed in the shoulder, at least."

Olivia considered. "I suppose I could take that as a compliment...," she said, suddenly finding the situation highly comical. The two of them seemed to have nothing but bad luck. She fell back on her pillow and giggled, which quickly escalated into a fit of stomach-wrenching laughter. She covered her mouth in an attempt to stifle the noise. When the fit subsided, she found Peter staring down at her with a mixture of wounded pride and amusement. She smiled up at him. "I'm sorry, Peter, I shouldn't be laughing at your pain."

"No, you shouldn't, Dunham," he agreed, then chuckled and fell back on the pillow next to her. "But I can't blame you, I would laugh at me if I were you... Sorry I spoiled the moment, by the way. That was unfortunate."

She searched under the covers for his hand. "There's nothing to be sorry for, Peter," she said, twining their fingers together. "... and we should probably get some sleep anyway, like you said before. There'll be other times—you can count on it."

"Tell me again why we haven't done this sooner?" he asked, scooting closer to her side of the bed.

Olivia turned on her side, pressing her back up against him. It felt good doing so, great even. Why hadn't they done it sooner? She had no answer—for him or herself. Perhaps she just hadn't been ready. They were doing it now, and that was all that mattered. She closed her eyes, relishing the feel of his arm around her waist, the wisps of breath on the back her neck. For the first time in what seemed like ages, she let herself relax, letting her guard all the way down. After a while, Peter spoke behind her.

"What did you mean earlier, Olivia," he murmured into her hair, "when you said something had happened to you? What'd you mean by that?"

Olivia experienced a brief moment of panic and froze.  _Of course he wouldn't forget that._  She had the feeling that where it concerned her, he wouldn't forget anything, ever. Reluctantly, she twisted around to face him, noses inches apart in the darkness. His breath caressed her cheek. She had to be honest with him, if they were to have any hope of making something out of what was between them. And that started with telling him the whole truth, about everything that happened. It might even feel good to tell someone.

She started her story at the bridge the night he'd been shot, with an infected woman stumbling out of the night, and left nothing out.


	13. The Calm

**December 2008**

Blinding sunlight accompanied by a crystalline stillness greeted Peter when he awoke the next morning. Squinting against the painful intrusion, he stared up at the ceiling, at the cotton-ball wisps of condensation that rose up from each breath.

As was every morning, a deep ache pulsed inside his left shoulder that no amount of rubbing or massaging could assuage. But he rubbed anyway, pressing hard with his thumb on the spot. An instant later he froze, thumb in place, as the events of the prior night began to play across his mind in a continuous stream of images, sensations and feelings.

_Olivia._

But he was alone in the room; a glance to his left confirmed his status. Had he dreamt it all, then? Twisting on his side, he took a closer look at the pillow beside him, at the disturbed blankets. The pillows were soft and feather-filled, and a curved depression ran down its center. He reached out, touching, feeling for any traces of warmth on the pillow, under the covers. It was there; the slightest, lingering heat.

Abruptly, he discovered he was grinning like a fool, and couldn't stop. So it hadn't been a dream, after all. He could still smell her, still feel her, the curve of her waist, and the heat of her satin skin against the cold of night. She was a beautiful woman, inside and out—not that he needed any confirmation of either. For a moment, he relived the stark terror mixed with stunned elation when she'd uttered the words he'd never thought to hear, never imagined he might hear cross her lips. And her lips... His mouth went dry at the memory. She'd fallen asleep in his arms.

Where was she? Doubts began to creep in then, erasing his wide grin, and leaving a cold feeling in the pit of his stomach. They had been drinking, and more than a little. He'd had at least seven or eight beers himself, and she'd kept right up with him. Had she been drunk? Maybe she regretted everything. Perhaps upon waking and finding herself sharing a bed with him, she'd fled, wanting to avoid an embarrassing and awkward situation. It would be like her, and he couldn't blame her if she had—he might have done the same in a similar situation.

Peter sat up slowly and looked around. Her things were gone from the room; coat, gloves, hat, and backpack, all missing. The cold feeling in his gut turned hollow, sinking. Why would she be interested in someone like him anyway?

Troubled by his thoughts, he threw back the blankets and slung his legs out bed. He took his time dressing for the day, pulling on a sweatshirt with a deliberate slowness, then reaching for his boots. _I can deal with awkward_ , he thought, tying off one of his shoelaces.  _If only you actually believed that, Bishop,_ a voice said in contrast. He ignored the voice, and pulled on his second boot, then paused, shoelaces in hand.

Olivia had told him something, several things—right after his bum shoulder had failed him at the worst possible moment. He could recall it all in perfect clarity, every word she'd said, every phrase, every doubt-filled hesitation, every inflection of her lovely voice. She'd been running her thumb over the back his hand as she spoke, tracing an intricate pattern in her nervousness. He could still feel it, even hours later. And the things she had told him; there'd been a desperate edge to her story, a desperateness for him to believe.

Another world, another Boston. The infected in the stairwell, and the strange...experience she had described. It all sounded utterly insane, or would have, if he hadn't seen the dead rise already. He was ready to believe anything might be possible after witnessing that. And yet she  _had_  told him, had trusted him enough to admit it without saying that she might be going mad.  _That has to mean something_ , he decided. The hollow feeling in his stomach receded slightly, a hairsbreadth.

She wasn't insane. He had seen something in the stairwell, something which he'd been unable to explain at the time. He'd heard it, the sharp crack of its neck breaking, yet had never touched it. His kick had missed, as it had already been tumbling back down the stairs. She claimed it had been her doing, knocking it back somehow, without touching it.

Peter shook his head and finished tying the knot.  _Fucking zombies apparently exist, and a man who can vanish into thin air. Why not mind powers?_  Everything was going haywire—fantasy and reality blending together like something out of a story or a movie. Walter was going to have a field day trying to explain it. If they told him. He would leave it up to her. Who knew what kind of experiments his father would want to conduct on her? That at least, he could protect her from, and would.

Voices sounded in the hallway outside the room. Charlie's deep rasp, Sonia's easy laugh. Everyone was awake.  _Time to face the music_ , he thought, pulling on his coat. He took one last glance around the room, imprinting it in his memory. He had that at least, if it had been a one-time thing.

He moved toward the kitchen and the voices, passing through the family room on the way. Empty bottles and cans littered the coffee table, evidence of their impromptu gathering the night before. Olivia's backpack lay on its side on the couch, next to her gloves and beanie. He eyed them with trepidation, swallowing down a rising nervousness, then moved into kitchen.

She was there, sitting at the island. Her back was to him, golden hair gathered into a low ponytail over the collar of her dark coat. Sonia sat on a stool at her side, with Charlie seated across from his wife, forking what looked like tuna fish into his mouth. His eyebrows rose at Peter's entrance.

"Bishop, about time you woke up," Charlie barked around a mouthful. "We need to get on the road, and daylight's wasting."

Peter caught a slight hitch in Olivia's shoulders when Charlie uttered his name; the sight was not reassuring. The butterflies in his stomach swirled into a sickening vortex. He forced a grin in place. "And good morning to you, too, Agent Francis."

The only open seat was directly across from Olivia, whose eyes were downcast, locked on her plate of tuna fish and crackers. He slid onto the stool, keeping his gaze focused on the pile of canned goods laid out in the center of the island. In his peripheral vision, her fingers twisted a loose thread from her coat sleeve, winding it tighter and tighter.

"Ignore my rude husband, Peter," Sonia said, smiling over at him, and then giving Charlie a pointed glare, who merely shook his head and dove into his breakfast. "He can be an ass in the morning. You sleep well? I slept like a dead person, an actual dead person, I mean. God, it seems like years since I've been in a real bed."

"Morning, Mrs. Francis," he said, keeping his smile in place. He noticed Olivia's fingers stop their fiddling, and got the sense that she was listening intently. "And I know what you mean, I slept like a baby..." He reached for the last can of tuna and the opener. "In fact, I think it may have been my best night sleep since I came back to Boston." He risked a glance across the island at Olivia and found her watching him through her lashes. As their eyes met, a smile formed, curling one corner of her lips. It was a knowing smile, one of unspoken secrets. The force of it struck like a blow, unraveling the knot of tension in his gut in an instant. In what was a small struggle, he kept his face clear, instead of grinning like a lovestruck idiot again. This effect she had on him was starting to get out of hand—he was a grown man after all, and not on his first rodeo. He went through the motion of opening his can of tuna, again feeling the tickle of her gaze. "What about you, Olivia?" he asked, looking up, straining to keep his voice casual. "How are you feeling this morning?"

She picked up a saltine cracker-tuna fish sandwich from her plate. "I feel good," she said with a little nod. "Great, actually. I think a good night's sleep was all I needed." She popped the cracker in her mouth, all the while maintaining her diminutive look, then passed him the package of crackers and her bottle of water. Their fingers brushed as the bottle exchanged hands, and then she was gone, pushing out of her stool. "I'm gonna go see how easy this climb is gonna be. Hurry up, Peter. I want to get out of here."

Grinning, he began to eat. Whatever else had changed between them, her impatience at least, had remained the same.

#

After breakfast, he gathered his things and stepped out onto the balcony, flinching at the cold and the massive climb ahead of them. The others were waiting at the railing, Olivia, with her ponytail streaming to the side in the face of a shearing crosswind as she peered eastward through a pair of binoculars. Charlie was at the railing next to her, his face as grim as ever. Sonia stood off to the side, looking anxious as she stared down at the cascade of balconies spread out below.

"How's it look?" he asked, striding over to them. "Any of the bridges still standing?"

Charlie grimaced and shook his head from side to side. "Not that I can see from here. Even the fucking rail bridges are out."

"Really?" he said, staring over Olivia's head to the east. "What about I-93?" The twin, inverted wye's of the suspension bridge stood tall above the horizon, even higher than they were themselves. It was a massive structure—capable of supporting ten lanes of rush-hour traffic—and one not easily brought down. Such an endeavor would have required careful planning, precise blast points, and was not something that could have been rushed and still leave the towers upright.

"It's still standing, but they've got it blocked off about halfway across. I think they were trying to trap the infected on the bridge, maybe contain them. There ain't no way we're crossing there."

"What about where you crossed on your way out of the city? On Washington Street, wasn't it?"

"Can't really see it from here," Charlie replied. "From the look of things, it wouldn't surprise me if it was no good either."

"Well...were does that leave us?" Sonia said. "So we came up here for nothing?"

"Not for nothing, Sonia," Olivia answered, lowering the binoculars. Peter reached for them and she handed them over without comment. He lifted them, and the eastern horizon filled his vision. "We know now that none of the bridges are accessible," she went on, "which leaves us three possibilities in my view. We can try the Museum of Science grounds, where the Charles narrows down to that little canal on the far side—we could probably swim if the bridge is up, or we can hope that the Washington Street Bridge your husband crossed over is still passable. The only other option I can think of is to keep heading east on this side of the river, and hope we find a decent boat. There's bound to be one in Boston Harbor somewhere." She paused, and then added, "If worse comes to worst, we can always backtrack to the bridge into Allston. I know for a fact it's still standing, though the men who shot Peter came from that direction."

Peter only half-listened as they discussed the pluses and minuses of the various routes they might take. He saw immediately what Charlie had meant about the I-93 bridge; infected numbering in the thousands swelled against a barrier of camouflaged army trucks and personnel carriers, blocking all lanes of traffic. Standing in the suspension bridge's shadow were two other bridges, a four-lane vehicle bridge and a rail bridge, holding up the tracks for trains leaving North Station across the river. Both were utterly destroyed; hunks of twisted, iron girders and rebar-laced concrete hanging askew all that remained. The carnage spoke of desperation, of last resorts. Multiple cruise missile strikes—his time in Iraq had taught him that much.  _Jesus...overkill much?_ he thought, turning his gaze on the Museum of Science in the foreground.

What few trees there were on the narrow strip of land had been razed by fire, all ground cover charred and barren of life. The structures themselves were still standing, though worse for wear. The westward facing windows were all shattered, most likely from all the concussive blasts in the area. The domed roof of the I-Max Theater caught his attention. Where it had been white, it was now a uniform grayish black. He had just taken Walter to a show there, just a week or so before the start of the outbreak; a screening of Carl Sagan's  _Cosmos_ , which had played for one weekend only. His father had been thrilled, claiming to have met the man before at some function or another back in his university days. Whether or not that was the case was up for debate, but considering Walter's other connections, it was entirely possible. He still had trouble wrapping his mind around the William Bell friendship. How had the two men ended up so many miles apart in terms of success and sanity?

Putting his father out of his mind, he swept the binoculars toward the little canal Olivia had mentioned. While far narrower than the rest of the river, it was still a good thirty or forty feet across. A short, raiseable bridge crossed over the span, he knew, though it was out of sight, hidden behind the I-Max building. In any case, the bridge was more than likely up. He recalled his time in the river, when his life's blood was draining out through a quarter-sized hole in his shoulder. The water had seemed frigid enough back then, and he could only imagine it now, with temperatures dropping below freezing daily. Freezing water did things to the body—hypothermia, weakening of the muscles, even heart attack in worst case scenarios—though he doubted any of them were at risk for that, at least. Once they made it across, getting out of their wet clothes would be paramount. And if there were infected in the area?  _Not gonna happen, Olivia_ , he thought, sweeping the view further east, following the river beyond the two destroyed bridges and the still-standing suspension bridge, toward Boston Harbor.

The view of the harbor was mostly obscured by the massive structure of the intervening suspension bridge. Patches of murky, green water reflected sunlight in the distance, through the gaps between the mass of infected populating the bridge deck, and the criss-crossing cables rising up to the towers' pinnacles. He could make out the tiny, pointed rectangles of boats tied up along the quays and bobbing in their slips. Of the Washington Street Bridge, there was no sign, as Charlie had intimated, only the street itself on the downtown side, and it disappeared behind a series of brick buildings extending out into the river and the shadow of I-93. Peter focused on the buildings, wondering what they might be, and then it came to him.

The dam. He swept the binoculars to the left, following the patches of burnt-orange masonry, until he reached the Cambridge side, where a shiver of excitement ran the length of his spin. It appeared to be intact.

Having been there on a field trip in middle school, he remembered looking down on the locks from above, watching a large yacht pass through into the harbor. He'd been looking over a guardrail. One of the boys in his class had tossed a girl's bag in the water, much to her dismay, and Peter had nearly shoved him over the edge for it, getting them both in a heap of trouble.  _Michael, you son of a bitch..._ It was not their last encounter, and the girl had always come between them, far past high school, until he'd left Boston altogether. _Tess..._ At the thought of his former girlfriend, an involuntary grin curled his lips.

"What is it, Peter?" Olivia's voice intruded on the past. "You see something?"

Lowering the binoculars, Peter wiped the smile from his face. "Maybe. I was thinking of this field trip we went on when I was in middle school, to the Charles River dam."

Olivia arched an eyebrow and pursed her lips. "A field trip?"

"Yeah, they've got these catwalks over the locks. And if you wanted to, you could—"

"You could cross over the river," she finished for him with widening eyes. "I forgot all about the dam. That might work, Peter."

"Can you even see that from here?" Charlie asked, reaching for the binoculars. He took a brief look, then passed them to his wife, who did the same. "Can't really tell what kind of shape it's in, and it's a lot farther than the museum, Peter. Hell, it's almost to the harbor. I don't know."

"I'd like to avoid getting wet, honey," Sonia said. "I'll just throw that out there. Can you imagine walking around in wet clothes in this weather? Forget about it..."

Charlie glanced between his wife and Olivia, then shrugged in defeat. "All right. Let's go then." He turned and looked over the railing. "I hope none of you are afraid of heights..."

"I don't suppose anyone checked the stairwell this morning?" Peter asked, looking down over the edge. He felt the stirrings of dizziness at the sight. The climb had seemed a lot less intimidating from the street, and later, after he had had a buzz on.

Olivia chuckled. "I did, when I woke up this morning. Not an option," she said with a shake of her head. "Why? What's the matter? You getting cold feet, Peter? This was your idea."

He felt his face grow hot in the cold air. "No, I was just...making sure. Who...uh...who's going first?"

Charlie answered by swinging one leg over the railing, and then the other. He hesitated on the other side, the toes of his boots resting on a narrow ledge. He wet his lips and stared down at the drop between his legs. "Well, here goes." He glanced back at his wife, who watching with anxious eyes. "Wish me luck, babe."

Peter and the others leaned over the railing to watch as Charlie slowly lowered himself downward. There was a tense moment when it seemed the height was too great, and he would have to let go to reach a foothold, but then his boots touched down on the banister of the balcony below, and he was in the clear.

"It's not too bad," Charlie called up at them as Olivia dropped down his backpack and baseball bat. "Sonia, you come next and I'll spot you, and we'll just work our way down to the street."

A moment later Peter found himself alone with Olivia for the first time since he'd awoken to an empty bed. She turned back from the railing and smiled slightly, meeting his gaze. It was probably a bad time, but he had to know how things stood between them, had to hear it from her mouth. He pulled her away from the railing and took her in for a moment before speaking; the flush in her cheeks, the shape of her lips, her luminous eyes. "Olivia...about last night..."

The smile vanished from her face in an instant, replaced by a mask of blank serenity. "What about it?" she asked in cautious voice.

"...Did you mean it?" he breathed.

"Did you?" she countered.

"Of course. How could I not?"

"Then why are you asking? Why would it be different for me?"

Peter coughed and glanced down at the toes of his boots, cheeks burning in the chill air. How could he explain that she was too good for him and always would be? That he'd done all manner of despicable things in his adult life before she'd tracked him down in Iraq. People had been hurt—some of them innocent. Because of him. He lifted his eyes. She was watching him, and took his breath away. "Uh, well, to be fair, we were both drinking, and you know, sometimes people—"

Olivia's widening grin stopped his voice. "Peter. I was hardly drunk." She shook her head slowly, eyes dancing with amusement, and then stepped closer and pulled his head down with a gloved hand. "I meant every word," her breath whispered in his ear. She pulled away and stared up at him. "And I don't care what you did before I met you, if that's what you're so worried about. None of that matters now. It's all in the past—in another world, really." She lifted up on her toes and brushed her lips across his in a lingering kiss that sent his blood pressure skyrocketing. "C'mon, they're waiting for us," she murmured against him.

"Right...," he sighed, closing his eyes, and letting his forehead fall against hers. Her skin burned against his. Indeed, Charlie's voice called from the balcony below, questioning, and more than a little impatient from his tone. "Let's go jump off this building. Should be right up your ally, Olivia. Remember your chase with Steig?"

"How could I forget? My knee hurt for about a month after that fall."

"Did the FBI ever find out who killed him?" Peter asked. After being subdued in a frantic chase across the Boston rooftops, the man responsible for the chemical attack on Flight 627 had been killed in his hospital bed, smothered beneath a pillow.

"Nope." Olivia shook her head and looked up at him. "We only ever determined that the time of death was sometime after he sent me on that wild goose chase to find his tape, which I never did. So the man was a liar, and a mass murderer who got what he deserved in the end. Now c'mon, we don't want to give Charlie any ideas, do we?"

That small, ghost of a smile he'd seen before in the kitchen curled Olivia's lips as she backed away from him. Peter wasn't sure what it meant, exactly, but it seemed to be for him alone.  _You may not care what I've done, sweetheart, but I do_ , he thought, drinking in the sight of her. He was not a religious man, not by any stretch of the imagination, but karma, and getting what you deserved, those things he believed in wholeheartedly. In no reality did he deserve someone like her. Not ever. But maybe, just maybe, there might be time to make up for some of it, to be a better man, to be deserving of her.

He followed her over the side, ignoring the screaming agony radiating from his shoulder as he gripped the banister and lowered himself down. When his feet finally touched down, the mounting pain was enough to make his eyes bulge and cloud with tears. Olivia was waiting below.

"You okay?" she asked, sounding concerned.

"Yep," he said, and struggled to regulate his breathing. "Piece of cake." She knew he was lying, of course. She, of all people, understood.

It was a beginning.

#

* * *

#

Freezing wind tore at Ella's coat and nipped at her ears as she trudged through the thick layer of leaves behind her mother and Astrid. The wet leaves clung to her shoes and the folded cuffs of her jeans with invisible fingers. A dirt-like smell hung in the air, pungent and sharp in her nose, strongest where the trail she followed was most disturbed.

Ella knew the smell of dirt because she had smelled dirt before, once, back in Chicago, back at her home. Back when she still had a home—and a backyard. She had neither now, though the open space between the building where she lived now and the fence along the street were sort of like a backyard. Except that everything that made her backyard fun was missing; her sandbox and toys, her swing set, and most important of all, the hiding place she'd found in the back corner, behind a row of tall bushes. It was  _her_  place, where no one ever went, not even her mom and dad, who were too big and unwilling to squeeze through the branches. All manner of stories and adventures had taken place in her little corner, sometimes with a friend, but mostly alone. Sometimes she imagined herself to be a secret agent, like her Aunt Liv, doing all manners of important things,  _classificied_  things, which she could never tell anyone about, ever. Not even her family. She had confided in her Burlap Bear, however, as it could be awfully lonely in the world of secrets and agents, and the stuffed bear seemed unlikely to give any of her secrets away. She had found a new hiding place in the covered back of one of the pickup trucks that made up the wall, but it wasn't the same—none of it was the same.

In a word, Ella was bored. Her Legos' luster had worn off, and the books Aunt Liv and Miss Sonia had brought back she could say in her head, without missing a single word.  _There's nothing to do here!_  she felt like screaming, but didn't dare—such a rude transgression would never go unpunished.

So she trailed behind them, aimlessly, kicking at the leaves, until Astrid and her mother reached the wall of cars and trucks and turned left toward the metal fence that ran along the street. Instead of following their path, Ella clambered up the wheel of a tired-looking white truck using well-practiced handholds, then onto its front. The wind was colder and stronger on top, but she was a big girl. Keeping a safe distance from her mother and Astrid, she climbed and hopped her way down the inner wall of vehicles, listening to the occasional wisps of conversation that carried over the wind.

Her mom did most of the talking. Or rather, she was asking most of the questions, and Astrid was answering them—when she knew the answer, at least. She heard mentions of her aunt, and how she was before, with her old boyfriend who'd died—if she had seemed lonely. And questions about Peter and Dr. Walter, and what working with them had been like. The two of them stopped at the red truck that held her new hiding place and leaned up against its side to talk. Ella crept closer, until she was nearly on top of them, and looking down on Astrid's curly hair and her mother's blue stocking hat. In typical grownup fashion, they appeared to have forgotten she was even there, so intent was their conversation.

Ella continued past them, climbing up a slippery windshield. She paused at her reflection staring up into the glass, hair blowing frantically in the wind. Did she look different? Older? Or maybe it was just that her face was dirty. When had she last taken a bath? It seemed like forever, but it was only before the monsters came to life. Her fingers began to sting from the coldness of the glass, and she pulled herself onto the truck's roof.

She looked over the thick wall of cars and trucks and wondered what it was even for, now that the deaders—she smiled at her new word for them—were all gone. Why did they have to stay inside? Her aunt was out there with Peter and the Francises—they'd been going out all the time since they'd left her aunt's apartment. And the bad men who'd hurt Peter didn't know where they lived; she'd heard Aunt Liv say it more than once.

Straight across from her stood the big library building, peeking through the tree branches and over the treetops. Its green-tinted roof reminded her of the big statue she'd seen on TV, the one holding the torch. The leaf-covered field between her and the library was empty and still and looked as if it might always be so. The deaders had all left, surely. Even Dr. Walter had told her so, something about mi-gra-tory patterns—whatever those were—and birds, and cycles...bikes? She hadn't understood any of it. What did the monsters have to do with a bunch of birds? Far in the distance, a dark blotch that looked like it might be a door was visible through a tangle of branches. She gazed at the dark spot with covetous yearning. Was it a door? A way inside? What was in there? She wanted to know, the need to find out wouldn't go away, hadn't subsided a tiny bit since her first glimpse of the building the day she'd arrived. Back then she'd thought it was a castle. It didn't look _that_  far.

Part of the field was out of sight, hidden behind the lab building. Was it empty too? She looked up at the lab building's topmost floor, at the row of windows under the roof line. From up there the view might be better, she decided, turning her back on the library.

Her mother and Astrid were still talking, back by the red truck. Their backs were turned, and they never noticed her approach.

"Peter was a what?" her mother gasped below. She looked angry, or at least unhappy. "Liv didn't tell me that. Why didn't she tell me that? She should have told me that from the beginning."

"You can't say anything," Astrid said, shaking her head rapidly. "I shouldn't have told you. Peter would kill me, I think. And I'm not sure Walter knows what he was doing either."

 _What are they talking about?_  Ella wondered. Something with Peter? What should Aunt Liv have told her? "What are you talking about, Mommy?" she asked, looking down on them both.

"Ella!" Her mother startled. "Where'd you come from?"

"I was just over there." She pointed back the way she'd come, then turned back to her mother. "What's wrong with Peter?"

"Nothing's wrong, sweetie, it's...complicated." Her mom looked at Astrid, who was making a funny face.

Complicated meant Mommy didn't want to tell her, or didn't think she was big enough to know—she'd learned that long ago.  _Why do you and Daddy get mad at each other, Mommy? It's complicated, Ella..._ She hugged her arms around herself and shivered so her mother could see. "My toes are cold, Mom. Can I go back inside?"

Her mother nodded. "As long as you promise to stay out of trouble. And no pestering Dr. Bishop. He's working, you know."

At that, Astrid laughed out loud, covering her mouth with a gloved hand. "Working on what, is the question," she said, still maintaining her smile. "She'll be fine by herself, won't you, Ella?" Ella nodded and climbed down from the truck wall with Astrid's help.

As she hurried away from them, scattering leaves in her wake, she heard Astrid ask her mom if she still wanted to learn how to shoot.  _A gun?_  she thought with surprise, and glanced back in time to see her mother nod. Her mom hated guns, didn't she?

Ella thought she might like to shoot a gun someday, when she was bigger, but they seemed awfully loud. Nightmares of the gunshots and explosions that had rocked her aunt's apartment still woke her at night sometimes. And sometimes she dreamt of the running to the bridge again. The bad men in the truck would be behind her, their machine gun getting louder and louder, until they drowned out everything and she woke to the darkness of their room, drowning in a well of quivering fear. She'd had another one that very morning, and the thought of it made her shiver, and a real shiver at that. They had been running for the bridge, as they always were, with the roaring of the truck behind them and dead-faced monsters lurching toward them from the sides, only it was her aunt carrying her instead of her mom, and when they'd fallen on the steps, no had come back to save them. Bony hands had reached for her, sharp fingernails stained red with blood, biting teeth and glowing, golden eyes zooming in close, filling her vision, until she'd woken, shivering, drenched in a cold sweat. She hardly ever had any nice dreams anymore, dreams of the time before, when everything had been normal. A sadness and longing for her old life swelled at the realization.

 _I don't want to be here anymore_ , she thought silently, sadly, wishing she could go back to before. _I want to go home, Mommy._

Climbing the steps up to the lab building, Ella took one look back at her mom and Astrid, and then left the daylight behind. She raced down the dim entrance corridor to the stairwell, bounding up the steps without slowing. Days earlier, and much to her dismay, her expedition to the upper floors had ended with the unfortunate discovery that they were simply mirrors of the floor below, with nothing new or interesting to see or explore. The discovery had only added to her growing boredom of her new home.

Navigating as much by feel in the blackness of the stairwell as by any other sense, she made her way to an unlocked classroom on the highest floor. Sunlight lay in diagonal slices across the desks and chairs, on top of which she climbed to get a clear view of the ground below, and the castle-like library that lay on the far side, partially visible between two closer buildings. Windswept leaves tumbled across the field in great gusts, rising and falling, scattering in the breeze, flaunting their freedom.

She looked carefully, as far as she could see for anything other than leaves moving, but there was nothing. The brownish spot she'd seen from atop the wall was in clear view, and was indeed a door. Was the door open? She couldn't be sure. How far across was the field? A mile? How long was a mile? She didn't know. All she knew for sure was that a lot places were a mile or two away—her mom and dad had told her often when she'd ask. After careful consideration, she reevaluated her estimate.

 _Less than a mile,_ she thought, watching the tree branches sway in the field below. _My preschool was a mile away—Daddy told me._ And they'd always had to drive there.

Her thoughts lingered on her preschool, on Miss Lisa whom she'd loved, and the other lady, Miss Jackie, with the thin lips, of whom she'd been more than a little scared. Were they dead? Her friends, too? Even Jolie? Were they all dead—all monsters now? Had they been eaten? Had they been scared? "I'm never going to see any of them again, am I?" Ella whispered to the rolling leaves. "Ever." The sudden finality of the thought constricted her throat, and she swallowed painfully, wiping at a sudden sting in her eyes with her coat sleeve.

And now Aunt Liv had left. And Peter and Miss Sonia. What if they didn't come back? What would they do? Who would take care of them? Astrid? Or Dr. Walter? She had never even seen him leave the lab building. Maybe it was safe now that the deaders had all walked away; maybe that was why Aunt Liv had decided to leave. Why couldn't they all have gone? Feeling glum, she sighed, and let her forehead fall against the freezing glass of the window, resting her chin on her gloved palms. None of it was fair. She wanted to go places and see new things. And have adventures—like she'd always imagined her aunt having.

The window grew cloudy where her breath hit the glass. Ella wiped at the fog with the palm of her glove, smearing it into wet streaks that squeaked faintly in the silence. As she inspected her work, a peculiar-shaped tree trunk in the field below caught her gaze. The trunk was bigger than she could wrap her arms around and had a weird, bumpy blob attached to the side facing the building. She had seen it before, had asked Dr. Walter what the strange-looking bump was. She had thought it looked like something—or someone, a face, maybe—inside the tree was trying to press its way out through the bark. But no, to her disappointment, he had told her that it was only where someone had cut off a branch a long time ago. The tree was almost right outside the lab's back door.

She started to pull away, then noticed something else down there, close to the building, mostly out of view from her perch. Patches of white peeked through layers of brown and darker brown. A lumpy shape. Something was buried in the leaves. What was it? She craned her neck, pressing her face against the window to get a better look, to little avail; the angle was too sharp. As her cheek grew numb from the cold, an idea suddenly bloomed in her mind. Ella leapt off the desk, acing the landing, then rushed back to the stairwell.

#

Ella pushed open the lab door, taking care not to let the window rattle. She closed it quietly behind her, then listened. It was dark inside, and silent. Nothing stirred among the rows of tables and countertops. Three patches of sunlight from the room's tiny windows high up one wall made a pocket of light on the far side of the room, leaving the rest cast in a gray haze that faded to black near the entrance.

Was Dr. Walter asleep still? He could be strange like that sometimes, sleeping for hours during the day, or staying awake all night.

 _No snoring_ , she thought, taking the first few hesitant steps down to the lab floor. She avoided looking to her left, into poor Gene's stall; only empty sadness lived there now. Where was Dr. Walter? She stuck her head into his room and strained against the darkness inside. "Dr. Walter?" she said softly. "Are you in here? Dr. Walter?"

There was no reply, so Ella left his bedroom behind and glanced about for any sign of the old scientist. Dr. Walter never left the lab, ever, except to visit Peter when he was hurt, and he was gone. Could he have gone outside? Maybe he'd locked himself out! Peter had removed the outside door knob—that's what he'd told her.

She started toward the back door, fingering one of the glass tubes Dr. Walter used to make his strange concoctions and mixtures on her way past. In the thick layer of gloom that shrouded the lab, the maze of glass spirals and funny-shaped containers looked like some kind of tentacle beast waiting to pounce. Once upon a time she might have even found it scary—but no longer. She'd seen things since the monsters had come; dead bodies with their insides turned out, people being eaten by not-dead people, heard their terrible screams through Aunt Liv's apartment window. The tubes were made of glass and nothing more, so she let them be, and secretly marveled at how much she and the world had changed since leaving Chicago.

When she passed by the big metal box a heavy thud echoed from somewhere close by. Startled, Ella stopped and listened, then pressed her ear to the cold metal. Nothing. She moved around to one of the box's double doors, and standing on her tippy toes, managed to pull one of heavy doors open a crack. Inside was a well of darkness that seemed never-ending, along with a funny smell that reminded her of the bathroom at her preschool.

"Dr. Walter...?" Ella just managed to say before the door's weight became too much and slipped from her grasp.

The door came crashing down with a great  _boom!_ that reverberated throughout the lab. Pain blossomed in the tip of her right pinkie, unfolding in a sharp, stinging wave that instantly enveloped her entire hand. She gasped and danced away from the metal box, squeezing her pinched finger in a crushing grip. Her vision blurred and she sucked the injured finger into her mouth, doing her best to keep a mounting flood of tears in check.

"Who's there?" a muffled voice called out. "Is that you, my old friend? Have you returned?"

Ella spun toward the voice, searching the darkness in the back corner of the room. Faint light flickered near the floor, then resolved into Dr. Walter, holding a tiny candle as he climbed the steps from his basement storage room. The basement storage room. Of course, he would be down there.

"It's only me, Dr. Walter," she said, managing to keep her voice steady. The throbbing from her finger subsided a scant amount, enough for her to examine it for blood. In the shadowy light it was difficult to see clearly, but she thought it might be okay. She wiggled it for good measure, and to her relief, was able to manage the feat. That meant it wasn't broken, didn't it?  _That's what Mommy always says_ , she thought, applying pressure as the stinging began to increase again.

"Oh. Hello, dear. I thought you might have been someone else," he said, stopping with his waist exposed above the floor line. His gaze flicked to the metal box. "Were you attempting to take a swim in the deprivation tank, young lady? I'd recognize that slam anywhere. You didn't pinch yourself, did you? Those doors are infamous. Didn't you read the sign? It's quite legible."

"Only my pinkie, a little," Ella admitted. She wondered who the old scientist thought she might have been. Were there other people around she didn't know about? "I think it's okay. There's no blood, I don't think."

Dr. Walter's eyes narrowed in the candlelight, and he motioned her closer. "I suppose I should take a look at it then, miss. If there is a cut, it wouldn't do to catch an infection, not in this wasteland of modern medicine." Obeying his request, Ella moved closer and held her hand out for his examination under the candlelight. His fingers were cold, the skin on the back of his hand lined with deep wrinkles. He pressed on her finger gently, feeling along the bone to the tip. "Doesn't appear to be bleeding. Can you move it?" he asked, and Ella wiggled it again in reply. "Excellent. I believe you'll survive. Now what were you opening the tank for? The water inside has a very high salt content. We'll have to boil it and catch the condensation if we ever intend to use any of it for drinking water. It is excellent for relaxation, however, though a bit cold at present, I suppose."

There was water in the tank? And salt? Why? "I heard a noise, Dr. Walter," she said with a shrug. "I thought you might be inside it. I did hear a noise, though. What are you doing?"

"I was merely going through some of my old things, from before," he told her, motioning with his candle. "Would you care to see? There are some old toys in one of the boxes," he coughed then, and looked terribly sad for a moment. "They belonged to Peter...to my Peter."

Without waiting to see if she were coming, he turned and disappeared down the stairwell. Ella watched the receding candlelight. The basement storage room was the one place in the building she had yet to see—it was off limits according to her mother and aunt as it was Dr. Walter's private area, like his bedroom. _He invited me himself, so it must be okay_ , she reasoned, and then followed him down, taking care to feel out each step in the darkness.

The steps descended into a smallish room lined with layers of shelves crammed full of old and wrinkled boxes. Several tables were pushed together in the middle, with even more boxes piled on top, some with their flaps hanging open, others folded shut. A smell hung in the air, one that made her think of a skunk and burning matches for some reason. Surely there were no skunks about, were there? She hesitated on the last tread, checking carefully to make sure. It seemed safe, she decided a moment later.

"Is this stuff all yours, Dr. Walter?" Ella said, taking the last step into the room.

Dr. Walter looked up from the box he was going through. "Well, yes, most of it at least. I suppose some of Belly's things may be here still. We shared the lab, you know. Not that he was ever around near the end." He reached into the box, mumbling something under his breath, something about britches, and being too big for them.

"Belly? Who's Belly? Is that a real name?"

"William Bell. My old lab partner," he explained, looking up from the box's contents. "You've never heard of him, then?" She shook her head and Dr. Walter cackled loudly and pumped his fist. Startled by his sudden enthusiasm, Ella took a step back. Was he okay? "Hah! That's magnificent news, my dear! I only wish he were here to witness it."

"Was...he your friend?" she asked.

"Oh yes," Dr. Walter nodded. "We were the best of friends, once upon a time, many years ago. Until he became more interested in money than in our research, and left me to do most of the heavy lifting while he reaped all the benefits. All while he was out 'securing funding', as he called it. Which was all utter poppycock, of course, I see that now in hindsight." His lips thinned like her daddy's used to when he got angry, and she wondered if Dr. Walter was angry too, but then he shook his head and smiled. "But enough about Belly. Here. There are some things in here you might find to your liking." He motioned toward one of the open boxes, and Ella climbed up on a nearby stool to get a look inside. It was dark, and Dr. Walter held up the little candle.

Inside the box was a jumble of old-looking toys; cars and trucks and even a bus, several action figures, and a small metal tube with golden bands on either end that caught her eye. There were also two picture frames with old photos inside, and underneath it all were several colored drawings that looked as if they had been done by someone her age. She reached for the metal tube.

It was heavier than it looked, and pieces of curved glass were stuck into both ends. The glass reminded her of the glasses Aunt Liv wore sometimes. As she turned it over in her hands, one end slid out from inside, revealing another metal tube, all covered in gold. She pushed the inner tube in and out. There was some resistance, a slight squeak, and then whatever was stopping it came free. She squinted through the eyehole, focusing on the flickering candlelight. The flame grew large in her vision, like looking though a magnifying glass.

"Ahh, the venerable spyglass," Dr. Walter said, looking on. "My Peter went through a short pirate phase when he was about your age. He used to run around with his eye patch and sword, plastic of course, shouting ' _Arrghh, matey_!' to anyone in his path." Ella giggled at the sound of his voice, and the image of a young Peter it evoked. "Of course, after he read an accounting of Barthol0mew Robert's life and true brutality, he never touched them again."

Ella lowered the spyglass and tried to sound out the strange-sounding name. "Who's that? Was he a pirate? Is he like Captain Hook?"

"Indeed he was a pirate, but not at all like the illustrious Hook, who was more a fool than anything else. No, Roberts was a cruel and vicious monster of a man who murdered and plundered most of the Atlantic in the early 1720s. He used to slice the ears off of those who dared oppose him, or tie them to the mast and have them flogged before killing them and dumping their bodies overboard for the sharks."

"Ew...that sounds gruesome," she grimaced, sliding the spyglass open and closed again. A shiver ran through her at the thought of having her ears cut off. Could you still hear with no ears? She hoped to never find out.

"Well, the world was a harsher place back then," he said. "And the open sea, even harsher still." He paused and rubbed his chin. "We're coming full circle I'm afraid, if the men who tried to kill Peter are anything to go by."

"Aunt Liv says the bad men don't know where we live," she assured him, just in case he was scared.

Dr. Walter nodded and reached into the box. "Well, I'm sure Agent Dunham knows best. The criminal element is certainly more her territory than mine."

Ella rolled the spyglass between her fingers, and pictured herself using it, taking it with her on adventures. It wasn't only pirates that used them. Explorers used them, too. She'd seen Dora use one. And Dora was no pirate—she was even nice to Swiper, and he was a big meanie. She looked up and found Dr. Walter holding one of the picture frames she'd seen in the box.

"Do you think Peter would mind if I play with this, Dr. Walter?" She held up her prize. "I promise I won't break it. Please?"

The old scientist glanced up from the picture, eyes shiny in the candlelight. "I'm quite sure Peter would have been more than happy to share his toys with you, dear," he said. His voice was quiet and sad, his face sadder still in the candlelight. "In fact, he would have loved to seen it put to good use after all these years."

"Do you miss him?" she said, sliding the spyglass into the pocket of her jeans for safekeeping.

Dr. Walter's lip trembled, as did the hand holding the picture frame. "Terribly so," he said in a whisper. His eyes fluttered closed and he took in a deep breath.

"Well...I'm sure Aunt Liv will keep them all safe." She watched him carefully, wondering why he was acting so strangely. Aunt Liv and the others had only left yesterday, after all. She lifted up on her toes and got a look at the picture in the frame. A pretty, smiling woman with dark, curly hair down to her shoulders was looking over her shoulder. The picture had been taken outside, with a large lake in the background. Behind the woman was the blurry image of a small someone playing near the water's edge. She thought it might be a boy. "Is that Peter's mommy?" she asked, settling back on the soles of her feet when the stool began to wobble.

"Yes," he swallowed and answered with a nod. "That was my Elizabeth, and Peter's mother." He turned away from her, dropping the picture frame back in the open box.

From the tone of his voice, Ella knew that something was wrong, and remembered Peter saying his mother had died a long time ago. She didn't know what to say then, felt bad for asking at all. Should she leave? Was he mad at her, or did he want to be alone now? "I'm sorry, Dr. Walter," she whispered, not sure of what else to do.

He looked back at her and smiled sadly. "Oh, it's all right, dear," he said over his shoulder. "Time catches up with us all, eventually. We all pay for our misdeeds. The universe demands balance. Perhaps we're paying mine off now."

Balance? What did he mean? He was such a strange man. She felt the weight of the spyglass in her pocket, pulling her upstairs. "Dr. Walter? What do you do when you're bored?"

"Bored? Oh, I don't know," he replied with a shrug. He lifted a box and squeezed it into a narrow open space on one of the shelves. "Read a good book, cook up a fresh batch LSD, or sometimes attempt to bend the laws of known physics. Why do you ask, child?"

"What if you'd already read all the books you had?" She didn't know what LSD was, or the physics. "What would you do then?"

"Then I suppose I'd go to the library or a bookstore and get another. A good book is food for the soul, you know."

 _A good book is food for the soul_. Ella turned the phrase over in her mind, liking the sound of it. It spoke to her on some level she'd never realized existed before that moment. Her soul needed food, didn't it? Maybe that's why she was so bored all the time. She jumped down from the stool. "Thanks, Dr. Walter," she told him. "I'm gonna go upstairs now."

He waved her away and Ella raced up the steps, leaving him behind. The lab was still dark, still silent. Her mother and Astrid must still be outside, otherwise Mommy would have been looking for her. How long would they be gone? How long did learning to shoot a gun take? It seemed awfully hard to her—with the ear-shattering bangs, the violent explosions. And scary.

She hurried past the tank to the back door and pushed it open to the cold outside. There, just a little bit away was the strange tree trunk she'd seen again upstairs. There  _was_  a face trying to press its way out, she decided. Far across the field of leafless trees was the big library building. The door she had seen before was out of sight, obscured by intervening tree-trunks. She pulled the spyglass from her pocket and peered through the spaces between the trees and branches.

The library was closer now. Faded orange and red bricks, and tall, narrow windows filled the spyglass's single lens.  _How many floors are there?_  she wondered, following the windows up to the towering roof. She tried to imagine how many books could fill such a huge space. The library near her house in Chicago had been tiny in comparison, and it had more books than any place she'd ever seen. Millions, then? Billions? She wasn't sure how much a million was, or a billion, only that they were way higher than she could count. Maybe higher than anyone could count. Surely there was something in there for her to read. The library probably had every book in the entire world! A part of her wanted to charge across the field, but she held herself still.

Lowering the spyglass, Ella checked the yard outside the door, to the left and right of the door, and across the wide field to the library. The tree branches creaked and swayed and the rustling leaves sighed as the wind gusted in small, pitiful gasps. Gene's grave lay to the left, and to her right was a smallish mound—the lump she'd noticed from the window. What was it? Something grayish-white. She glanced around the lab behind her, at the stairs down to Dr. Walter, at the entrance from the corridor, and then back to the lump in the leaves.

She was alone.

If she were fast enough, she could go see what it was and be back before anyone knew. _I can be fast_ , she thought, _really fast._ She took a step outside, then stopped, and looked back. The door would close behind her unless she found something to block it, locking her outside. Then she would have to walk around the building to the wall of cars to get back in. Where her mother and Astrid were. Not a good idea. She moved back inside, letting the door swing shut behind her.

Ella grabbed one of the head-lights off of Peter's table and shone it around for something she could use. Something small, that might not be noticed right away. A box? There was no shortage of them, certainly. Too big, she decided, spinning in place, directing the white beam of light around the lab. The coils of glass tubes and bubbles made pretty reflections of light as the beam passed over them. She smiled at the sight, then moved on. A can of food? No. Something smaller. A length of wire among the clutter of tools on Peter's table caught her eye. The wire was about as long as her arm and a little thinner than a pencil. She glanced between it and the door knob, an idea forming, an image of how it might be used to hold the door. The head-light went into her coat pocket and she grabbed the wire.

Bending it into a circle on one end, she twisted the end into a knot, then looped it over the knob and gave it a small tug. It would hold. She pushed open the door, and holding the other end of the wire, stepped outside. She hesitated then, with the door half open. Undoubtedly, her mother would be angry if she found out. Very, very angry. She almost went back, but being outside, out in the open, without a wall or barrier in sight, stiffened her resolve. And the field was empty anyway. It had been days since she'd seen any of the dead people. They had all left, all wandered off. It was safe.

So she let the door shut, carefully, making sure the length of wire she'd looped around the inside knob was exposed on the outside. She examined her work. The door was almost closed, but not quite. The end of the wire hung in the air, bent slightly, invisible at a glance. No one would know. Often, she would disappear for hours at a time while exploring the lab building.  _No one will know_ , Ella thought, nodding her head. She moved away from the building, making a path through the leaves.

Ella approached the mound, moving more and more slowly, until it was at her feet. She stared down with confusion.  _What is that?_  she wondered, frowning at what looked like grayish-white cloth visible beneath the leaves. She toed some of the leaves aside with her shoe. Was that a belt? A pair of pants? The grayish cloth suddenly became what it was: a white shirt, covered in dirt and grime, and, she saw with growing horror, reddish-brown stains that looked like blood. She brushed more of the leaves aside, then recoiled, covering her mouth.

It was a person—a dead person.

Only where there should have been a head, the neck ended in a ragged stump of torn, grayish flesh. She leaned closer, drawn downward inexorably by some unknowable force. Something was there, inside the gaping wound, something small. Many somethings that moved. Bugs? She leaned even closer, bending her knees, and was hit by a waft of rancid air that closed her throat and lurched her stomach towards her mouth. Fighting back a gag, she pinched her nose, and saw the squirming things for what they were. Not bugs, but tiny, yellowish-brown worms that twisted and squirmed and writhed. One in particular held her gaze, larger than the others, with little spikes sticking out of its ribbed skin that gripped the dead flesh. They were eating, she realized in a flash of stupefied intuition.  _Eating._

At that moment, Ella's balance gave out, and she was falling forward, onto the dead body. With a squeak, she threw a hand out to stop herself and landed in the square in the center of the headless body's chest. Her fingers sank inward, into the stained shirt, into its belly, with little resistance. Through her thin gloves she felt hard little bumps that gave way, and other things, moving things. Another wave of awful smells assaulted her nose, and all at once the worms were everywhere, oozing out of the headless neck. Horrified, in a daze, she thought of toothpaste, and how you had to squeeze one end to get it to come out. Well, she had squeezed it and they were coming out. She looked down. They were on _her_. On her shoe—it was covered in them. They moved and wriggled. She could feel them. On her shoe.

Biting back a shriek, Ella fell back on her rear, kicking frantically. The tiny worms showered down, on the leaves, on her. They landed on her coat, on her jeans, her head. Something wet landed on her cheek. A raw scream ripped through her throat. Numb and filled with revulsion, she scrambled to her feet, wiping desperately at her face.

 _I have to get away from them!_ The thought rebounded inside her head. She slapped her cheeks with both hands, her hair. Her cheeks stung in the cold.

Her feet obeyed, unbidden. She ran without direction, without seeing. The need to get as far away as she could was overpowering. Tree trunks flew by on either side. Branches scratched at her face, tugged at her coat. They snapped and cracked as she crashed through them, shielding her face. A moment later she was through the trees and in the open, in a wide expanse of tan and brown. She split the gap between two buildings. Her shoes landed on concrete for an instant—a sidewalk, concealed beneath the leaves—then on uneven, frozen ground. A wall of checkered orange and red towered in front of her and she raced toward it, seeing it, but not seeing it. Her heart fluttered, still held in panic's grip.

And then, suddenly, the world tilted and she was falling through the air, eyes wide as the ground came rushing to meet her.

She landed in a heap, breath expelling all at once in a single pain-filled grunt. Her chin banged down on something hard, and her knees and palms skidded, burned, on rough concrete. She lay still for a moment afterward, chest heaving, struggling to regain her breath. Traces of the overwhelming terror and disgust that had compelled her to run still lingered. The earthy smell of rotting leaves and dirt filled her nose. Rolling onto her back, she lifted her stinging, shaking hands up for inspection.

Her purple gloves were torn and threadbare, the left more so than the right. Angry red scrapes adorned both palms, speckled with bits of dirt and cracked leaves. Fresh blood welled in one of the larger cuts, a single rivulet that traveled the contours of her palm before disappearing beneath the fabric of her glove.

A whimper started low in her belly, then traveled upward until it came bursting out in a great sob, that was echoed loudly in the silence. She didn't want to cry, but sometimes that was all you could do. Tears welled, blurring her vision an instant later. She sat up slowly, using her elbows, and got a look at her knees. Unlike her gloves, her jeans remained whole, which did little to make her feel better. The fire burning on both knees pulsed in counterpoint to the stinging on her palms. The wind gusted, and the wet tracks running down her cheeks turned to streaks of ice.

Feeling miserable and cold, and a little foolish, Ella struggled awkwardly to her feet, sniffling, still racked by the occasional sob and quiver. She wiped her face and looked around, taking stock of her situation. A trail of disturbed leaves marked her path. She had tripped over something hidden below the leaves. She took a few tentative steps back down her path until she saw it—a low spot at the edge of the buried sidewalk. She should have been more careful, but she'd been so scared, unable to even think.

Her gaze followed her trail back toward the lab, and she experienced another moment of panic when she didn't see it right away. But then she did see it, between two brick buildings and behind a line of trees. Somehow it was small and far away. How far had she run? She turned around and gasped.

The library building she'd seen from afar towered overhead. Forgetting her injuries, her eyes followed the bricks upward toward the sky.  _It really does look like a castle_ , she thought, impressed by the sheer size of it. From the lab, the library had looked big. Up close it was huge. And it was old. The bricks were faded with age and rounded off on the corners. A line of enormous gray pillars stood atop a wide flight of steps. Between the pillars at the top of the steps was the way in; a row of dark, wooden doors. She looked all around her, completing a circle.

A white, pointed steeple rose above distant treetops. Was it a church? It might be fun to explore. She had only been to church once that she could remember, on Christmas. There had been much sitting and standing, and standing and sitting. And singing. The singing she remembered best. She had a memory of looking back and up, at the people on the balcony and their pretty voices, at the giant tubes that made the music. Her daddy had whispered that it was an organ at her question, which was sort of like the piano in Dr. Walter's lab, only different.

 _What do I do?_  She glanced down at her scuffed palms. Should she go back? But it was right there! The burning sting had faded, mostly, unless she tried to squeeze her fist. How long had she been gone? And how would she explain her torn gloves, her cuts? They would never let her outside again—not without someone with her, at least. She looked back at the library entrance, then over at the lab in the distance through the trees. The doors were probably locked, like a castle's doors would be locked, but if they weren't...maybe she could take a peek. Just for a minute, and then she would go back.  _Just for a minute._

Ella hurried up the wide steps. The pair of center doors had large glass windows, almost to the ground. One was shattered and broken, revealing a gray haze of light and unrecognizable silhouettes low to the ground inside. In the other was her approaching reflection. She reached for a handle that looked like it was made of gold and pulled, wincing at the pressure on her palm. Locked, just as she'd thought it would be. The shattered window looked inviting. She ran her fingertip over one of the jagged remnants still stuck in the frame. After a slight push, the piece of glass broke off with a quiet plink and fell to her feet.

 _Just for a minute_ , she told herself again, then stepped sideways through the broken window, and out of the light.


	14. The Storm

**The Storm**

**December 2008**

The climb down to the street was a long and difficult one, and by the end, with the sun now well above the horizon, Peter came to the conclusion that fighting his way singlehandedly through the infected in the stairwell might have been the better option.

His shoulder ached with a vengeful fury, one he suspected he'd be feeling for days, if not weeks. And his left arm felt strange also, numb in places it shouldn't. At one point, on the third or fourth floor—he couldn't recall which—it had felt like something had given way or even torn somewhere near his collarbone. Had the gunshot wound ripped open from the strain? He was afraid to check, and couldn't in front of Olivia's watchful gaze. They were making good time now, and stopping to deal with his injuries would only slow them down.

They traveled along a well-worn asphalt walking path sparsely lined with trees that hugged the river as it flowed east toward the Museum of Science, and Boston Harbor beyond. There was little talking as they walked, Olivia at his side, Charlie and Sonia just ahead, baseball bats bobbing on their shoulders. Mostly, they each huddled inside their coats and tried to stay as warm as possible. He caught Olivia's sharp hiss at the vicious crosswind blasting in from the north, and snuck a sideways glance in her direction. Her cheeks and nose were a rosy red from the bitter chill. He probably looked similar, he suspected; the left side of his face was an icicle.

 _Why couldn't the world have ended in March or April?_  he thought, and imagined the steaming temperatures of Iraq during midsummer. While it had felt like being in a pressure cooker, he would have taken the high temperatures to the frigid Boston winters any day. He shoved his hands deeper into his coat pockets and cast another covert look Olivia's way.

She wore a distant, worried look, with her lips pulled to one side as she often did when something troubled her. Was she thinking of what happened in the stairwell, or perhaps the other Boston she claimed to have visited for an instant? There was too much they didn't know. Certainly nothing like what she'd described had ever happened to him, or to anyone else as far as he knew. He heard her desperate plea again. _Why is this happening to me, Peter?_  she had whispered.  _And why now?_  She'd been lying on her side, facing him and the window, eyes gathering the scant moonlight. He'd had no answers for her, as much as he wished he had. Instead he had taken her hand—all the while still marveling that she allowed him to do so—and told her they would figure it out together.

Only he didn't have the slightest clue how to go about doing that. It was unknown territory, far outside the realms of science that he knew and was familiar with. Walter's territory, if he were being honest with himself; the world of fringe science, as Olivia had referred to it the day he'd met her—the world of fantasy and science fiction, he would have said just a few months ago. No longer. Everything had changed since then. He had changed, in ways he'd never thought possible, and most of all concerning the woman at his side.

They trudged on in silence. Black specks in the tree branches ahead resolved into a flock of sparrows that took flight as they drew near. Peter's gaze followed the birds until they disappeared behind a nearby hotel. They were the first animals he'd seen with his own eyes in weeks. What did that mean? Where had everything gone? His hypothesis that the infection also affected animals had not born any fruit, and surely they'd have been overrun by hordes of squirrels if that were the case. He thought of the barking dog and the out-of-place roar they'd heard in the distance the day before and shivered. Whatever that had been, it certainly wasn't native to Boston, or even Massachusetts from the sound of it. More of a squeal than a roar, it had struck a chord of familiarity. He'd heard something vaguely similar before, somewhere, somewhen. A zoo? On  _Animal Planet_  or some other TV show? Neither felt right, but they were closer to the mark. He was about to give up when it came to him. Not a TV show. A movie.

 _Fucking raptors_ , he thought with an uneasy grin. _Now that's all we need._

An elbow nudged his side. "What are you thinking about right now?" Olivia interrupted his thoughts. Her curious look was magnetic, and he found himself staring. Her eyebrows lifted after a moment, a faint grin curling one corner of her lips. "Peter...?"

"Sorry," he replied, tearing his gaze from her knowing gaze. "I was just thinking about that crazy roar we heard yesterday, the one that sounded like a mountain lion in heat. I was thinking it sounded familiar."

"A mountain lion in heat? Funny. I was thinking it was a bear or something. What about it?"

"You ever see Jurassic Park?"

"The dinosaur movie?" Olivia queried with a frown. "Yeah, that came out when I was in high school." She paused and gave him a searching look before going on. "You aren't about to tell me that you think it was a dinosaur, are you?"

Chuckling, he returned her nudge. "Yeah, 'cause that would be insane, right? Kind of like the dead walking."  _Or moving things with your mind_ , he added silently.

"I'm sure there's a rational explanation for all of it, Peter," she said with a surprising amount of confidence. He wondered where it came from all of a sudden. "We just haven't thought of it yet."

Peter wasn't so sure—about her assumption, or about what they were doing and where they were headed—but thought better of voicing that opinion in light of her good mood. They passed by a bench overlooking the river. Names were carved into the cracked green paint, names of men and women, some fresh, others old and painted over, but ghosts all. Just ahead, the Museum of Science grounds jutted out across the river in a thin isthmus of land. The walking path curved to the north, cutting through a corner park and then crossing over a narrow inlet off of the Charles. A multi-level parking garage extended out over the water, and one of the museum buildings also, supported by thick, concrete columns buried in the riverbed.

He spotted the parking spot against the outer wall where he had parked the wagon on their visit to the museum. Back in another world. His father had climbed on the low wall over the water in his excitement—or his newfound freedom, more likely—holding his arms out to the sides, wind-milling as if he were walking a tightrope. He recalled being furious, insisting Walter get down and stop acting like a child before he fell in the river. Parents in the vicinity had eyed them both with suspicion, holding tight to their children. He had come close to leaving Boston that day, but something had held him back. A pair of challenging green eyes, he supposed in hindsight, daring him to be better than he was. He had decided to try for another day.

For a wonder, the bridge on the Museum of Science grounds was still standing, untouched or barricaded, though such devices were hardly needed with the crooked lines of vehicles parked haphazardly across all lanes. Charlie stopped under a traffic light in the intersection after the bridge. He shaded his eyes and stared to the southeast, toward the city. Downtown was close, now, tantalizingly so. A quarter of a mile, if that far, Peter judged. Running parallel to the southeast bound street into the city were the wide concrete arches of the Green Line's elevated track. The track crossed over the Charles next to the raiseable bridge, some twenty or thirty feet above the river.

"What do you think?" Charlie said, lowering his hand and glancing back at them. "Should we check it out? It's a hell of a lot closer than the dam. There's a chance the bridge is down."

"A small chance," Olivia said, squinting in that direction. "They would have raised it if they were trying to cordon off the city, Charlie. You know they would have. But...I think it might be a good idea to look anyway. This is the closest we've been. We should be able to get an idea of the conditions on the other side."

"They may not have had the power _to_  raise it," Peter put in, still eyeing the elevated subway track. There was no way to reach the deck, short of following the track north back to its station—which wouldn't save them any time in the long run. Neither would Charlie's idea, of course, but he kept the thought to himself. "Who knows, though, maybe we'll get lucky." Privately, he doubted it

"Guys..." Sonia said suddenly. The redhead was peering toward the slit openings between the levels of the museum's parking garage. She pointed out the lowest level above the street. "Look in there."

Shapes moved inside the blackness. Slumped human shapes that moved with a slow, aimless purpose. A long ramp led from the street up to the garage's entrance where there was a ticket booth and metal gate. Peter still had a clear memory of the old black woman who'd taken his ticket on the way out. Walter had complimented her on her hair and she'd given him the stink-eye for his efforts.

"I guess it's a good thing I already visited the museum this year," he mused, taking a closer look at their surroundings, and noticing Olivia doing the same. He reminded himself not to become accustomed to the undeads' absence, as it was a condition that might easily prove fatal.

"As long as we're quiet, I don't think they're anything to worry about, babe," Charlie said. "Let's just go see what there is to see, and then we'll head for the dam if we have to."

Despite Charlie's assurance, they steered cleared of the garage. Passing through the lines of stopped traffic, they moved to the far side of the street and into the shadow of the elevated rail track where the Charles lapped at the sidewalk beyond an intricate guardrail. As the main entrance of the museum slid into view, they slowed, then finally came to a stop when the street turned black with char.

Up close, the fire damage to the museum was readily apparent; the long, brick facade scorched to near-black, metal door frames sagging from the massive heat they had endured. Much like the bombing near Olivia's apartment in Brighton, the fires had left utter devastation in their wake, along with that same lingering scent of kerosene, which still hung faintly in the air, even months later. The street had taken multiple direct hits, it seemed, reducing everything and anyone unlucky enough to be in the vicinity to fine ash. In between rows of vehicles melted into unrecognizable slag, were lumpy shapes grafted onto the bubbled asphalt. Bodies, all of them. There appeared to be hundreds, if not thousands, out in the street, and on the sidewalk outside the museum. Whether they had been infected or human, it was impossible to differentiate.

"Jesus..." Sonia breathed, surveying the desolate scene. She covered her mouth. "I never thought it could be this bad—never dreamed it, even at my worst. What was the point of any of it?"

"They were desperate...," Olivia uttered. Her face was blank of emotion, as was her voice. "Desperate men making desperate decisions while isolated from the consequences. Unlike all of us."

Peter glanced at Charlie, expecting him to make some comment in the powers-that-be's defense, but he remained silent, index and middle fingers massaging his right temple absently. His eyes screwed shut, face twisted into a grimace of pain, as a quiver, that arched his back slightly ran through the agent. He was about to say something when Charlie's eyes snapped open. He sighed and took in a huge gasp of air. Peter looked away when his gaze drifted in his direction.

He wondered what he had just witnessed. Was the man sick? Suffering some kind of fit or seizure? Neither Olivia nor his wife had noticed. He kept an eye on Charlie as they continued onward, stepping carefully through the carnage, but the older man seemed okay and the matter slipped from his mind.

It soon became apparent that the bridge was indeed up. A gray square of concrete rose above the burned-out vehicles ahead. But they continued forward anyway, determined to get an up close view of the city-side of the river. A pang of sadness went through him as they passed by the crumbled exterior wall of the planetarium building. He sighed, thinking of the times he had spent there, years ago.  _She_  had taken him—with the smell of whiskey on her breath—and they had watched Pink Floyd or some other band's music conducive to laser light shows. Back before he'd left Boston and his mother behind. He wished he would have discovered the source of her misery—and asking Walter was fruitless.

" _Peter!_ "

Olivia's low, but urgent hiss pulled Peter back to the present. Abruptly, he became aware that he was the only one of them still moving toward the upright slab of concrete. A glance back revealed the others stopped, standing next to a charred passenger bus with wide eyes and mirrored looks of alarm. Thoughts of his mother and her drinking problems, and his childhood faded into the background when he followed their gaze to the far side of the river. He'd been focused on the opposite span of bridge, which had not been raised, and had somehow missed the great number of stooped infected waiting atop it for the unwary.

"Son of a bitch," he heard Charlie utter from off to one side.

"I think that about sums it up, Agent Francis...," Peter said, stepping to the side to get a better view around the raised section of the bridge. There were more than he'd thought initially. Many more. He climbed on top of a nearby vehicle's hood and a chill ran through him at what he saw from the higher vantage point.

Sonia took a few steps backward. "They can't get over here, can they?"

No one answered.

There were hundreds of them, or thousands, more likely, filling the corridor between the police station on one corner, to the massive pier holding up the Green Line's elevated track across the street. Suddenly, he was extremely grateful for the wide chasm of the canal. The undead were blocks deep, spilling out of cross streets. It could have been a parade celebrating the fall of civilization. From their ruined clothes, most looked to have been civilians, though there was no shortage of bodies wearing the fatigues and helmets of the National Guard. Some even had weapons on their hips or strapped across their backs. He jumped backed down to the street, jostling his shoulder in the process. Wincing, he rubbed at it absently.

"I guess that explains why they tried to collapse all the bridges," he said to Olivia. Part of him couldn't blame them, but they could have certainly gone about it differently. "You don't think it's like this everywhere, do you? 'Cause I see serious problems ahead if that's the case."

Olivia shook her head. "I don't see how it could be," she replied, tucking loose hair behind her ear. She looked worried, though he doubted she would ever admit it. "There can't have been that many people left in the city, can there? It's gotta be a coincidence that they're here."

Peter wasn't so sure. He started to move forward to get a closer look at the river and felt a hand close about his right wrist.

"Peter, what are you doing?" Olivia hissed, holding him back with a light grip.

He glanced down at her hand and smiled. "Don't worry. I don't plan on jumping off if that's what you're thinking. I just want to get a look in the river."

Her eyes narrowed, but she let go, and then followed him over to the upright wall of concrete. He peered over the edge, in plain view of the infected on the other bank. Overturned vehicles sat partially submerged in the canal below. The bridge had obviously not been clear. He lifted his gaze to the undead. They appeared content, like the horde he and Olivia had seen down in the subway station, only much, much larger. Dormant—it was the only word he could think of to describe their state of stillness. Or waiting, he amended the thought. But waiting for what? The wind gusted softly, a gentle sigh in the gaps between buildings, but they seemed oblivious to its cool caress.

"Do you think they can see us?" Sonia whispered.

Peter glanced back and saw her standing just behind him, peeking around the raised section of bridge. Charlie stood a short distance away, leaning on his baseball bat, face abnormally pale. What was going on with him? He turned back to his wife.

"I don't see how they could," he told her. "Walter and l tested their visual acuity, and we're definitely out of their...their..." He trailed off as one of the infected directly across from him seemed to lose its vacuous look. Without warning, the creature took a step toward toward them and belly-flopped into the canal below, narrowly missing one of the submerged vehicles. The modest splash was deafening in the silence. "Aww shit...," was all he could think to say in the aftermath.

"You were saying, Peter?" Olivia murmured. A gloved hand covered her mouth, and from her tone, he thought she might be suppressing a laugh. He couldn't blame her.

He stared down at the figure struggling in the water, then cleared his throat and met her amused gaze. "Um...well, it probably wouldn't hurt to have done some, uh...further testing," he admitted, rubbing his neck uncomfortably.

There was another splash, and then another, as more of infected followed the first over the brink. Sonia gasped as the horde on the other side of the chasm surged forward. They were waking up. A ripple of awareness spread through them like a plague, the ring widening exponentially. The horde pushed forward, forcing those closest to the front over the rim.

"Further testing, huh? You don't say?" Olivia shook her head, and backed away from the edge as more and more of the undead took the plunge into the river. Some landed on the overturned vehicles and pulled themselves over the undercarriages toward the opposite bank. It wasn't inconceivable that with enough bodies, they might force a way across, like worker ants building a bridge. A narrow flight of steps ran down to the water level on their side of the river and there was nothing stopping them from using it. "Maybe we should get out of here," she said, glancing between the steps and in bodies in the river. "We're only egging them on."

"You'll get no arguments from me," Charlie said, taking his wife's hand. He met Peter's gaze. The color was back in the agent's cheeks, and he sounded like his normal, gruff self. "And why don't  _you_  try shouting next time, Bishop. That way the whole city'll know we're here."

Peter winced and saw Olivia smirking in his peripheral vision.  _I suppose I had that coming_ , he thought, feeling traces of heat on his cheeks.

#

After leaving the museum grounds, they continued to the northeast along the river, taking a shortcut through a riverside park. Peter had never seen it before, and understood why after reading the completion date on a sign near the park's entrance; he had been sweating inside Iraq's underbelly for the duration of its construction. The grounds were elegantly designed—or had been, before—with wide asphalt running paths lined with shrubs and flower gardens that had probably looked spectacular in the spring and summer months. An abandoned water park piqued his inner ten-year-old's curiosity, while at the same time, its obvious newness seemed almost vulgar against the backdrop of the calamity that had befallen its creators. Ahead, beyond the park, rose the towering structure of the I-93 suspension bridge and its surrounding maze of elevated on and off ramps which curled and twisted in wide, sweeping curves. They would need to pass under both in order to reach the dam, which lay just on the other side.

At some point their group had spread out, and Peter found himself alone at the front of the column, with Olivia somewhere behind him, and Charlie and Sonia even further to the rear. The sun beamed down from straight overhead, providing a warmth that was only skin deep. He flexed his toes and fingers as he walked, trying to work some feeling back into them. Despite his gloves and thick socks, the cold was pervasive, numbing. He wondered how they were going to make it through the heart of the winter, when temperatures dropped down to single digits, or even worse, down into negative number territory. It was not unheard of. The lab would freeze over; their water supplies, their food, most of which was canned goods that would not survive such low temperatures intact. Not without poisoning them, at least. And the same would happen everywhere, taking one of their major food sources with it. It was a serious problem—if they intended to stay in the city. Did they? He didn't know. Their long term plans were a subject that hadn't come up yet.

He heard footsteps in the grass behind him, then beside him. Olivia looked up with a shy smile, which he returned, feeling the faint quickening of his heart. How could she do that to him with just a look? He waited for her to speak, but she seemed content to just walk beside him in silence. And so he was content to have her there with him. A look back revealed the Francises, twenty or thirty yards behind them and well out of earshot. He and Olivia seemed to draw closer as they went, shoulders brushing occasionally, fingers also, and her smile grew wider, lighting up her face. He found himself staring more than once, taken aback by her beauty. Would he ever become accustomed to her—to _them_? It didn't seem possible. Part of him wondered if he were dreaming. Maybe he was back in the hotel room with Walter, the last three months a hallucination. He'd certainly had more than one dream in which a certain golden-haired FBI agent had been front and center.

Olivia broke their silence as they reached the first of the curling on ramps. "So you visited the museum since you came back?" she said, glancing up at him as she examined the lock on a gated fence blocking their path. "Did you go by yourself?"

Before he could answer, she put the crowbar to good use, levering it open with a grunt. Metal shrieked in protest but gave way, and they passed through, stepping into the shade under the elevated ramp. Peter scanned the shadows ahead, looking for movement in the untended weeds and underbrush. Multiple rail lines passed beneath the ramp, before crossing over the Charles and disappearing below the Fleetcenter, or whatever the hockey arena's name was currently. Or the tracks would have crossed over the river, if the bridge holding them up were still standing. The train station was just out sight to the north.

He turned to Olivia as they crossed over the first of the tracks, red with new rust. "I took Walter there a few weeks before all the shit went down."

"Really?"

She sounded startled, and if he wasn't mistaken, pleased by his admission. Why would she be pleased? "You don't have to sound  _so_  surprised, Olivia," he said. "Contrary to popular opinion, I'm not completely heartless." Walter was family—no matter what he'd done. He heard his mother's voice:  _Einai kalytero anthropo apo ton patera toy, Peter._ Well, he was trying, anyway. "They were showing an old Carl Sagan documentary in the I-Max," he continued. "Walter insisted on going. Apparently he knew the man, which I suppose I shouldn't have been shocked to find out. Of course, the visit was mostly a disaster. He almost fell in the river, and I eventually had to talk security out of throwing us out. Which was easier said than done—you ever seen a rent-a-cop on a power trip? It's not pretty." Olivia giggled, eyes twinkling in the shafts of sunlight penetrating the murk beneath the overpass. "You know, it's funny. I was this close to leaving after that...," he added, pinching his thumb and forefinger together. "Just dropping Walter off at the hotel and...driving away."

Olivia gave him a sharp glance. "Wait. You almost left?" This time there was no hiding the surprise in her voice. "You never mentioned that. What, uh... what stopped you?"

 _You did_ , he wanted to say, but it was too soon. Too new, too raw. He wasn't ready to admit such things, and didn't think she was ready to hear them. Instead, he shrugged and scrubbed a glove hand through his hair. "... I guess I'm just a glutton for punishment. I think I went to the hotel bar and got wasted instead. Those were the days, huh..." It felt like three years instead of just three short months ago.

"When was this?" Her eyes were narrowed, turned inward and thoughtful. "I don't recall us having much free time back then. At least I didn't."

"It was right after our last case, the one with the bus attack. Me and Walter were sort of in a bad place at the time." That was putting it nicely. After learning of his father's past experimentation on unwitting Harvard undergrads, he had nearly ended their arrangement, and had seriously considered sending him back to the mental institution for good. But then, inexplicably, he'd given him another chance.

She touched his hand briefly, squeezing once and then releasing him. "Well ... I'm glad you stayed, Peter. Truly."

Her eyes were steady, serious. Butterflies fluttered in his stomach. "I am too, Olivia. And not just because I'd probably be dead otherwise."

"Well, that's good to—" She broke off, giving him a scrutinizing look. "What's wrong with your shoulder?"

Peter realized he was massaging the ache through his coat again, and had been for some time. Of course she would notice, eventually. He opened his mouth to give her some canned response, but stopped short. The two of them were a _something_  now, a maybe, a possibility. Weren't they? He'd never been particularly adept navigating the hidden undercurrents of relationships. He knew this about himself, had known for a long time. Instincts to always hold something back, to guard his inner self jealously did not a good partner make. He'd been told so more than once. In his former life it had been a necessity, though it had begun before then, in some long lost memory of his childhood.

"...It doesn't feel so good," he admitted finally. "I don't think climbing down a fifteen story building did it any favors. Who knew?"

"Did it tear open?"

Her voice was sharp, intense. Was there fear in it? Fear for him? He shook his head. "I don't know. I don't think so. I think I'd know it by now if it had."

Olivia's eyes narrowed. "Let me take a look at it." She pulled him to a stop in the shadow of the suspension bridge and reached for the zipper of his coat, raising her eyebrows when he started to protest. "I'm not having you bleed out on me, Peter," she said, repeating words he'd once spoken to her in a similar situation. He was fairly sure she'd selected them for that very reason. "Not after we've come this far. Now hold still." From the look on her face, he wasn't sure if she was referring to the distance or something more intimate. Without waiting for his approval, she unzipped his coat and pulled it aside. Her touch was gentle, in contrast with her exasperated tone. She checked both entry and exit wounds before determining that he would live and zipped his coat closed just as Charlie and his wife finally caught up with them.

"What's the matter with you?" Sonia asked, glancing between them. "Are you hurt?"

"It's nothing," he told them both. "I'm fine." And he was. There was no blood, only wounded pride.

"Of course you're fine. You sound just like her," Charlie muttered, shaking his head. He nodded toward Olivia, who looked amused by the comment. "You two have definitely been spending too much time together. Let me guess, your shoulder hurts like hell, like it might have torn open or something. You got shot, Bishop. What'd you expect?"

Peter didn't answer at once, ground his teeth in irritation. The man was hardly one to speak, with whatever was clearly going on with him not out in the open either. Telling Olivia how he was feeling was one thing. He didn't owe him anything, least of all an explanation. "It just hurts, Charlie. That's all. Come on. We're not getting any closer standing here. We can be across the river in ten minutes if we hurry."

They moved into the shadows underneath the suspension bridge. The terrain was bare closest to the river, and uneven, with large rainwater runoffs gouged into the riverbank like miniature canyons. Chunks of rock and bits of gravel dotted the shore line. A sickly odor filled the air; rotting fish and death. It didn't take long for them to find the source of the smell: infected, lying in jumbled clumps, here and there. Several were alive, but most were dead, bodies broken, fractured bones protruding from beneath tattered clothing. Those few that were still alive were horribly maimed, barely able to move and easily dispatched by bat, crowbar, and knife. In light of Charlie's comment, Peter made sure he did his part.

Olivia wiped the tip of her crowbar on the shirt of a dead woman, then stared up the bridge overhead. "What do you think? They fell over the guardrail?"

"Must've landed on their heads," Charlie agreed, poking one of them with the end of his bat. The undead man's head was flattened on top, with bits of crushed skull and decaying brain matter evident.

"It's kind of creepy, knowing they're all right above us right now," Sonia said softly, as if they might be able to hear her voice. "There are like ten thousand of them up there."

Peter had to agree, and eyed the underside of the deck nervously. He imagined something drawing their attention, and a waterfall of bodies spilling over the side, like they had back at the canal. Undead raining from the sky was an experience he could do without. He felt better after they moved out from under the bridge and back into the sunlight.

The dam was just ahead, across a wide field of sparse grass. They crossed the field at a brisk pace, passing by another park he had no memory of, before coming to the barren visitor's parking lot on the near end of the dam's main building. Miraculously, the structure was undamaged; a rectangular block of brick and mortar was untouched by fire or any other engine of destruction. From street level, the catwalks over the locks were in clear view, and the way across open. A flight of steps led down to a public mezzanine overlooking the river.

Peter dimly remembered being there, years ago, leaning over the guardrail, dark swirls of water flowing past below. Michael, Tess, and the other kids in his grade feigning interest, teachers herding them this way or that, droning voices filled with false excitement. He'd been bored with all of it, even back then. The suspension bridge obscured the view of Cambridge to the west. The bridge was new, and not part of his remembrance. They reached the spot where the incident with Michael had taken place, marked in his memory by a rusted manhole cover; she had fallen on top of it, legs askew, jean skirt falling around her hips. He had helped her up.  _I'm Tess_ , she had said, wiping embarrassed tears from her eyes. Of course, he had already known _her_  name.  _Peter Bishop._ Her smile had ignited something inside, something he'd thought might be broken.

He felt a tickle of attention, and found Olivia watching with a curious expression. What had been on his face? "You okay?" she asked.

"Yeah. I just haven't been here in years, hell, decades."

"Your field trip?"

"Yeah. Me and this kid got in a fight, right back there." He motioned toward the manhole receding behind them.

"A fight?" Her eyebrows lifted. "You were smiling. I guess you won then?"

"You might say that," he admitted. "There was a girl—he was messing with her. I helped her out."

Olivia shifted the crowbar to her other shoulder and eyed him askance, head tilted to one side. "Oh, I see. A girl...," she said with a crooked smirk. "Now the smile makes sense. What was her name?"

It felt supremely strange to be talking to her about this, his past—things he never talked about. With anyone. Olivia waited for an answer, though without her usual impatience. Perhaps she too was affected by the strangeness of it.

"Spill it, Peter," Sonia ribbed from just behind them. "Who was she? Your girlfriend? Were you her knight in shining armor?"

He glanced back and saw the twinkle in her eye. Charlie was listening also, and appeared to find the conversation entertaining, lips quirked to one side. He turned back to Olivia. "Tess. Her name was Tess. And she wasn't my girlfriend..." _Not yet, at least._  That would come much later, and in typical Peter Bishop fashion, would end badly. He went on to describe how Michael Kelly had nearly ended up in the river, and how they had both ended up in detention. He got the sense that Olivia thought there might be more to the story, but she didn't press him on it.

Shortly, they reached the first of the locks at the end of the wide concourse. An opening in the guardrail funneled would-be pedestrians onto the first of three catwalks that served as a walking path to the far bank, where the city lay in waiting, closer than ever. Blackened skyscrapers soared overhead, now only blocks away. The Federal Building lay nestled out of sight deep within their ranks. To their right, I-93 descended in a gentle slope from the suspension bridge's heights.

Peter squinted at the infected milling about on the bridge deck. Sonia wasn't wrong about their numbers; ten thousand seemed a fair estimate. And they weren't actually trapped, he noticed with dismay, only barricaded from crossing over the river into Cambridge. There was nothing to stop them from retreating off the bridge en masse, if for instance, they became aware of a group of travelers crossing behind them. If they could cross. Conditions beyond the far bank were obscured by the descending highway and intervening buildings. From the nervous quiet that fell over the group as they stopped for lunch, he wasn't the only one to draw the same conclusion.

Lunch was salted beef, courtesy of Gene, and Ritz crackers. They ate on metal benches facing the bridge, silently, all eyes on the teeming undead. They were close; the gap between bridge and dam less than a football field. Peter chewed a tough strip of beef methodically, observing. On several occasions he noted odd perturbations run through the throng, flickers of movement that appeared— 0n the surface, at least—to be coordinated. An image of a marching band turning in step came to him, or a school of fish avoiding a predator as a single unit. The undead could be still as death itself at times...what was causing them to react now? The wind? A gentle sigh blew steadily in from the northeast. Not the wind, he decided. The wind was a constant, like static in the background. Something else then. He tore off another chunk of meat and swallowed it down with a chug of water from the bottle he and Olivia were sharing.

"What is it?" Olivia said from the bench beside him, noticing his gaze. He smiled, and wondered if she had always been able to read him so easily, or if she was just paying closer attention, now. From the ease in which she'd fooled him into coming back with her, he suspected it might be the former.

He passed her the water bottle. "I thought I saw something." Even as he spoke, it happened again. A wave of motion ran through the undead on the bridge. They turned away from the barricade of military vehicles, not in a uniform fashion, exactly, but with the barest hint of organization. Or maybe he was imagining things, placing importance on mere coincidence. It was possible; subconscious biases could creep into observations despite one's best effort to keep them at bay. "You see that?" He pointed across the gap.

"See what?" Olivia said, leaning in close enough to peer down his finger.

Charlie and Sonia looked also, peering at the infected on the bridge. The hint of organization was gone now, and their meandering stutter-steps seemed completely random. Perhaps it had been an illusion, like a stereogram, moving in and out of focus.

"I don't see anything," Charlie said at length. "Just the dead doing their thing. What'd you think they were doing?"

"They seemed like they were...reacting to something...almost as a group," Peter replied, scratching his head. Maybe he  _was_  seeing things. He shrugged. "I don't know. I guess it was nothing, an illusion, maybe."

"You sure?" Olivia gave him a sideways glance. "'Cause if you saw—"

A sudden splash from out in the river silenced whatever she'd been about to say. Peter flinched at the sudden sound and felt Olivia do the same. Springing off the bench, he hurried over to the guardrail. Out in the river, a figure bobbed up and down beneath the bridge, splashing weakly. Even as the undead disappeared below the surface, another tumbled into view, a silent missile plummeting lazily toward the water. The body struck with a great clap, landing flat on its back, and unlike the first, did not move. Another body followed, and then another. Their splashes echoed staccato across the water.

"Why are they doing that?" Sonia asked. Her voice was shrill, fingers curled around the rail in a white-knuckled grip. "I mean, why are they doing that, right now, while we're watching? What are the chances of that happening?"

"Well...we saw the bodies on the shore," Olivia said carefully, eyes narrowed on the water. "They must fall off sometimes, Sonia, maybe...maybe they got pushed off by the rest...?"

Another body smacked into the river. Peter lifted his gaze from the water to the mass of infected above. Those nearest the guardrail were moving, shifting, pressing forward against the barricade of camouflaged personnel carriers blocking all lanes. Suddenly, a body seemed to leap into the air, momentum carrying it over the guardrail. It streaked toward the water.

Peter blinked and felt his mouth go dry. He glanced at the others, but none of them had noticed. He focused on the spot from where the infected had fallen. There was something up there, something dark moving, lashing out among them. Something big. Was that a  _tail_? A paralyzing fear flooded his senses. Impossible. It was impossible. Another body went flying, further away from the first, before he snapped out of it. They still hadn't seen. They were focused on the water below. He lunged for his backpack, ignoring his protesting shoulder as he shrugged its straps into place, then grabbed Olivia's and shoved it into her arms.

"What are you doing?" she said, startled by his sudden, rapid motion. "Peter?"

"We should go, Olivia," he stated, nodding, looking over her shoulder at the bridge deck. The infected surged against the barricade, reaching, grabbing at something large and sleek, slithering, crawling sideways over the front end of a truck; a black silhouette against tan camouflage. The sinuous, almost lizard-like way it moved struck a primal chord somewhere, deep inside; an overwhelming urge for flight. An almost ancestral urge, he would think later, hearkening back to the days when mankind more often than not was on the losing end of the predator-prey relationship.  _What the fuck is that?_  The thought ricocheted through his head.  _What the fuck is that!_ He caught Olivia's gaze, and her green eyes widened. "Right now. There's something up there—"

"What the hell are you talking about, Bishop?" Charlie grimaced, turning away from the bridge. "That's got nothing to do with us. We need to let them calm down before we cross over the rest of the way."

"Honey, I...I...think he's right," Sonia whispered, backing away from the guardrail. Her eyes were stretched wide open, showing the whites all around. "I think we should...should...oh my god...what is that?"

The thing on the military truck stopped moving, and a guttural, unnatural screech rolled across the water. Sonia stumbled backwards, letting out a terrified shriek, partially cut off by her hands flying to her mouth. Charlie and Olivia spun around in unison, mouths agape. Peter saw what happened next clearly, in spite of the distance separating dam from bridge: a pointed head swiveled sharply, turned in their direction. He felt his hackles rise, his hair stand on end.

There came a moment of stillness then, a malevolent line of tension connecting them to the thing on the bridge. He imagined an antelope feeling something similar the instant before a lioness pounced. The undead reaching ineffectually for it might as well have not existed for all the attention it paid them. It could see them. It heard them. It knew  _they_  were there, and it was them it wanted; he felt it clearly, never more sure of anything in his life.

"What the hell is that thing?" Charlie uttered, sounding shaken, face pale in the sunlight.

Olivia seemed in shock, frozen in place. "We have to go!" Peter urged, pushing her toward the first catwalk. "Run!"

She didn't resist, other than to first grab her crowbar. Charlie and Sonia scrambled for their packs and bats, throwing them over their shoulders as they sprinted over the locks. Their feet pounded on the catwalk's iron grate. Below, in the locks, the water was brackish, covered in surface slime and algae. The lock nearest the far shore was filled with bloated bodies, some of which were still moving, but they were barely a blip on his radar. He threw furious glances back toward the thing, the creature, whatever it was, but it was out of sight, blocked by vehicles and the squirming mass of undead.

As they reached the far bank, another unnatural peal rang out, from somewhere back on the bridge. They raced out of the dam's parking lot and down a narrow street, leaving the river behind. Burned buildings rose ahead; rubble and singed vehicles in the streets below. The Federal Building lay to the southwest, hidden behind a forest of battered skyscrapers. He dimly noted the massive, green clover leaf of the Boston Celtics logo beneath a layer of ash and char on the nearest building. To their right, on the other side of a concrete barrier with pointed pilasters, I-93 sloped gently downward from the bridge and disappeared into the gaping entrance of the O'Neill Tunnel, where it would stay underground for about a mile and a half.

He looked back again, and seeing nothing, felt little comfort. He had the uncomfortable feeling that it was following them. It  _had_  seen them. Definitively. Maybe it was starving. He thought of the dog they'd heard the day before, and felt sure it was related. Perhaps it recognized that the undead were an unsuitable food source. The thought was troublesome, nagging. Had they made a mistake crossing the river? Would it have been better to turn back? And what the hell was it? It seemed far too big for its body shape. Nothing like that existed in nature that he could think of. At least, not anymore, and certainly nowhere near Boston. Maybe in the fossil record. The world had gone mad, he decided. _Stark, raving, fucking mad_.

Peter eyed the blackness escaping the tunnel, trying not to imagine what horrors might reside there. Infected wandered the paths between the lines of emerging vehicles; not nearly as many as up on the bridge, but enough. More were ahead, emerging from whatever monotony had occupied them with the lack of stimuli. They were awake and aware now, unfortunately. It was also painfully clear by their numbers that whatever had led the infected to wander out of Cambridge, the same had not taken place in the city, which made sense, considering all the barricades and demolished bridges. Disheveled figures with dead gazes lurched out of the tunnel, and around the corners of buildings and alleyways ahead. All were headed east and north toward the river, toward them, and the _thing—_ he hadn't seen it clearly enough to categorize it, yet—whose call had drawn them.

Olivia led them further into the city, ducking low beside the barrier wall of the descending highway. Intermittent cars parked haphazardly on the street provided meager cover from the approaching undead. The infected on the street seemed oblivious to their presence at the moment, but they would notice, eventually. It was inevitable. When they drew abreast of the giant Celtics' logo, another high-pitched scream cut the air behind them.

Was the thing getting closer? Charlie gasped a curse behind him as they moved faster, following the barrier wall until it ended at what had once been a tiny, but well-manicured green overlooking the tunnel entrance. Beyond the green was a wide intersection filled with stopped vehicles, bits of trash, and rubble from nearby buildings. A harsh, collective hiss rose from those infected, as they finally seemed to realize there were living among them. They changed course, zeroing in on the four humans in their midst.

"This way!" Olivia ordered, taking off at a full sprint. She led them diagonally across the grassy park to the southwest, toward a line of city buses that seemed in large part to be the cause of the congestion, blocking all lanes of traffic in the intersection. She breached a narrow, person-sized gap between two buses, and then Peter nearly bowled her over as she skidded to a sudden halt. "Stop!" she said in a strangled voice. She spun around, eyes frantic. "Go back, Peter! There's too many of them. Go back! Go back!"

Peter gaped over her shoulder, transfixed. Infected filled the street beyond the buses to the brim, from sidewalk to sidewalk, overflowing into the nearby hockey arena's parking lot. The horde started forward, having seen Olivia.  _That's just...perfect,_ came the hollow numbers dwarfed what he'd seen on the bridge, by some large order of magnitude. How many were there? Twenty thousand? Fifty? He wondered if they were part of the same crowd they'd seen across from the museum, blocks away. There seemed no end to them.

"Move, Peter!"

Her hand shoving him backwards broke the spell. Peter twisted around to find Charlie and Sonia already engaging a group of infected coming from the other direction. And more were closing in on the couple, shuffling in from the north and east. Two of the dead staggered unevenly toward Charlie's unprotected back, who was busy beating back several that were assaulting his wife. Dull, heavy clanks rang out as their aluminum bats connected with undead flesh. The fleshy crunch of bone shattering was eerie in the city's unnatural silence. The sound reminded him of splitting wood with an axe, and out of the blue a random idea bloomed; of using the old coal furnace in the lab as a wood-burning source of heat in the coming winter. He shoved the thought aside as he charged back through the gap.

"Charlie, behind you!" he called out, heading toward him. There was no reaction from Charlie, who seemed otherwise occupied, and Peter drew the heavy knife from his belt. His right hand was slowly learning to be of use, but was still far from proficient. He tried not to think about it as he quickly closed the distance between them. The nearest of the two infected—a once heavy-set female wearing a blouse that might have been pink—was reaching for the dark-haired agent as he arrived on the scene, with Olivia trailing just behind him.

With a grunt, Peter slammed his knife in an overhand arc into the back of the dead woman's head. The motion felt strange and awkward, but got the job done. The knife sank in almost to the hilt, dropping the undead in its tracks. He jerked the blade free as the body sank to the concrete. Beside him, Olivia yanked her crowbar loose from a mop of stringy, black hair, spraying blood across the front of her coat. A ring of bodies littered the pavement around Sonia and Charlie, who stood side by side, chests heaving. A hint of wildness crossed Sonia's face, but she seemed to be holding it together. For now, but not much longer, he suspected.

There was a moment of respite then, an instant, a gap, stretching between the now, and the prolonged chaos that would envelop them all seconds later. In the interval, Peter met Olivia's gaze. Lines of tension creased her face. He noticed several golden strands had escaped from beneath her beanie and were plastered to the thin layer of sweat coating her cheeks. She was achingly beautiful, even then, amid the blood and gore and the stress of the situation. But then again she'd always been beautiful to him, from the moment he had first laid eyes on her. Perhaps sensing his thoughts, the corner of her mouth lifted. And then the moment ended, and time reasserted its torrid pace.

Peter's stomach dropped as he tore his eyes from Olivia and glanced around. A wide arc of infected was closing in, surrounding them on every side but the rear. They poured through the gaps between the buses in a flood, from across the street, hobbled over the uncut grass of the green, and stumbled out of shattered storefronts and street-side cafes. So many. The only positive was that none of them were fresh, though it hardly mattered with the sheer volume.

Moving away from the buses and the approaching infected, they searched for a way out. But there was none—every avenue of escape was already crowded with scores of undead. Unflinching yellow eyes burned for them, for their flesh. The exploded eyes and biting teeth drew closer, reaching already with fingertips ragged and torn open, white bone exposed like claws. They backed away, retreating over the grass, staying shoulder to shoulder in a tight box. Next to him, Olivia readied her crowbar.

"What...what do we do?" Sonia asked, breathlessly, glancing between her husband and Olivia. There was a rising terror in her voice. "There's nowhere to go...and that...that thing's behind us."

Peter had almost forgotten it—the creature. He hadn't heard any of its calls in a while. Maybe it was gone, had given up. Maybe it had never been following them at all. He fervently hoped so, yet still felt as if a vice were closing in on them.

"I'm sorry...," Charlie said. He sounded bleak, barely audible. What he was sorry for, Peter wasn't sure. For suggesting they come into the city? His face was pale, full of hopelessness, and utterly unlike him.

"We're gonna have to fight our way through them, Charlie, find another way," Olivia said. Her eyes darted between the various groups of undead who would be on them in moments. "We can't go back, and I think the entire city is on the other side of those buses." The first of them came within reach and she sank her crowbar into its forehead, then ripped it free as it fell. "We just have to stay together!"

Her words must have had some effect, as Charlie's bat flashed in Peter's peripheral vision. There was an accompanying _thunk!_  of bone being crushed, and then Peter lost track of him, of Olivia, of everything. There was only the slim blade of his knife, and the burnished, golden irises that filled the quadrant of their little phalanx that was directly in front of him. He put out the lights in their eyes, the dead awareness, one by one, thrusting, stabbing at anything within reach. He quickly determined his left forearm could serve as a limited shield of sorts, knocking reaching hands aside. The cloud of death and decay in the air was choking, overpowering. Despite the freezing temperature, he was hot, burning up. Sweat dripped into his eyes. Hands reached in from the front, the sides. He drove his blade up under the chin of a camouflaged fellow—a former sergeant from its insignia, he noted as if from a great distance. The sergeant was replaced by a dead woman with half a face, and then a dead girl that looked as she'd been no older than twelve. He felt nothing as he shoved the knife through her forehead, putting the lights out, then moved on to the next, and the one after. He heard shouting over the harsh song of the infected, and realized it was him—that he'd been shouting wordlessly almost from the very beginning. And he wasn't the only one. Part of him sensed the others nearby, the solid thwacks of the baseball bats and the familiar tear of the crowbar's hook. Olivia's ponytail swirled in the corner of his eye to his left, a silver blur to his right, Sonia. Blood and solid matter coated his gloved hands, dollops flew through the air.

For a while, they held the undead at bay; a circle of death for any that came near. But inexorably, Peter found himself being forced backwards, away from the city, and the others with him. The numbers were too great, and they were only four. Four hundred would not have been enough. The soles of his boots crossed alternately over grass and concrete. Back they were pushed, greedy hands and biting teeth reaching in continually. His side struck something low, and he saw they'd been forced all the way back to the guardrail overlooking the I-93 tunnel. It was the end; the phalanx collapsed. There was nowhere left to go.

Metal rang on concrete to his right, and for an instant he thought someone had gone down. Not Olivia, she was still on his left, sliding her crowbar free of a sagging infected man's teeth, but one of the Francises. Then deafening gunshots erupted from that same direction. On the other side of Olivia, Charlie was blasting away with his Glock, decimating the ranks of undead closing in. Taking cue from her husband, Sonia let her bat fall, pulling her pistol from the holster on her belt. It was a matching Beretta nine-millimeter to the one he carried, salvaged from Olivia's apartment. She gripped it in both hands and fired indiscriminately into the crowd, flinching with every shot. More bodies collapsed on the sidewalk, forming a growing pile. For a moment, the husband and wife cleared a space around them, granting them a reprieve—albeit, a very short one. The sea of infected filling the square was infinite. Olivia drew her pistol and joined in as more and more replaced those that had fallen.

Peter thought about drawing his own weapon and making a last stand with them, but then hunched over instead, struggling to catch his breath. He didn't have much ammo and his aim sucked—and it wouldn't have made much difference anyway. Just a tiny drop in the bucket. They were just about finished; all that was left was the details.

His gaze fell on the highway below the guardrail, the lines of abandoned vehicles, the infected moving off the bridge toward the gunfire. The drop was far, easily twenty-five feet or so. Enough to easily break a leg or hip, or a head. A whitish, rectangular slab right below them caught his eye. He frowned at it, curious, then realized what he was looking at. A spark of hope gave him energy. Maybe it wasn't over just yet.

"Olivia," he said, grabbing her coat. She was shooting slower, taking time to aim. "Olivia!"

She let her pistol drop, and glanced his way, simultaneously ejecting the magazine and pulling another from her coat pocket. Blood streaked her forehead and cheeks, and he imagined he didn't look much different. "What? I'm kind of busy here, Peter," she said through gritted teeth, turning her attention back to the infected as she reloaded.

He pointed over the side. "Look."

Doing as he instructed, her eyes widened at once in understanding. "Charlie!" she shouted, trying to get his attention over the gunfire. The undead were closing in once more, and the dark-haired agent wore a mask of determined fury. "Charlie!"

Footsteps grated on the sidewalk beside Peter. He felt hands reaching in, and spun around driving his combat knife through the eye of a male infected who'd managed to sneak up unaware along the guardrail. Several followed behind it. The first infected sagged against him, knocking him back against the railing and spilling brackish blood the length of his arm. As he yanked the blade free, the slippery hilt slipped from his grasp, and the knife went sailing, clattering off one of the vehicles on the highway below.

The second infected surged forward, reaching over its fallen comrade for his throat. Desperate, Peter batted the hands away and jabbed the infected in the mouth with his fist, ineffectually. The undead—half its teeth were now missing, he noticed—surged forward, mouth open wide in a gaping snarl. He threw his arm up in an instinctual effort to stave it off, and the remaining teeth closed about his wrist.

"Peter!" Olivia's voice rang out from close by.

He felt sharp, increasing pressure as the teeth clamped down, working their way through the fabric of his coat. The golden eyes inches from his face were indifferent. Then a concussion next to his right ear silenced the world. The top quarter of the infected's head disintegrated, showering him with blood and hair and bits of fetid brain matter. Olivia stepped in front of him, unloading several more rounds into the undead close enough to become a problem. Peter shoved the bodies aside and looked around dazedly, holding pressure on his ear. There was nothing, no sound at all, not even the furious thumping of his heart. After several seconds the silence was replaced by a piercing ring that went on and on.

Charlie and Sonia were already over the railing, climbing down from the tall delivery truck he'd noticed below them. Charlie looked up at him, waved for Peter to come, mouth working as he shouted something unintelligible. Olivia continued firing soundlessly into the wall of infected closing in on their position. She noticed him waiting for her and motioned for him to go with a sharp gesture. He shook his head, yelling for her to come with him. Or at least he hoped he was yelling; the ringing continued in his head unabated, overriding everything. _Not a chance, sweetheart_ , he thought, watching her mow down several more undead.  _I'm not going without you._

Peter waited for her to empty the magazine, then swung his leg over the railing as she did the same. Her gaze snapped to his wrist as they prepared to jump. Flickers of some emotion she tried to suppress crossed her face; worry or sadness, he thought, being the predominant. Her eyes rose to his face, lips moving as she reached for his hand. He had no idea what she'd said, but he got the general idea: it was time to go.

They stepped off the ledge together. Something grabbed the back of his coat as he started to drop, throwing him off-balance. He mouthed a shout, twisting in the air silently. He saw Olivia's wide eyes for an instant, the blackness inside the tunnel, and then landed painfully hard on his side and back. He bounced once, and then was falling again, flying toward the pavement.

#

When Peter finally became aware of his surroundings again, he almost wished he hadn't.

The first thing he noticed was that his head hurt like a son of a bitch, like he'd been struck by one of the Francises' baseball bats. His shoulder ached also, but it was an old pain, almost a friend by now, so used to it had he become. The second thing was that he was upright, that someone was holding him—or truthfully—that someone was mostly carrying him, or half-dragging him, along. There was a tight grip on his right arm, looped over said someone's shoulder.

He came fully back to himself then, eyes flying open to utter darkness. Where was he? What had happened? He almost let himself panic then, with abstract thoughts of blindness or a serious, unthinkable injury racing through his mind. But then a swathe of red cut across his vision. Whoever was holding him up must have sensed his alertness, as the red light suddenly shined in his face.

"Relax, Peter," Charlie Francis said in a quiet, but typically gruff voice. "It's just me. Can you stand up by yourself yet? You're getting heavier by the minute."

The agent stopped and released Peter's arm, settling him back against something bumpy—a minivan, he saw, looking behind him. "Ahh...where are we?" he inquired, gingerly fingering a massive lump at the edge of his hairline. His voice echoed slightly, and the red light reflected off rows of familiar white ceramic wall tiles. The air was cool, but not exceptionally cold. They were underground. He answered his own question as everything came back to him. "The tunnel? How long was I out?" Another red light flashed further down the tunnel ahead, reflected off what looked like an aluminum baseball bat. Sonia. He looked again, noting that there was only a single red light ahead. A single light, not two. A spike of dread began twisting in his gut. "Where's Olivia? Is she okay?" he asked, searching blackness of the tunnel.

He thought he'd kept the panic from his voice, but from the wry amusement in the other man's tone, he'd failed spectacularly. "Calm down, Bishop," Charlie replied with a low chuckle. "She's still back at the tunnel entrance. You've only been out for a few minutes. Right after you did a face-plant on the concrete, we heard that...thing again. It seemed like it might be getting closer. Liv stopped to see if it was following...told me to help you. She should be catching up any minute now."

Peter was uncomfortably aware of the relief coursing through him at the news. How could this have happened so quickly? Upon further reflection, he supposed it had been happening for a long time, probably since she'd first called his name from the bottom of the stairwell in Iraq. He peered back through the darkness toward the tunnel entrance, a tiny rectangle of white light in the distance. She was waiting for whatever that thing was to arrive? The woman had balls of steel. Truth be told, it was just one of many things he admired in her.

True to Charlie's word, a red light appeared in the distance, moving toward them down the aisle between the stopped vehicles. A moment later, Olivia arrived at full sprint. She skidded to a stop a short distance from them, then came the rest of the way slowly, almost hesitantly.

"What'd you see, Liv?" Charlie said as she stepped into the circle of his light. "Is that thing following us?"

Olivia didn't answer. To Peter's surprise, she walked straight over to him and grabbed his right wrist without preamble. He felt a tremble run through her as she pulled back his coat sleeve and twisted his wrist this way and that. He'd been bitten—sort of, he recalled suddenly, making sense of her actions. How something like that could have slipped his mind he wasn't sure. Thankfully, his wrist appeared to be unblemished and bite free. After a moment, she sighed, almost inaudibly, and the tension seemed to drain out of her. Only then did she look up, meeting his gaze. Her face was cast in red shadow, but her lips trembled slightly, then broke into a smile. She gave his hand a slow squeeze, then released him.

"What the hell are you doing, Liv?" Charlie wanted to know, glancing between them. "Look at him. He's fine, other than the egg popping out of his forehead."

"He was bitten, Charlie...," Olivia said softly. She scrubbed her hands across her face. "Right before we jumped. But he's okay. It didn't break the skin."

"Jesus H. Christ on a fucking pony," Charlie breathed, running a hand through his dark hair. "You could have mentioned that, Bishop. What if you'd turned while I was dragging your sorry ass back here?"

"Would you believe I forgot until this very moment?" Peter shrugged, keeping his eyes on Olivia. The relief on her face was palpable. "It was kind of hectic back there, Agent Francis. If you'll recall."

Olivia tossed her head, cutting off further discussion. "It doesn't matter. We need to keep moving. I didn't see... _it_ , but I heard it again. I think it  _is_  getting closer." They turned as a group and stared back toward the tunnel entrance. "I did see infected, however," she continued while stepping behind Peter and unzipping his backpack. "Quite a lot of them, and all heading this way. They'll be here in less than ten minutes, maybe sooner." She rummaged around for a moment, then pulled free his head lamp. When she flicked it on, the red lamp flickered pitifully, then went out. She met his gaze. "You got any more batteries?"

He shook his head, inwardly cursing his father. "No. I don't think so. Walter's been hoarding them for one of his projects. Don't ask me what."

Her lips thinned for an instant, quirked to one side. "All right. Then stay close to me, Peter."

"Not gonna be a problem," he replied, feeling along his belt for his knife. It was missing, and then he recalled dropping it at some point in the chaos. Too late to go back for it now. He still had the Beretta, however. The pistol's weight pulled at his belt. It would do in a pinch, he supposed, until he found a suitable replacement for the knife.  _Maybe something with a little longer reach_ , he mused.

"Sonia's up ahead, Charlie?" she asked as they started away from the tunnel entrance.

"Yeah. She wanted to scout the way...," Charlie said, and then shook his head. "It's funny. You know I thought she'd be terrified down here after what happened before, on our way to the lab, and then after what we went through up top, but she's...fine. Better than fine. Almost eager."

Olivia was silent for a moment. "I guess after going through what we just went through up there, what could be down here that's any worse?"

Peter understood the sentiment. Looking death directly in the face and surviving did something to a person. Changed them. Fears were stripped away, the raw, inner core exposed to the light of day. He had seen it before, in Iraq, with some of the soldiers he'd encountered there. He had experienced it himself—they all had. And sometimes, not all the changes were for the better. He had seen that, too. He thought of the infected girl—barely more than a child—that he'd cut down without hesitation up above. He'd felt nothing at all, only numbness. Shouldn't he have felt  _something_? He wasn't sure. The line between keeping hold of one's sanity or becoming a monster as unfeeling as the infected was razor sharp. He wondered which side he fell on. He wondered how Olivia managed to walk it so well.

Ahead, in the darkness, the sweeping beam of red light that was Sonia stopped and swung back in their direction. She'd left an impressive trail of downed undead in her wake. Crushed and broken skulls aplenty were evidence of her growing proficiency. As they drew close enough to make out her slender frame, she turned and delivered a powerful overhand strike, nearly splitting an approaching infected's head in two. The body was still falling when she turned and hurried toward them, meeting them half way.

"Hey guys...," Sonia greeted as they came to a stop. She gave her husband a smile, then turned to Peter. "How's your head? It looks kind of pregnant. Your face did a good job of breaking your fall."

Olivia snorted softly at the remark. "I can honestly say it's been better," he said, giving the blonde-haired agent a dour look. "Remind me not to jump off any more bridges."

"Oh, but you landed so well, Peter," Sonia said. He felt his face warm as she shared another chuckle with Olivia at his expense.

"We can't take him anywhere can we," Olivia commented dryly, then turned serious, directing her light past Sonia, into the blackness. "What's up ahead, Sonia? You see anything? More infected?"

She wet her lips, shrugging uncertainly. "I'm not sure. I didn't _see_  anything...but..."

"But what? What is it, babe?" Charlie said, stepping close to her.

"Charlie, it smells absolutely awful further down the tunnel," she replied with a grimace, and shivered, hugging herself at the memory. "I...turned back before I got close enough to see what it was. I've never smelled anything like it before, even with all the dead bodies we've been around. I...think something really bad might've happened down here."

Her words hung in the air, and Peter exchanged glances with Olivia as an interval of uneasy silence fell over the group. He wondered what horror could possibly be next, and thought of the mass grave they'd come across on the journey to her apartment. Nothing could be worse than that, could it? He'd certainly thought so at the time. The darkness in the tunnel suddenly seemed more suffocating than it had a moment ago. Indeterminate sounds echoed off the tiled walls; odd rustling, scrapes of cloth from somewhere ahead, and the occasional metallic clangor from behind. The noises were faint, but just loud enough to remind them that they weren't alone in the abyss.

"Well, we can't go back," Olivia said finally.

When no one contradicted her, they started forward carefully, staying quiet and close together in a tight bunch. Olivia silently pointed out obstacles and trip hazards for him as they went, bodies mostly, but sometimes bits of debris fallen from overhead. Debris jarred loose from explosions above the surface, Peter supposed, as there was no other explanation for the tunnel ceiling to have suddenly begun falling apart, years before its expiration date.

The tunnel began a gentle curve to the right, toward the Federal Building and the heart of the city. The distant rustles were louder now, accompanied by light scratches from somewhere close by. Olivia's light darted for the source, searching among the rows of abandoned vehicles. The cars and trucks were all empty, doors left hanging open in their owner's haste. A lane over, a white work truck with a power company logo on the side caught Peter's eye.

"Hold up," he whispered to Olivia. Whispering seemed appropriate for some reason.

"What is it?" she replied just as softly.

"Shine your light over there," he told her, pointing toward the wide tool bin tucked up against the truck's cab in the back. "I'll be right back."

Olivia hesitated. She glanced toward Charlie and Sonia, who were moving on without them, then followed him through a gap over to the next lane. "What are you doing, Peter?" she said as he pulled himself over the truck's tailgate. A moment later she joined him in the back.

"I lost my knife back there," he explained as he examined the tool bin's latches under her light. "There's gotta be something in here that'll work."

The latches were the squeeze type, with a keyhole in the center. He tried the one on the left first and found it locked. The one on the right was open, however, and the lid swung up on ill-fitting hinges. Inside was a leather tool belt filled with numerous screw drivers, wire cutters, and other things he imagined their owner using for various tasks. He pulled free a long, flat-bladed screwdriver with a well-worn plastic handle. It would work, though it certainly wasn't ideal. He held it up to Olivia's light for her inspection.

She shook her head slightly, wrinkling her nose in disapproval. "What else is there?"

Peter lifted the tool belt and set it aside. Underneath was a plethora of larger items; loops of rope, various wrenches, a hacksaw, and several curved hand saws most likely used for clearing the smaller tree limbs from around power lines. Shoving everything aside, he zeroed in on a black, rubberized handle at the bottom of the bin, and pulled it free carefully, trying to minimize the noise.

"Hey, now this is what I'm talking about," he grinned, unsnapping the plastic cover off the blade of a small hand axe, about the length of his forearm. He tested its weight. "What do you think?"

"I think I like my crowbar," Olivia replied, grinning almost imperceptibly.

"Your crowbar?" He nodded toward the disputed weapon on her shoulder. "Don't you mean  _my_  crowbar? I want that back, Dunham."

Her grin widened wickedly, but her tone remained bland when she replied. "Nope. It ceased to be yours when you dropped it, and  _I_  picked it up."

"Dropped it? But...but I got shot. I fell in a river. I don't think that qualifies."

"Yeah...it's a shame that happened," Olivia said as if the matter were already settled, and peered past him down the tunnel. She smiled sweetly, then swung her leg over the truck's tailgate. "You ready? I wasn't kidding when I said that thing sounded like it was getting closer. And I think they're waiting for us, Peter." She dropped to the pavement without another word and strode away through the darkness.

Peter leapt down from the truck, his wide grin hidden in the tunnel's gloom. He thought about when he had first met her, how he'd secretly enjoyed their verbal sparring—well, after he'd accepted that he was staying in Boston, at least—and how he'd appreciated how she could dish it out without flinching away from a hit. Her bouts of understated humor were random, striking at any moment, even in the oddest of situations. It was one of things he liked best about her, though he would have never dared tell her, at least not before. Now though...things were different, although it certainly wasn't the time. Axe in hand, he hurried after the red beam moving away from him down the aisle. When he caught up with her a moment later the trace of a smile still curled her lips.

They noticed the first whiff of the foulness as Sonia and Charlie's forms resolved out of the blackness. The two of them were moving past a yellow Jeep sandwiched between a pickup truck and an expensive-looking Mercedes.

Sonia glanced back as they drew near. "You two get lost?" she hissed, giving him and Olivia each a suspicious look in turn. "What were you doing back there?"

"Just doing a little shopping. I found a new toy," Peter explained showing her the axe. "Courtesy of Boston Power and Lights." He looked beyond her, into the blackness of the tunnel ahead. "I assume that lovely smell in the air is the one you were talking about?"

Looking ill, Sonia nodded, already covering her mouth. "That's it. It gets worse, believe me. Just a little further ahead."

"Perfect..." Peter complained to no one in particular. "Can't wait."

After Olivia's impatient urging, they continued on in silence, moving more slowly through the ocean of murk than before by some unspoken agreement. The smell—which somehow managed to simultaneously resemble that of rotting flesh, combined with fresh vomit and excrement—grew stronger with every step. Eventually, Peter buried his nose in the sleeve of his coat, which despite being covered in undead blood, was preferable to the increasingly noxious fumes. He noticed others taking similar measures; Sonia was holding her nose outright, as was her husband, who looked disturbed. Olivia alone seemed unaffected, though by her wilting frown, it wouldn't last.

A moment later the line of cars abruptly came to an end, with cars and trucks smashed to either side of the tunnel. There was an open space, and then a line of tan Humvees emerged from the darkness, facing away from them across all lanes. The familiar outlines of heavy machine gun turrets rose from their roofs. One of the trucks was offset from the rest, as if a great weight had forced it backward. The entire open space was stained crimson with enough blood to fill several buckets, and spent shell casings by the thousands glittered gold on the concrete, all plastered in place. A trail of many upon many overlapping footprints led out of the bloody area and dispersed among the lines of stopped vehicles.

The toxic smell was overpowering now, making the simple act of breathing a difficult endeavor. There was no avoiding the pool of blood as they moved forward reluctantly. The coagulation made for wet, sticky sounds as it sucked at the soles of their boots.

"Holy shit...," Charlie whispered. "What is that?" He pointed to the concrete near the trucks, where a number of lumpy, unrecognizable shapes wearing camouflage were protruding from the concrete. "Are those...?"

"I think so," Olivia said, swallowing audibly, staring down at the nearest of them. "I think...I think they were eaten...and then trampled."

Sonia approached one of the flattened bodies and gazed down with bulging eyes. A tremor ran through the older woman as she backed away, pressing her back up against the tile of the tunnel. Her mouth worked silently. She looked as if she were about to be sick, and Peter couldn't blame her in the slightest.

 _Flatter than a fucking pancake_ , he thought, taking one glance at the bodies and turning away.  _There are not even enough of them left_ to _turn._  His stomach heaved violently, and for a moment it seemed as if his breakfast might be making an appearance. Whether the soldiers had been men or women, he couldn't discern, and nothing could have convinced him to take a closer look. There were assault rifles pressed into the bloody surface around the mangled bodies, and several handguns as well. No one moved to retrieve any of the weapons.

With his inner eye, Peter could see how the scene must have unfolded: a massive firefight, soldiers holding the line against a wall of freshes as civilians fled through the tunnel behind them. The discharges would have been tremendous in the enclosed space. They would have run out of ammo for the big guns first, and then their rifles, before finally resorting to their sidearms. And then the final chaos as their positions were being overrun, the screams of the devoured, the gnashing teeth, the tearing flesh, and the endless chewing. He blinked and thrust the disturbing images away from him. It was better for his sanity to not dwell on such things. And as bad as the soldier's remains were, he didn't think they were even the source of the incredible stench.

No. There was something more ahead—something even worse. Like a premonition, he could feel it, a storm just out of sight over the horizon.

He noticed Olivia directing her light past the trucks, toward what must have been the killing ground. Perhaps she too, sensed it. She gave him a look, then stepped carefully through the mishmash of bodies. Peter followed her, cringing, trying not to think too hard on the oozing squishiness he could feel through his boots. Red lights bounced at his feet, and pulpous footsteps from behind announced Charlie and Sonia following also. He peered into the side window of the nearest truck, and saw a silhouetted body slumped in defeat over the steering wheel.

In front of the Humvees was more blood, an endless pool stretching beyond the range of Olivia's light. The toxic cloud intensified, became something almost tangible, somehow denser, and choking. There were no words sufficient to describe it. An amalgamation, maybe, or a physical manifestation, of every foul and putrescent stink the human mind could ever think of, or conjure, or even hope to process. Peter felt his gorge rising, could taste foulness, chalk-like on his tongue. There was no escaping it. The particles were inside him, he knew, microscopic invaders attaching to the membranes of his lungs, collecting in his nasal passages.

He heard someone gagging behind him. Sonia? Or Charlie. He wasn't sure. Olivia moved forward steadily, then hesitated as something came into view.

The tunnel was blocked. Partially, at least. There was a passage, a narrow canyon of sorts, between two misshapen mounds rising to either side and extending to each of the blood-spattered tile walls. They moved closer.

"Peter... you guys," Olivia uttered softly. "Look at this."

Peter stepped up beside her. "What the hell is that? Some kind of roadblock? How did it get here?" The circle of her light rested on the nearest of the mounds. He squinted at the irregular shapes and odd protrusions, unable to comprehend what he was seeing at first. But then the image abruptly came into focus, the little details popping out all at once. His breath caught in his throat.

The term killing ground was an apt name for what lay ahead them.

What he'd taken for barricades of some kind used to funnel the infected into a single corridor, were something else altogether: layers upon layers of bodies—of infected, ripped apart, torn into pulp by the heavy caliber machine guns. Olivia's light traveled over the mounds. Some of them looked to have been eaten. At their peak, the bodies reached almost up to the tunnel ceiling at the farthest edges. Individual body parts littered the pavement at the base of the piles, and in between; detached arms and legs, ropes of what looked like intestine strung about like filigree, and the occasional head kicked to the side like an afterthought. And there were other things, shapes, objects which Peter didn't recognize, but surely belonged on the inside of a body, not the outside.

"Oh my god," Sonia gasped faintly from somewhere on the other side of Olivia. "Charlie, that's...oh my god..ugh...I think I'm gonna...ugh..."

A moment later the sound of retching filled the tunnel, followed by Charlie's low whispers. An uncontrollable shiver went through Peter. All at once he felt dizzy, lightheaded. Blood pounded in his ears. There was no safe place—no sane place—to rest his eyes. There was only death and the grotesque, and the rancid stench filling his nostrils. His stomach heaved, rolled violently. In an effort to stave off disaster—and possibly even madness—he focused on something else instead. On Olivia's outline; on the curve of her cheek, glowing pink under her light and the memory of her slender frame pressed up against him the night before. Her intoxicating blend of softness and hard muscle. The heat of her skin.

Then a heavy thud rolled through the tunnel, originating somewhere behind them. The sudden noise pulled him back to the present and spurred Olivia into action. He felt a hand groping for his in the dark. "C'mon, Peter," she ordered. Her voice was harsh, as if she were speaking through clenched teeth. "We have to get out of here. Now. Charlie! Get her! Hurry!"

She yanked him forward, pulling him into the gap without waiting for a reply. High up on the ceiling, a pinkish glint in the distance caught Peter's eye. An exit sign, he realized, reflecting the red beams. Past the sign and far down the tunnel was a grayish rectangle of dim light.

A way out.

The bodies rose up on either side, towering over both of them. For an instant Peter imagined the structural integrity of the two mounds choosing that precise moment to give way, and being buried alive amid the filth and decay. He shuddered at the thought. There were infected still alive inside those mounds, still moving, striving for freedom, for flesh—he was sure of it. And any one of them might trigger a collapse. From the crushing grip Olivia had on his left hand, he thought she might be thinking the same thing. Several times he came close to tripping over something round, arms or legs, he couldn't tell which and didn't want to find out. Olivia's hand squeezed tighter, holding him steady. He kept his gaze directed forward, on the back of her head. A moment later the wall of bodies receded and they were through the gap and in the clear.

Olivia maintained her grip, leading Peter further into the Cimmerian tunnel. The scant light of the exit ramp wavered like a mirage—a promise of release. How far away was it? A quarter mile? Less? More? His spatial awareness and sense of direction were addled by the prolonged darkness. He wondered how much time had passed since they'd entered the tunnel. Surely no more than an hour, and probably less. It seemed like forever. He looked back and saw Charlie and Sonia coming out of the gap behind them. Their headlamps bobbed wildly in all directions as they hurried to catch up.

Peter frowned as they approached. "Are they running?" he wondered, glancing at Olivia, whose eyes were narrowed.

Before she could reply, the husband and wife arrived at a dead sprint. "There's something back there," Charlie said in hoarse voice. Sonia was right behind him, her face a picture of abject terror as they flew by. "It's right behind us. Run!"

Even as the agent gave the warning, a hissing screech rang out, sounding almost on top of them. Peter's heart had skipped a beat, and was suddenly jack-hammering in his ears.  _Fuck, it's right there!_ Right on the other side of the barrier. He expected it to leap out of the shadows at any moment.

"Go, Peter!" Olivia urged, jerking him forward.

There was no need to say it twice. Together, they pounded into the blackness, chasing after the bouncing red beams ahead. Stopped traffic was intermittent now, with large gaps between one group of vehicles and the next. Behind them came another of the hair-raising hissing noises, and what could only be described as claws gouging into metal. Extremely large claws, by the feeling of weight the sounds purveyed.

Chills raced through his chest pooling in his stomach. Hand in hand, they ran faster. He cast repeated glances back behind them, expecting some monstrosity to charge into view, but there was only the all-consuming darkness of the tunnel behind them. Where was it? Was it toying with them? The thought was disturbing, and the utter silence behind them even more so.

"Look out!" Olivia suddenly hissed, and released her grip.

Peter turned to find lurching silhouettes separating from the shadows directly in front of them, outlined against the gray light of the exit ramp in the distance. Olivia ran straight into their midst, swinging, stabbing with her crowbar. More silent figures waited nearby, outside their circle of light; shouts echoed ahead, male and female; Charlie's and Sonia's red beams stabbed at the darkness. The haze of survival descended swiftly. It slipped over them, bringing with it its particular mixture of unbridled terror, incredible heat, sharp gasps and grunts, and flurries of rapid motion. It was clear that the majority of undead had already found their way out of the tunnel and out onto the bridge. If it had been otherwise, they would have all been doomed, overwhelmed nigh at once. That much was certain. As it was, the infected were relatively few, but hidden behind the curtain of darkness. Without a headlamp of his own, he stayed pinned to Olivia's side, relying on what little light she provided and his instincts, on feel, listening for the rasping utterances, the scuffing of footsteps outside their tiny cone of red light.

Hands reached out of the black, groping at his coat. He spun, sidestepped. Swung. Repeat. Olivia moved with him. His axe bit deep, shearing flesh and bone, silencing the biting grins, and the leering, the greedy eyes glistening in Olivia's red light as she twirled beside him, somehow managing to look everywhere at once. A faceless figure stumbled out of the dark, careening toward her unprotected back as she ripped the crowbar free of her latest victim. Peter rushed to intercept, sinking the axe into a matte of dark hair and splitting the skull to the bridge of its nose. He tore the axe free and spun again, burying his weapon above the ear of another at the same moment as the hook of Olivia's crowbar crashed down on its head. A smirk crossed her face for an instant as the infected fell limply. He spun around, still in the throes of adrenaline, searching for another target. There were none.

Panting, they glanced at each other, at the circle of bodies lying at their feet. The sudden stillness was jarring, ahead, and even worse, behind. He gave her a questioning look. _You okay?_ he wanted to ask, but didn't. He could see that she was, but Olivia nodded anyway, smiled briefly, and then reached for his hand.

"C'mon, Peter," she said, pulling him into a run. "We're falling behind."

She wasn't wrong. Red flashes of light bounced on the tunnel ceiling far ahead, closer to the grayish light of the exit ramp than to themselves. Every so often one of the lights would flash in their direction, as if checking their progress.

Staying close to the tunnel wall, they took up the chase. Car and truck shapes emerged and receded from the light. Undead shapes also, too dim to comprehend the prey in their midst until it was too late. They passed beneath the exit sign. Soon, the tunnel began to widen, branching off to rise to the surface. It would vomit them out several blocks from the Federal Building, near another park and a restaurant district. He tried not to think about what would happen if they emerged from the tunnel, only to find another horde the size of the one from which they'd just fled. There was no point in speculating; either it would be clear or it wouldn't be, and the four of them would just have to deal with whatever came their way. There was no going back—not with that  _thing_  in the tunnel behind them.

A string of infected bodies lay in their path, evidence of the Francises' passage moments before. The atmosphere grew brighter as light trickled down from the surface. Shapes began to stand out in the darkness, which suddenly seemed far less suffocating. Charlie and Sonia reached the wye in the tunnel, and took the path to the right past an overturned car smashed into the pointed wall at the intersection. Bodies moved in the deeper blackness of the main tunnel's left hand passage.

As they neared the split, a prolonged, almost snake-like hiss parted the air behind them, followed by the crunch of metal buckling under pressure, furious clawing and scratching, another crunch—closer than before—and then more of the clawing. Peter's blood froze. _Sounds like it's mauling a fucking car,_ he thought frantically, throwing a darting glance over his shoulder. But there was nothing. Only impenetrable darkness and unnerving silence.

"Faster, Peter!" Olivia urged from just ahead of him as they reached the overturned car and the exit. "Faster!"

They ran on. Despite the burning in his lungs, in his thighs, he redoubled his efforts, drawing abreast of her. Ahead, Charlie and Sonia disappeared around a corner as the exit ramp wound its way up to the surface. The air grew colder, the light brighter as the ramp angled upward. They reached the curve in the tunnel, and rounding it, finally saw daylight and the tunnel exit at the top of the winding rise.

"I don't think...I've been so happy to see the sun...in my life," Peter wheezed as they sped up the ramp. His lungs were on fire now, his legs too. Every footfall sent daggers shooting through his shoulder. He ignored his aches and pains; they were going to make it.

Olivia snorted. "We're not there yet, Peter. I don't know what that thing is...but it sounded bigger than a horse. I'd like to put as much distance between us and it as possible before we slow down."

"Tell me about it," he agreed with a tired laugh. "I was thinking elephant, actually." A smile flickered across her face as they passed out of the tunnel and into harsh sunlight. "Shit, that's bright...and it's fucking cold again. Perfect."

#

His eyes burned at the sudden change in ambiance. He was still blinking away the effects when they reached the intersection at the top of the ramp. Blocking their path was a snarl of traffic; cars and trucks burned and twisted beyond all recognition; bodies also, mangled and charred, strewn about as if a bomb had exploded in their midst. Charlie and Sonia—both of whom looked no worse for wear—climbed atop the pile of wreckage and waited for them to approach.

"You guys okay?" Charlie said, looking them up and down. His eyes narrowed, and came to rest between them, where Olivia still held Peter's left hand in a tight grip, but he made no comment.

He expected Olivia to release him immediately, and she did, but only after giving her former partner a challenging look. "We're fine, Charlie," she replied, and pulled herself onto the sedan next to him. "Though for a minute there, I was starting to get worried. Did you guys get a look at that thing?"

"No!" Sonia answered at once. "Did you? I almost crapped my pants—it sounded like it was right on top of us. Do you think it's going to follow us?" Her eyes were glued to the tunnel entrance. One hand rested on the butt of her pistol as if she'd been using it her entire life.

Peter couldn't help but grin as he pulled himself up awkwardly next to Olivia. "I don't know. We never saw it either," he said, "and from the sound of it eating one of those cars for lunch, I'm pretty sure I don't want to. And as much fun as it is standing here speculating, I suggest we get the hell—

He broke off as he got his first glimpse of the surrounding area. The city was in ruins. A heavy aroma of kerosene suffused the area where the park—North End Park, as it was once called—was razed to the soil; bushes, trees, and everything and everyone that had been in it at the time. Buildings that had once housed trendy restaurants and pubs with expensive upstairs apartments leaned drunkenly into one another, windows blown out, walls collapsed, rubble spilling across the sidewalks onto the streets. He recalled there being a farmer's market somewhere in the vicinity, but there was no sign of any of its stands. Everything was gone. A parking garage on the corner was pancaked in on itself, as if a giant foot had pressed down with interminable weight. "Damn...they really did a number on this place."

They turned to look, staring in silence. Olivia shielded her eyes, looking to the southwest where the Federal Building lay, hidden by the intervening destruction. Sonia lifted her hand to her mouth and gasped silently. Her husband's face tightened and relaxed in continuous repetition. Intermittent groups of infected populated the area, though their numbers were minute compared to the horde they had seen earlier. Most of the undead were moving away from them, heading northeast—presumably toward the gunfire from earlier. Most were moving east, but not all; several bunches were already moving their way, golden eyes glazed over with lust. They would need to vacate the area, sooner rather than later.

"I hope it was all worth it," Olivia murmured after a moment, then dropped down on the other side of the wreckage. "Let's go. We're only a couple of blocks away now. We should be able to avoid the infected, this time."

Peter grunted and joined her on the sidewalk. "Let's hope so. 'Cause _last_  time was pretty much a disaster."

"Oh, I don't know, Bishop," Charlie countered as he and Sonia jumped down after them. "We're all alive, which was something I wouldn't have put money on an hour ago."

 _I can't argue with that_ , he thought, following Olivia across the street and away from the approaching infected. An hour ago, he'd been fairly certain death was minutes—if not seconds—away. He glanced at his coat sleeve, recalling the feel of the voracious biting, the increasing points of pressure on his wrist. That was way too close for comfort. And she had saved his life. It was becoming something of a bad habit. He was now so far in her debt that climbing out would take him a lifetime. Not that she was counting, he was sure.

He eyed her profile as they jogged east and then south, skirting the wide swathes of destruction, and then again as they waited, crouched beside a line of parked cars for a stream of undead blocking their path to pass by in front of them. The smallish herd about the size of a football team was heading south, toward the heart of downtown. A forest of office buildings coated in layers of ash and soot rose up all around them, thickest to the south. Shattered windows gaped overhead. Other than the faint beating of his heart and the scuffling footsteps of the undead, the city was eerily silent. A stinging wind bit at his cheeks, nipped at his nose and ears, pinpricks that felt like tiny daggers of ice burrowing into his skin.

Crouched there, amid the decaying remains of the city, he thought of his father, and Astrid, and little Ella and Rachel. He wondered how they were getting on, if his father were causing any problems yet. It seemed inevitable that he would. Olivia hadn't mentioned her sister or niece in some time, but he had no doubts they lingered in the back of her mind. His eyes fell on her again, taking in the rosy tint of her cheeks, the way her lips played nervously to either side as she watched the undead pass them by.

Olivia seemed to sense his gaze and raised an eyebrow inquiringly. "What?" she whispered after a moment. Puffs of her breath rose up between them.

He glanced back at Sonia crouched behind him, and at Charlie at the rear of their line, then decided he didn't care if they were overheard. "You saved my ass back there, Olivia," he said softly. "Again. Remember that time I told you that I was starting to develop an inferiority complex? Well, it's definitely happening."

A smile touched her lips briefly. She lifted up for an instant, checking the progress of the infected through the passenger door window, then turned back to him. "You would've done the same for me, Peter," she replied with a slight shrug. He felt a hand squeeze his ankle. "...if the situation were reversed. That's was partners do, you know?"

He felt a lump rising in his throat at the direct answer she gave him. She had said something similar to him before, in another world, but had been referring to another man. A dead man she'd loved. He swallowed roughly. "Well...maybe not quite as efficiently," he told her with what he hoped was a roguish grin. "I am down a fully functional left arm. You just wait another month or two, and I'll even the score."

The hand on his ankle squeezed tighter then released him. "I'm gonna hold you to that, Peter," she promised, and snuck a peek through the car window again. She looked past him at Sonia and Charlie. "All right. It's clear. Head for the plaza and don't stop until we reach the Federal Building."

"Through the front entrance or the parking garage?" Charlie asked from the rear. "The parking garage is closer to the armory."

Pursing her lips, Olivia considered. "I don't know. I guess we'll just have to wing it, figure it out when we get there." She met Peter's gaze. "You ready?"

Peering across the street, he squinted at the wide set of stairs leading up to the huge open area formerly known as City Hall Plaza. The plaza's namesake sat nearby, covered in a thick layer of ash, but otherwise untouched. Across from it, the building that had housed the Boston branch of the Internal Revenue Service—among other government services—lay in shambles, had partially collapsed in on itself. The curved lines of the Federal Building rose toward the sky in the background, framed by two nearer buildings. They were close. Just minutes away, possibly, depending on the number of infected in the plaza. He nodded and took a deep breath "Lead the way, boss," he replied with a smirk.

Rolling her eyes, Olivia took off in a flash of ponytail, dashing across the street. Peter sprang after her in pursuit, leaping over a decorative knee-high cast iron fence in the center of the median, then chasing her up the steps. Charlie and Sonia's footsteps pounded close behind. At the top were the blackened remains of a potted garden of trees and shrubs, arranged in a grid between the crumbled IRS building and City Hall. The Federal Building loomed overhead, visible in its entirety for the first time. The once proud structure appeared to have taken heavy damage. The lower floors were grids of shattered glass and empty window frames. Between them and it, the plaza spread about before them; a wide sea of red bricks. Undead walked its grounds, enough to make Peter's heart quail, but not nearly as many as they had encountered above the tunnel. There was no way around them though, only through.

Olivia hesitated only for an instant. "Don't stop, Peter. For anything," she threw back over her shoulder, then raced into the burned vegetation.

He didn't intend to.

The infected on the plaza grounds were many, but sporadic, with large gaps between the separate bunches. They passed out of garden and out into the open, zigzagging a path between the groups of undead, leaving a wake of awareness in their wake. Olivia's ponytail streamed in the wind ahead of him. The Francises, both equally grim-faced and determined, were on his left, keeping pace.

Some distant part of Peter registered that he had been in this very spot, just weeks before the end. He and Walter had walked out of the Federal Building and seen the colored tents of a circus that performed there occasionally across the street on the plaza grounds. His father had been excited, had begged to go. He had flatly refused, of course, though he had taken Walter close enough to get a good look. His refusal had not been out of spite, however. Circuses bothered him for some reason—they always had. Something about the animals being trapped and caged, taken from their natural habitats and made to live lives that weren't their own affected him on some level that was deeply personal. It had always been that way, for as far back as he could remember.

Before they reached the halfway point, he felt the burn in his legs again, in his thighs and calves. Spikes of pain shot through his skull with every step. He noticed the gap between him and Olivia widening, that Charlie and Sonia had moved ahead of him and was powerless to stop it. His body ached, his shoulder, the knot on his head, even the soles of his feet. Unbidden, the thought came to him that he should consider investing in a pair of new running shoes. He would've felt like laughing, if he weren't terrified of falling behind.

Ahead of him, Olivia and the others angled toward the Federal Building. It was closer now, close enough for him to make out shapes through the broken windows; desks, chairs, cubicle walls and building insulation flapping in the wind. Infected flew past on either side. Leering faces, eyes glazed golden. Hands reached out, but closed on air. The gap widened. He labored to catch up, fighting through the inferno building in his lungs. A budding stitch in his side left him hunched over slightly, and the gap widened further.

He heard something then, something that wasn't the roar of his breath, or the low growls of the infected. Something separate and distinct. Behind them. He risked a glance over his shoulder. At first there was nothing, only the hordes of undead trudging after them. But then he saw it. A flicker of movement captured his eye.

Across the square where they had exited the burned garden, a dark, elongated shape flitted through the wall of bodies. It disappeared for a moment behind the intervening legs and torsos, then reappeared, bounding through a space between two ragtag groups of oblivious infected.

It was the  _thing—_ the creature—he realized, feeling his mouth drop open. He slowed, watching what happened next with stupid disbelief.

It was huge for its body shape, with skin that looked a tough as old leather. As big as a small horse, as Olivia had jokingly surmised. It wasn't nearly as funny now that he had seen it. The creature moved sideways through his vision, closing the gap on a lone infected with terrifying speed. The head was pointed as he remembered from his glimpse on the bridge, mounted on heavily muscled shoulders. Extending forward over its back was a sinuous tail with an odd protuberance at the tip. A current of electric fear pulsed through him as the creature pounced on the infected, crushing it to the pavement with sickening ease. The tail blurred forward and down, striking the undead repeatedly over the creature's shoulder.

 _Like...like a fucking a scorpion..._ , he thought, slowing further, unable to process what he'd just seen. The sheer violence, the savagery, of the attack was dizzying. His mind was a whirl of panicked thoughts. He suddenly understood why he'd been unable to classify it before; it shouldn't exist. It can't exist. No animal on earth fit its description—or ever had.  _What does that mean? What the hell is going on?_ And then came another thought:  _Walter is going to love this_.

_"Peter! Bishop!"_

Voices were calling his name. Abruptly, his utter stupidity in stopping became manifest as a ring of undead closed around him. Olivia's eyes were wide and full of fear over the shoulder of a desiccated woman. She was racing toward him, Charlie and Sonia also. The nearest infected clawed for his throat.

Frantic now, Peter backpedaled and sank the axe into the forehead of a bald man in a ragged business suit. He felt hands on his back and spun around, ripping the blade free and swinging it sideways in a desperate arc into the face of a dead woman wearing tan military fatigues. The blade bit deep, and then, horribly, was torn from his grasp as the body fell. He fumbled for the rubber axe handle as another infected closed in but it was stuck, lodged in the thick ridge of the dead woman's cheekbone.

 _Fuck!_  was all he had time to think and then a body crashed into him, knocking him on his back. He found himself face to face with another dead woman. The infected's yellow eyes were cold and emotionless despite the teeth snapping for his face. He grabbed it by the throat, straining, holding the teeth at bay momentarily with his right hand. Brownish spittle oozed from its lower lip as its teeth slowly descended. Fingers closed on his cheeks, squeezing, scratching at his nose and lips. He could taste its grime, its filth, and his own rising bile. He couldn't stop it. The teeth were right above him, inches from his face. Foul breath burned his nose.

Heavy footsteps crashed on the bricks around him, then a booted foot kicked the dead woman to the side. A baseball bat crashed down, spraying him with brackish blood. Breathing hard, he looked up to see a grim-faced Charlie Francis step over him, batting another of the undead aside. Behind him, Olivia and Sonia were mopping up the rest of those that had encircled him. More would be upon them in short order if they didn't leave the area sooner than later. Thousands more.

Peter scrambled to his feet and yanked his axe free. He looked around, at the bodies scattered on the ground and those that didn't know they were already dead coming toward them, and felt tired more than anything else. The last of the infected dropped, courtesy of a home run swing delivered by Sonia.

"Are you all right?" Olivia asked, walking over to him. Ragged bits of flesh hung from the hook of her crowbar. "Were you bitten?"

He shook his head. His own lack of reaction to surviving yet another close call was worrisome. What was wrong with him? Surely he should feel something, anything. Relief, at the very minimum. Only, he was just tired. And numb. Disconnected. What had changed? An air of deep unreality settled over him. He struggled to find himself, his center, inside it. Perhaps there was a limit, a threshold, to how much horror one could experience, or impossibilities a mind could witness before it began shutting down. Fracturing.  _Input overload_ , he heard a robotic voice say in his head. He started to laugh, the giggles bubbling up from deep in his stomach. He couldn't stop. In his peripheral vision, Charlie and Sonia were eyeing him askance, giving him the sort of look he'd seen directed his father's way more than once. The realization only made him laugh harder.

"Peter." Olivia stepped in front of him, grabbed the front of his coat. "What the hell is wrong with you? We have to go!"

The concern in her tone finally pricked the strange bubble he had found himself in. He blinked and came back to himself. "I saw it, Olivia. The thing on the bridge."

"You saw it?" Her eyes darted past him, out across the plaza. "Where? Here?"

"It was back there, near where we came up the steps. I think it's following us."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is the second part of the chapter I posted yesterday. I was originally going to wait a few days to post it, but as they were originally one chapter, they were really meant to be read together. Thanks for reading!


	15. Opening the Mouth of Madness

**-December 2008**

Shards of glass crinkled beneath Ella's feet as she stepped through the broken window frame of the library entrance. The fragments felt like stepping on a cracker, or maybe an M&Ms. Her stomach growled slightly at the thought of candy.

 _Or maybe I'm just hungry_ , she thought, looking around with wide eyes.

It was darker inside than she thought it would be, considering the building's giant windows. She found herself in a narrow corridor-like room. A small desk sat in a strip of shadow not far away to her left. In front of the desk were several upright gates that reminded her of the gates at the subway back home, though the little turny things were missing. Thinking of the subway made her think of her daddy, and the game they used to play where she would go underneath if no one was looking. She'd tried playing the game once with her mom, and had gotten in big trouble. Her Dad had never played it with her again after that, and had only grown angry when she'd asked him why.

On either side of the entrance, two huge pillars of white stone rose up to a high ceiling. The stone was cool to the touch, and utterly smooth. It felt ancient, like something out of a story. More pillars in line with the first two were visible in the shadows, separate rows that disappeared in the darkness at the other end of the room.

Ella took a breath, then took several more steps further inside before stopping again. She cocked her head, listening. There was nothing, not a single sound other than her own heart beating faintly inside her head. Outside, leaves rustled in a gust of wind. _There's no one here_ , she thought, and then crossed over to the desk. On one end was a thin computer screen with a keyboard, and at the other a vase of wilted flowers. Reaching out, she touched one of the flower petals, tried to pull it free. Instead the petal turned to dust between her fingertips. A funny feeling went through her then, like someone was watching her. She swallowed and glanced around, but of course there was no one; the building was empty.

She wiped flower dust on her pants and then walked through the nearest gate. Unlike the libraries back home, there were no posters on the walls, or any cases holding new books with shiny covers behind locked glass doors. She remembered her aunt telling her once that this library wasn't like other libraries. Back then she hadn't understood, but she thought she did now. It was a special kind of library, with special kinds of books. Why else would they have built such a nice building to hold them all?

 _But where are they all at?_  she wondered.

On the other side of the gates the light from outside began to fade, giving way to a grayish dimness, and then darkness. The rows of pillars were black outlines against a blacker black. Deep inside the murk at the far end of the corridor there is a faint rectangle of light, however. She moves toward it. A doorway? As her eyes became used to the dark, other details emerged. There were two other rectangles on either side of the room that looked like doorways also. She glanced between the dark spots that might be doorways and the faint light at the end of the corridor. Her tummy felt a little funny then, like when she had to go up for show-and-tell. Not bad, exactly, but not good, either.

 _I'm not afraid of the dark anymore_ , she thought.  _I'm a big girl now, Aunt Liv said so._  But another voice whispered that she wasn't in the lab anymore, and that if she needed help, no one would hear her screams. She stood frozen, torn with indecision as time ticked away.

She had told herself that she would only go inside for a couple of minutes, but she hadn't even seen anything yet. Not a single book! And to make matters worse, her fingers were starting to get cold. The latter at least, she could do something about. When she shoved her hands in her coat pockets her fingers brushed up against something hard and round and soft all at once. With a frown, she pulled the something out and turned back to the daylight to inspect her find.

Sitting in her palm was the head light she'd grabbed off Peter's table. Relief flooded through her at the sight of it, bringing an involuntary smile to her lips.  _I must have stuck it in my pocket without knowing it!_ She fingered the stretch strap connected to the flashlight. It seemed very large, much bigger than her head was, and trying it out only confirmed her suspicion. With a shrug, she wound the strap around her right hand, then flicked it on.

Her eyes widened in amazement as the corridor bloomed with light.

The floor was a brilliant white, made of the same kind of stone as the pillars. She spun in a slow circle, shining the flashlight all around. The dark spots she'd thought might be doors  _were_  doors, with important-looking triangles of molded wood mounted above each. And there were other doors she hadn't noticed, making three total on each side of the corridor. What was inside them? She was about to find out when the ceiling captured her attention. It was beautiful! For an instant, she thought it was made of gold, but then she noticed the fancy squares of carved wood had only been painted to look that way. The realization made it seem no less grand, however. At the far end of the corridor where she'd seen the faint light, stood several archways that opened on larger space beyond. The arches gleamed white in her flashlight's beam, almost to the point of blinding. She moved toward them with rising excitement, forgetting all about the second voice and its warnings.

A bright flash to the right of the arched opening drew her like a magnet. When she stood below it, she stared up in wonder. It was a map—drawn on a shiny sheet of metal. Most of the words on it were unfamiliar, but not all. A red arrow pointed out a spot. "You...are...here," she said out loud, and then glanced around, comparing her surrounding with the lines on the map. She spotted the wide set of stairs outside the building, the corridor with the doors leading to other rooms, other places to explore.

"I really am here," she whispered with a wide smile, and then stepped away from the map and walked through the archway.

A wide staircase rose before her, with handrails that looked made of gold. Were they gold? She couldn't tell for sure, but it seemed unlikely. A tall ceiling soared overhead, domed, with a beautiful light hanging down from a thick chain in its center. The light was spoked like a bicycle wheel, with smaller chains leading up to the larger. Rows of what looked like candles stuck up toward the ceiling. Were they real candles? How would they light them? The light looked like something out of a fairytale—the kind where the princess would cut the rope and it would fall, capturing the evil wizard or queen.

Ella climbed the steps slowly, running her hand over the golden railing. At the top she found another room with another circle light hanging down. Below the light, groups of comfy-looking chairs were arranged in groups on opposite sides of the room. She sat down in one, and was reminded of home, of the big chair her mommy used to read in. Sometimes she would climb up in her mother's lap with her favorite book, and they would read together, or at least, she would try to read. Sometimes she just looked at the pictures. Thinking of her mother made her aware of the time passing by.

She slid off the chair and hurried through a wide doorway, ignoring two smaller doorways on either side. Her mouth dropped open at the sheer size of the room beyond. It was huge! Possibly the biggest room she had ever seen. She thought her entire school building might have fit inside it.

Rectangles of sunlight cast by tall windows fell across rows upon rows of tables and chairs. And along each wall beneath the windows, were shelves filled with books of all shapes and sizes. She started forward but then stopped, noticing details she hadn't seen at first glance. Some of the chairs were knocked over, turned on their sides. Backpacks sat nearby, and open books on tabletops. Someone had left them behind. Why? The funny feeling started up in her tummy again.

Ella swallowed and looked around, shining her light in the dark corners. Nothing moved. After a moment, the feeling in her belly passed and she walked over to the nearest of the bookshelves. She shoved the light in her pocket and pulled one free. The book was thick and heavy, and she needed both hands to hold it. Inside, she found tiny print and words she didn't know. An adult book. She replaced the book and pulled out another, only to slide it back a moment later. They were all adult books—books with no pictures, books that didn't even tell a story.

 _This must be the grownup section_ , she reasoned, turning away from the shelf.  _The children section must be somewhere else, in another room somewhere._

She moved on, walking through the rows of tables, and through another doorway at the far side of the space. The next room was smaller than the first and filled with sunlight. There were more tables and chairs. And more bookshelves, but not the kind she wanted. She moved on quickly, feeling the passage of time. The next room was even smaller, but had more of the same—chairs, tables, but no books.

Crossing her arms, Ella glanced around.  _Where are all the good books at?_  she wondered as frustration began setting in. It was a library wasn't it?

An open doorway to her right led back to the rooms with the chairs. But then she noticed another narrow door in the corner, that had several steps leading up to it. The door looked old and scarred, like one of the doors in the lab. She crossed over to it for a closer look. It seemed different than everything else she'd seen since entering the library; old and out of place. She mounted the steps, and finding the door unlocked, pushed it open. Darkness poured out from inside. She pulled the flashlight from her pocket and flicked it on, then gasped at the sight before her.

Books!

She'd finally found them. Shelves and shelves of them. Rows that stretched farther than her light could reach. They seemed never-ending. The shelves were close together, with what looked like hardly enough space for a grownup to walk between them—but plenty of room for someone her size. On each shelf's end were yellow tags with lines of numbers and letters that helped you find the book, just like at her library back home.

Ella felt the urge to race up and down the rows, but didn't. Instead, she hesitated just outside the doorway and glanced out the window to her left. The sun was high overhead, peeking out from behind puffy clouds so white they seemed made of light. How much time had passed? It had been more than a few minutes. Much more. Did they know she was gone? Were they looking for her? Were they worried? Of course they were. Her mother worried about everything, it didn't take a five-year old to see that. She had even heard Aunt Liv say so, once, when they didn't know she was listening.

Turning back to the rows of books, she eyed them longingly. She was going to be in trouble when she got back. Big, big trouble. But... _A good book is food for the soul,_ she remembered. And this might be her only chance to find one.

"I'll be super fast," she said to the darkness, and then walked through the door.

#

* * *

#

"So let me get this straight, Peter," Charlie said, scanning the darkness ahead of them. "You're telling me that that thing we saw on the bridge, this creature—it was a giant scorpion? Like with a tail and claws and all that shit? And it was as big as a horse? You know how insane that sounds, right?

They had reached the bottom of the concrete ramp down into the Federal Building's parking garage. The security gate was open, or rather smashed outward as if someone had driven a large vehicle through it. From the size and shape of the hole, Charlie figured the HRT van crumpled against a dumpster they'd passed on the way was the culprit. It hadn't been a reassuring sight. Nor was the blackness inside the parking garage, but at least infected weren't spewing out like they'd been at the main entrance.

Peter grunted and exchanged glances with Olivia as he scratched at his beard. "Yes...no, it wasn't a scorpion, I mean, maybe...I don't know, Charlie,ʺ he said, throwing a hand up. "I just know what I saw. It had four legs, not eight, and that it used its tail when it attacked, like it had some kind of stinger on the end. Oh, and it was big enough to knock one of the infected on its ass like it was nothing, like it was a child. And considering we live in a world where the dead stagger around dragging their guts behind them like confetti, I'm not sure why you're drawing the line here.ʺ

"I don't think you can argue with that, honey," Sonia said with a nervous laugh. Her gaze was locked on the darkness of the garage, with one hand resting on the butt of her pistol. "One is just as unlikely as the other."

Charlie sighed and shook his head. He supposed she was right. What was some kind of monster when fucking zombies had walked out of the movie screen? The single glimpse he'd had seen of the creature hadn't been enough to discern any details.

He glanced at Olivia, waiting for her to comment but she remained silent, watching Peter with a faint smile. It wasn't the first time he'd noticed her staring at him, or him at her, for that matter. It happened with regularity, and more so since they'd spent the night in the luxury condo the night before. From the look she was giving Peter now, he thought his wife's suspicions about the two of them were spot on. Whatever. John's death seemed like it had happened years ago at this point, and he didn't want to know the details. Olivia was a grown woman after all, and more than capable of keeping the likes of Peter Bishop in line.

"Well, as long as it doesn't plan on following us inside," he muttered, and turned on his headlamp. "I'm not gonna worry about it right now. We've got bigger problems—like what the hell are we gonna do if this whole place is packed with infected?"

"We'll manage, Charlie, somehow," Olivia said, switching on hers also. "It can't be worse than what we just went through. C'mon, stick close to me, Peter. It's not far to the garage entrance."

Olivia moved ahead into the darkness, with Peter in tow, fingering the blade of the hand axe he'd scavenged. Charlie didn't think him sticking close to her side was going to be an issue. He met his wife's gaze.

"You ready, babe?"

"Ready when you are," Sonia replied. "After that tunnel, it's gonna take more than a little darkness to scare me, mister."

Charlie chuckled at that, feeling a lightness in his chest, a burst of pride. She'd more than proven herself in the tunnel, and above, when they'd been cornered. There was no need to hold her hand, not anymore. Not after what they'd endured. She was a fighter.

They found a trail of bodies leading to the basement entrance and arrived in time to see Peter wrenching his axe free of a partially eaten undead woman wearing nothing but a filthy skirt. The look on his face was understandably disturbed, though Olivia looked on with her trained indifference, providing the red illumination for the task. For the most part, the parking garage was empty, except for several vehicle-shaped silhouettes outlined in the distance, one of which was the familiar shape of a government-issued SUV. He marked its location—just in case.

"The door's locked, Charlie," Olivia reported, looking up as they approached. "And I don't think I can get it open with this." She gestured with her crowbar. "I don't suppose you have your keys, do you? I think I lost mine at some point during all the chaos."

"As a matter a fact I do," he answered, pulling the key ring from his pocket.

"You've been carrying those around this whole time?" Peter said as he fished around the right key. "Why?"

"I don't know," Charlie replied truthfully. "I guess on the off chance that we ever returned. I didn't really expect to need them."

"Well we're luck you did, that door looks like it would stop a bazooka."

Charlie grunted in agreement. The door in question was solid steel, and built to withstand such forced entry. "You ain't wrong," he said, inserting the key into the first of three electronic bolts that would have to be unlocked in order to open the door without a key card. Attempting to open the door manually would have sounded an alarm if there had been power, but that was no longer an issue. The lock was tight, and he worried about the key snapping off until it began to turn, slowly, bit by bit. He could feel the metal grinding inside as it did so. "Anybody bring any WD-40? We'll be even luckier if these all open."

"Sorry, Charlie, I'm fresh out," Olivia retorted, drawing a chuckle from the others.

Luck, as it turned out, was with them. The other two locks opened without issue. He pulled the door open and stepped back quickly, preparing for the worst. Darkness spilled out from inside but nothing else. The corridor was clear.

Olivia was the first inside, followed closely by Peter and Sonia. Charlie hung back, taking up the rear. He eyed the sunlit ramp up to the surface, and thinking of the creature that may or may not be tracking them, locked the heavy door behind them.

#

Creeping slowly through the blackness, they headed toward the stairwell in the center of the building, near the bank elevators. As they moved deeper into the building it became apparent that some kind of battle had taken place. The walls and ceiling were riddled with bullets, and bodies lay sprawled in doorways and intersections, ripe with decay. The smell was horrific, but nothing compared to the tunnel. None of them were Broyles, but from the ID cords about their necks, they had been agents. The signs of fighting ended abruptly when they passed into the detention wing, with its holding cells and questioning rooms. It was odd being back—it almost felt like coming home again. From the look in Olivia's eyes as she glanced around, he thought she might be thinking the same thing.

In one of the questioning rooms they found a male infected in an orange jumpsuit handcuffed to a table. It lunged toward them, snapping its teeth when the door opened. They grouped in the doorway, staring in at its burnished eyes. Who was it? What cases had been ongoing when all hell had broken loose? Charlie couldn't recall. That was all part of another life, a life he'd more or less done his best to forget. Dwelling on it only made the headaches worse.

"From the cuffs, I'm guessing he wasn't a friend of yours," Peter quipped, glancing at Olivia.

Olivia shook her head slowly. "I've never seen him before. We were in between cases. He wasn't part of any of our investigations."

"Mine either," Charlie added. The squirming infected lunged again, biting at the air. The skin of both its wrists was wrinkled, torn to the bone. He thought that if it had half a brain, it might've been able to pull its hands free. For some reason the sight of its mindless struggles were profoundly disturbing.

"I don't see any injuries or bites or anything," Sonia said. "How do you suppose he..." She trailed off, sounding uneasy.

"Probably starved to death," Olivia replied in a morose tone. "I guess someone...just forgot he was in here."

"That's horrible. How...how long would it have...have taken?"

"Probably a little more than a week or so," Peter answered grimly. "Maybe a bit longer if he was lucky...or unlucky. That's about as long as the body can go without water, anyway. Definitely not the way I want to go out."

Charlie could only agree. Around the post holding the cuffs in place were deep gouges, as if the fellow had tried to claw his way free. To his surprise, Peter stepped forward and put the infected out of its misery with a single swipe of his axe. The body went limp, falling to one side, yet still held in place by the cuffs.

"What was that for?" Charlie asked as they left the body behind. "It wasn't going anywhere."

Peter shrugged and glanced at Olivia, who was watching him closely. "I don't know. It needed to be done, I guess."

They left the infected behind and moved on, checking the other holding cells and questioning rooms along the way. None were occupied. He tried not to think about what it had been like for the one Peter had put down, but it was impossible. His fingers crept up to his temple as they moved through the halls. The holding room was soundproof, the viewing window mirrored on the inside. Had anyone told him what was happening? He thought of the desperate gouges in the tabletop. How long until madness had set in? Before or after the fellow had realized that he'd been forgotten, and that no one was coming? What if he'd been innocent of whatever crime they were questioning him about? He tried to force his mind to another subject, but it kept coming back, like a wheel stuck in a rut. The intense thirst, the hunger pains. How long did it take for the body to start devouring itself? For the mind to break? No. The suspect had died of thirst, not hunger. Which was worse? He didn't know. He didn't want to know.

Charlie was still trying to clear his head when the bank of elevators emerged from the darkness ahead, reflecting their headlamp beams back at them. The doors of the car on the right were half open, and the car itself was stopped on their floor. More decaying bodies—all shot in the head—lay twisted in front of a makeshift barricade of overturned office furniture blocking their path; tables and chairs, even the soda machine he used to buy his Diet Cokes from on the way to his car. Disconcertingly, a yellow post-it stating that someone was owed a dollar by the beverage supplier was still stuck to it above the Dr. Pepper button. He gazed it dazedly, feeling a building pressure beneath the fingertip massaging his left temple.

He knew what the pressure meant. Tearing his gaze from the yellow slip of paper, he forced himself to take in a huge gulp of air, and then let it out slowly as the others went about making a path through the debris.  _Just hold it together, Francis_ , he told himself.  _Now is not the time._ He didn't expect it to have much effect—it never had before. The headaches came and went on their own terms, whatever he might have wished.

To his enormous relief, the pressure subsided by the time the path was cleared, and none of the others seemed to have picked up on his bout of discomfort. He followed his wife through the barricade. Spent shell casings skittered metallically across the floor in their wake. A look inside the open elevator door revealed that the car's hatch was open. Pocked concrete inside the shaft glowed pink under the combined red of their lights.

"How long do you think it's been like this, Charlie?" Olivia asked, gazing up at the tiny opening with a frown.

Charlie glanced back at the bodies on the floor. From their advanced state of decay, they'd been lying there a while. "Hell, I don't know," he shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine, Liv. A while—weeks at least. Maybe months."

"Hey, Olivia," Peter called out. "See if you can get this door open." They turned and found him and Sonia examining the door to the emergency stairwell. "Why the hell is it locked anyway? What if there was a fire, or you know, an apocalypse? Shouldn't it open automatically?"

"Not on this floor," Charlie replied, massaging his temple absently. "This is the detention level, and that's a high security door, like the one into the garage. It's supposed to lock if the power goes out and only unlocks if there's an actual fire, with fire alarms going off. And before you ask, no, I don't have a key."

"I'll see if I can get it open," Olivia said, walking over to them and eyed the door doubtfully. "I'd rather not climb an elevator shaft if we can avoid it." She examined the lock's hardware, then tried to slip the crowbar's angled tip between the door and frame. But either the gap was too narrow, or the crowbar's edge too wide. Uttering a barely audible curse, she tried slipping the hook beneath and lifting, but the door refused to budge, or even acknowledge their presence; the metal was too sturdy, hinges, lock and latch. "Goddamnit," she huffed through lips thin with irritation. "I guess that explains why the hatch is open. Elevator it is then."

"Perfect," Peter muttered. "This should be a blast. Who's going first?"

When no one offered, Charlie dragged a chair off the barricade and shoved it into the elevator car. He tossed his backpack through the opening first, then pulled himself up into the blackness. He helped Peter up next, grunting in pain from the strain on his injured shoulder. His wife came next, who seemed weightless after Peter, followed by Olivia.

After they were all in the shaft, he glanced around, getting his bearings. The bottom of the shaft was like looking up from the depths of some eternal abyss. High above, shone two faint squares of light—other open elevator doors, he realized after a moment. A dense, oily smell in the air brought back memories of his childhood, of being in his grandfather's garage back in Brooklyn. Attached to the car's roof were a number of thick, braided cables under high tension. He reached out and touched one, then grimaced and wiped a thick glob of grease on his jeans.

"Well, somebody's definitely been here before us," he said, gazing upward.

"Can you tell what floors those are?" Peter asked.

Charlie shook his head. "No idea." It was impossible to estimate the distance in the blackness. "Nine or ten, maybe."

"Hey, over here, you guys," Olivia said, motioning to her side. Her light shone in the shaft wall, on a narrow metal ladder recessed into the concrete. The ladder rose up the shaft and disappeared into the darkness. "What do you think, Charlie? Armory, and then Broyles's office?"

"Right," he agreed, slinging his backpack over his shoulder. "The armory should only be two floors up from here."

Without further ado, Olivia pulled herself onto the ladder. Sonia went next, followed by Peter. Charlie waited until they were all above him, then climbed on himself, awkwardly holding on to his bat. The ladder's metal was cold, but not freezing, though he suspected it might be once they emerged from the basement. Before too long, they came to a stop. He leaned to the side and saw Olivia reaching out, pulling awkwardly on the nearest of two closed doors.

"It's stuck," she whispered down to them. "How do you open this thing, Peter?"

"Should be a latch or lock of some kind near the top edge of one of the doors," Peter called up softly. "It's to stop someone from opening it when the car is on a different floor. The lock's probably electro-magnetic, but you should be able to unlatch it since there's no power."

"How the hell do you know that, Peter?" Sonia asked, shining her light down on him. "Were you an elevator repairman in another life?"

"Nope. Just an MIT drop-out in this one," he said. Charlie could hear the smirk in his tone. "With the best fake degree money can buy."

Olivia chuckled above them, then shifted about on the ladder. Her light flashed, glinting off metal. Several mechanical clanks echoed down from above, and then she let out an exited grunt. "I got it," she hissed. A vertical shaft of light appeared, widened as she pulled a single door open. They watched as she stepped sideways, reaching out with one foot and arm, and pulled herself onto the floor. "It's kind of awkward, so be careful," she called down.

They followed her up, arriving on the Federal Building's third floor without issue. The temperature was significantly colder than it was below. Charlie felt the chill on his cheeks as soon as Peter helped him out onto the floor. Their breaths rose in puffs of condensation as they glanced around. Windows in several nearby offices provided squares of hazy sunlight. There was no movement, no sign of any infected. Oddly, the tiled floor was covered in thin patches of ice, almost invisible to the eye.

"What's with all this ice?" Charlie said after nearly falling on his ass for the second time.

"Water lines burst," Peter replied. He pointed out brown stains in the ceiling tiles. Several were sagging downward. "Must've been water trapped in the pipes still. Probably happened recently, within the last week or so. After we started hitting freezing every day." He looked around, squinting at the nearby doorways. "So where's this armory? I've never been on this floor before."

"It's that way," Olivia said, motioning to the lefthand corridor. "Along with locker rooms and showers. It doesn't look like anyone's been up here. I don't see any signs of fighting."

"Are you complaining about this, Liv?" Charlie grunted, leading them down once-familiar halls. "'Cause between being nearly torn apart by like...ten thousand infected and being hunted by a giant, four-legged scorpion monster, I think we're long overdue for something to go our way."

"No, it's not that at all, Charlie," she said after a moment. "It's just...strange being back here. It kind of feels like coming home in a way. After everything fell apart, I never thought I'd come back."

"Me neither," Peter said from behind them. "Not after seeing all the news reports. Turns out it was just as bad as I'd thought it'd be. Who knew?"

#

When they reached the door to the locker rooms, Charlie hesitated. He had a locker, or had. So did Olivia, though she didn't seem interested in stopping. There was something he needed, something he'd been missing. He pulled her to a stop and passed her his key ring. "Here, in case the doors are locked, Liv."

"What are you doing?" Olivia said with a frown. "Aren't you coming?"

"You two go on ahead," he replied with a nod toward Peter. "I'll catch up in a minute. I want to get something from my locker first. You don't want anything from yours?"

Her eyes narrowed, and after a moment she shrugged and shook her head. "No, I'm good. We'll see you in a few."

"Hey!" he called after their retreating forms. "Save me something good!"

Olivia's shadowy form waved vaguely, and then disappeared around a corner along with Peter. He turned to his wife, who had stayed behind. Her expressive eyes were curious, and also a little worried.

"What do you need from your locker, Charlie?" she asked.

"Just something I left behind, babe," he said, leading her into the darkness of the locker room. "You'll see."

Ice covered the floor in a thick layer, much more than in the hallway. For a moment he wondered at it, then realized that the showers in the back were the likely source. Many more pipes to burst. He made his way down the rows to his locker, with Sonia close behind. The  _Francis_  tag across the top gleamed in the light. A few doors down he saw the  _Scott_  tag on another. He'd thought about mentioning it to Liv, but she was already undoubtedly aware of it. He supposed she didn't want another reminder of things gone by. In any event, she was clearly moving on.

He spun the dial on his padlock, putting in the combination. It was the same combination and the same padlock he'd used from the very beginning, from his first day on the force back in Brooklyn. The lock snapped open and he pulled it free. He would be keeping it. Inside the locker was his vest, some spare clothes, and his navy FBI jacket and other random articles of clothing. He ignored all that, and turned to the locker door, where an old photo was taped to the inside. The picture was of him and Sonia, taken long ago when they'd been honeymooning in the Caymans. They were standing on a beach in front of the ocean, and looked impossibly young and tan and happy, barely more than kids. It was difficult to imagine how much time had passed.

Sonia peered over his shoulder as he started to pry the picture free of the tape. He heard the slight intake of her breath. "You still have that, baby?" Her arms snaked around his waist and she nuzzled into him from behind. "I didn't know that. That's so sweet."

Charlie nodded, leaning back against her. "I took it with me my first day on the job back in Brooklyn and I've had it ever since. It's always been my good luck charm."

Her arms squeezed him tighter. "Well it's worked so far," she said, laying a kiss across his shoulder blade.

When the picture was free, he turned in her arms, searching for her lips. She rose up to meet him. Her lips were chapped from the cold, but so were his. After a moment, he made a trail to that spot behind her ear that always drove her wild.

Sonia gasped a sigh, chin thrust toward the ceiling, breath harsh and wanting. He loved that sound. He'd loved it from the very first moment he'd heard it so long ago. "Ugh...stop...stop," she breathed, pushing away from him. "You're making me crazy, Charlie. And this is hardly the place, mister."

At that moment, a white light flashed in his eyes, then dropped quickly to the floor. "Uh...Charlie?" Peter's voice said softly.

Charlie pulled away from his wife and scowled at the intruder. He was holding a long flashlight, obviously scavenged from the armory. "What's the emergency, Bishop?"

"Olivia sent me to get you," Peter said. "There's something you need to see. In the armory."

Charlie didn't like the sound of the other man's voice. Not at all. An uneasy feeling went through his gut. "Something I need to see?" he said, exchanging glances with Sonia. "What is it?"

"A body."

"Broyles?"

Peter shook his head. "No. I don't know who it is. Olivia seemed to know though."

The uneasy feeling deepened as they followed him back to the armory. He wasn't going to like whatever they had to show him. A dead body. Why would he need to see that, unless it was someone he knew? Someone they both knew. He tried to think of who it could be—other than Broyles—that would warrant such a reaction from Liv but came up empty.

The armory was a corridor-like room, deeper than it was wide. A portable lamp sat on the floor near the entrance, throwing a bright, diagonal light. Rows of cabinets lined the walls, full of equipment, tactical gear, guns, and ammunition. Surprisingly it all appeared untouched, just as it had on the day of the outbreak. Except for the smell of old death in the air. That was new.

Olivia was crouched at the back of the room, in front of an open cabinet full of body armor and helmets. In front of her on the floor was a body ripe with decay, bent in on itself at the waist. From the loafers on the body's feet, he thought it was a man, though with the advanced state of decay, it was difficult to be certain. The mop of dark hair was short, the face below unrecognizable. The man's throat was messily cut, teeth bared open, frozen in a bloody rictus.

"I don't know what to make of this, Charlie," she said, looking up at his approach. "He was murdered. I think it happened before the outbreak, I don't know why else he'd have been stuffed in this cabinet."

"He got an ID?" Charlie gave the body another look, searching its wizened features for some hint of familiarity.

"Um...yeah, he does," Olivia nodded. "That's why I sent Peter to get you."

There was no mistaking the confusion in her tone, and something else, also. The uneasy feeling returned, like he'd swallowed down a slug of curdled milk. "What?"

"The man was an agent, Charlie. His badge is missing, but there's this." She held out her hand. In it was a nondescript, bi-fold leather wallet, black, with thick threading on the seams. "I don't understand."

Olivia's face was unreadable as he pulled the wallet from her hand. Charlie swallowed, then opened it, checking the money slot for cash out of habit—it was loaded with twenties—before looking at the name and face on the Massachusetts driver's license. His thoughts came to a gear-stripping halt when he finally did so.

"What the...it can't be...," he heard himself mutter, from somewhere far away.

In a daze, he blinked and rubbed at his eyes, but the name and face that stared up at him remained the same. Unchanged. He glanced down at the body again, at the ruined, blackened face. What was left of the hair was the same. The same color, the same style. His head was shaking, moving side to side without his permission. It was impossible. The man was dead—he was  _already_  dead. Charlie had seen it happen. He had caused it _to_  happen.  _I could have saved him_ , came the old mantra.

All at once, the pressure in his temple returned, ten-fold. Charlie gasped at the railroad spike hammering through his forehead. His eyes watered from the intensity. None of the others existed. He didn't exist. There was only the pain, and the face. He could feel his mind beginning to fray. Threads of awareness plucked free, one by one, unwound from the tapestry of his self.

A voice was talking, questioning. "Who is it?" Sonia. "Charlie?"

He heard the questions, but was incapable of answering, of speaking, of breathing. Time had slowed down, stretched out. His heart slowed down with it—the interval between each beat an eternity of torment. He was back there, back on the truck, pulling his Sonia out of the fray. Her face is vision of terror, of revulsion. Below her, is the other face, the one on the ID. He's being pulled under, being torn to pieces. Are the dark eyes looking at him? They always are, in his nightmares. He can hear the savage hum of voracious teeth biting, ripping. The screams reverberated through him, grow louder, building toward a crescendo.

A pair of hands forced his gaze upward, away from the body on the floor. Other hands pulled the wallet from his hand. A face filled his vision, a different face, lovely, with red-gold hair and exquisite features.  _My wife_. Her eyes were filled with tears, and fear. Fear for him.

"Charlie. Look at me!"

He met Sonia's gaze and something seemed to snap inside him, relaxing, rebounding inside his skull. A tear rolled down her cheek. The pain lessened, subsided, then dulled to a muted tick. A shiver racked his spine, and he inhaled a saw-tooth breath. "I'm okay...," he managed to utter, leaning back against a gun cabinet. "I'm okay. I'm fine."

"You sure about that?" Peter asked. "'Cause you sure as hell don't look fine. You look like you just saw a ghost. Whose body is that?"

"It's Michael Rodriguez," he said, looking is wife in the eye again. "It's Agent Rodriguez."

Sonia's eyes bulged. "What? Agent Rodriguez? But...how? He...he was with us when he died. He saved my life." Her voice began to quaver with a note of hysteria. "I...I don't understand what's happening here," she uttered, backing away from the body, hands clasped behind her head.

"That makes two of us," Peter commented, and exchanged a look with Olivia. "You say this guy was with you before you came to the lab, Charlie?"

Charlie nodded mutely in reply. His mind was racing, attempting to reboot from its fractured state of being. The going was rough.

"Well this may seem like a redundant question," Peter went on, "but are you sure? 'Cause this guy looks like he's been dead for a long time."

"Of course I'm sure, Bishop," he snapped. "I was with him for days, we both were." He motioned toward his wife, who nodded in agreement.

"Then who the hell is this?" Peter said, gesturing down at the body. "And how come he has his wallet? How can there be two of the same person?"

"How the fuck should I know? It's gotta be somebody else, that's the only explanation."

"Stop it, both of you!" Olivia hissed. "I need to think." Her voice was quiet, deadly. She was going hard, putting puzzle pieces together at a frantic pace. Charlie had seen her enter such a zen state before. She looked up suddenly. "Did Agent Rodriguez have any identifying marks that you remember? Scars or tattoos or anything like that? Anything at all?"

"Identifying marks?" Charlie frowned, and struggled to recall anything beyond the scene on the truck. "Shit, I...I don't know, I—"

"He had a tattoo," Sonia spoke up suddenly. "On one of his arms. It was a...uh, one of those tribal-looking patterns around his bicep. I remember seeing it the one night we stayed in our house, and thinking it was unoriginal. He was coming out of the hall bathroom in a t-shirt."

Olivia nodded and pulled the small knife from the sheathe on her belt. She hesitated, meeting Charlie's gaze for an instant, then went about cutting the sleeve of the dead man's shirt away. "We're lucky that cabinet was fairly airtight," she commented while doing so, "otherwise, there'd probably be nothing left of him by now." There was nothing on the left arm, and Peter helped her turn the body over with a grimace. After cutting away the other sleeve, she went utterly still, frozen in place. Her position in front of the body blocked it from sight.

Charlie read stunned amazement on Peter's face. "What is it?" he asked, wanting, and not wanting to get a look. "It ain't there is it? There's no way it can be there. He was with us!"

Olivia looked up at him, then moved out of the way, giving him and Sonia a clear view. The arm was nearly black with decay, but he could still make it out—a narrow band of curves and points, intertwined like a crown of thorns.

"It can't be..." Charlie insisted, wincing at the building pressure in his temple. His voice sounded harsh and raspy in his ears. "He was with us. He was with us!" His head began to pound again.  _I'm going crazy_ , came the repeating thought. One man, two bodies. His mind refused to process any of it, maybe he was incapable of processing it. Voices echoed in his head, competing for attention.  _I killed him, but he's right there. I let him die. No! He was already dead! He was alive. Dead. Alive._  He pressed his hands over his ears, trying to silence the shouting. How could the others not hear it? After an intense effort, he managed to suppress them both, though it left him gasping. "It's...it's—"

"Impossible?" Peter finished for him. He rose from his crouch, rubbing at the back of his neck. "I've found myself saying that a lot today. One thing's for sure. This whole thing just got a lot weirder. Where's my father when you need him?"

#

* * *

#

The crystalline structures were vibrating at a peculiar frequency. Striations of muted color danced across their narrow surfaces, taut spirals that defied description, changing shape, moving in and out of focus to some universal rhythm above, or perhaps, below the threshold of human senses. Without warning the vision wavered, and then collapsed, leaving only the mundane behind.

Walter waited for the effect to return for several heartbeats, then pulled his hand out from under the loupe. The hairs were their normal color and size, mostly gray intermixed with black, skin beneath wrinkled with age. Looking for other signs, he glanced into the blackened corners of the storage room beyond the candle's cone of yellow light. When nothing more appeared, he checked the time on his watch.

Twenty-four minutes.

It was nearly time. He could feel faint stirrings of its approach, last minute cogitations preceding the tidal wave rushing toward the shore. It would hit soon—it always did. Between twenty-five and thirty-five minutes, no matter the dosage. Like clockwork. A flood of slick saliva coated his tongue, lining his mouth with a metallic tang. All signs of the wave's imminent arrival.

His gaze fell on Peter's box of old belongings on the table to his left. Some quack—that detestable fool from the institution, Sumner, immediately sprang to mind—might have classified what he was doing as an unhealthy kind of escape; from the present, from dealing with the reality of possibly losing Peter again, and from his own inability to collate even the barest outline of a hypothesis that might explain the outbreak. They might've been partially correct, but mostly, they would be wrong.

The truth of the matter was that it was the LSD. He loved it. He loved its effects on the brain, on the body, on the senses. From the first dose he'd ever taken. Most of his best ideas had come to him while tripping on its strange voyages of limitless imagination. There were so many questions that needed asking. And he was in sore need of answers. Everything depended on them—on him. He'd hoped that his friend might stop by for another visit, but the bald man was shy, and seemed loathe to show himself. Which only left himself. And Peter, of course, when his son was around. Which was rarely, as he always seemed to be out gallivanting with Agent Dunham on some task or another. As he was now.

Walter checked his watch again. Twenty-eight minutes, twelve seconds. The second-hand appeared sinuous for an instant, before straightening, and resuming its circular journey.

He didn't want to think about Peter, or where he was at that moment. Who knew what sort of dangers they would encounter on their journey? It was the dead he must think about, and the mechanism by which they remained animated. And how such animation was passed to another, living being, when tests on infected blood and saliva proved they were not the source. He had proved that himself, though it had not been without some risk.

A drop of undead blood on the tongue. Just a drop. He'd even swallowed it. The taste was wretchedly horrific and he'd come close to vomiting, but nothing had happened. Obviously. Just as he'd surmised. A scratch couldn't bring about the change either, as Judy could attest. When they'd been removing her head, he'd received several on his forearm. All were now healed. Was it the act of ingestion? But how? How could the contagion not be of biological origin? What was he missing? And if not biological, then what? There were distressingly few alternatives.

"Particle physics," he mumbled. "It always comes back to...ahh..." Falling silent, he sighed and took in a breath as the storage room underwent a subtle change.

Flickers of color—yellows and greens and blues that twinkled like the night sky—pulsed on the edge of his vision. Objects all around him, and the storage room itself, seemed to take on deeper meaning, as if he were only now seeing their true form. The open box of Peter's belongings on the table, the boxes on the shelves, his old equipment—they all had more depth than a moment before, dimensions previously hidden from view. Or maybe they were sharper, their edges more defined, and held a certain fascination. He imagined his fingers sinking into the table's liquid surface.

His lips curved upward, doing so without his instruction. The wave crashed. Thirty minutes on the dot. Walter snickered at the sensation. The weight of it was building in the base of his spine. His neck crooked, bending to the pressure.

 _Yes_ , he thought.  _That's it. Now, where was I?_ He paced a track around the table in the center of the room, focusing on the soothing wisp of his palms sliding together. It came to him after several circumnavigations.

_Judy._

Yes, he'd been thinking of Judy, and of his failure to predict the connection between her head and severed limbs. There must be a connection. And not a physical one. In the flesh, but not of the flesh. Not of chemistry or DNA. A connection in the atoms. In the protons and neutrons. The electrons. No, the connection went deeper than that. Further. Lower. Between the skeins of fermions and bosons; in the gaps between particles and anti-particles; the quarks and leptons, antiquarks and antileptons; gluons and photons, the proposed Higgs and gravitons.  _No._ It was something in the very  _stuff_  of reality. Something that corrupted. Something that could break physical laws held sacrosanct since the arrow of time had begun its inexorable journey forward.

Walter stopped. His eyes locked on the flickering candle light. Its glow carried a distinct purplish hue that reminded him of freshly picked blueberries, still ripe with dew. His thoughts raced, feeling, probing for a solution. The walls of the storage room undulated like flags fluttering in the wind. Was there a wind? He shook his head. No.  _Focus on the task at hand,_ a voice reminded him.

Yes. Something that corrupted. Corruption. Not an infection. A corruption that moved through reality? But what would facilitate such a conversion? What was the conduit? He inhaled sharply, starting at a sudden burst of intuition. Entanglement. It always came back to that, it seemed. Entanglement could be the conduit by which it spread. But how? And why did everything always come back to that? Much of his adult life was a swan song on entanglement in one form or another. Entanglement. Corruption of reality. Changing reality. A conversion that spread backward down the line, back to the point of origin. Through entanglement? A virus spread by entanglement? Was that it? It seemed quite impossible. Could the phenomenon somehow be natural?

He thought of his bald friend's recent visit, and the ominous tidings he'd born. _The unnatural events occurring in this here and now have drifted its future apart from all others. Save one._ No. It could not be natural. A weapon, then? Such a weapon would have almost limitless power, able to decimate entire universes.

"It's quite ingenious, really," Walter muttered, rubbing at his chin with fingers that felt like they belonged to someone else. As a scientist, he could appreciate the creativity of such a weapon, the imagination at work behind it. There would be no defense against it. He took it another step further and a realization dawned on him: the device, or weapon, or whatever was the cause—it would have to be... "Deployed externally," he whispered. "To us..."

 _Save one._ He could see it.

Something terrible began to pervade the atmosphere, darkening the room. Was it an omen? It felt like one. An omen of things to come, of revelations to come.  _Peter! Dear god..._ The lie sucked the air from his lungs. Filigrees of reddish-black spiderwebs crept across the floor, over the tables and shelves. Over his shoes. The candle's flame glittered darkly. He tried to breathe, but his lungs were full of solid matter, of wet ash.

Walter pressed his palms hard on the table's surface. It was the LSD, of course, taking control of his senses. He had experienced similar effects—even full-blown synesthesia—countless times before. There was nothing he could do about the future and what lay ahead. Screwing his eyes shut, he gathered himself, and doing so, gained the upper hand.

When he opened his eyes, a white light flashing on the stair treads captured his attention. The light preceding two pairs of booted feet that resolved into Astro and Agent Dunham's sister. They stopped on the bottom step, and directed their flashlight beams around the storage room before settling on him.

"Walter, have you seen Ella recently?" Aspirin asked.

"I wanted to get her some lunch, Dr. Bishop," the other girl added, looking anxious. The blue stocking hat she wore clashed vividly with her green coat.

Walter shook his head. "No, I'm afraid I haven't seen the little rapscall—wait. Yes. I did see her. She visited me earlier."

"Do you know where she went?" Agent Farnsworth prodded him further, pulling one of her gloves free. The black leather appeared to stretch like a rubber band. "We didn't see her upstairs."

"She complained that she was rather bored, and I lent her an old spyglass that belonged to my Peter when he was a boy. Perhaps she's off exploring the upper reaches of the Kresge Building. I suggest you look there. How delightful it must be to be a child in this day and age, don't you agree, Estrogen?"

As he spoke, the womens' faces took on harsh, angular aspects. He'd heard the effect called demonic before, but had never found it so. One must stay in control of one's journey, not the other way around.

"If you say so, Walter," she replied, giving him a narrow look. She started to turn, then stopped and glanced back over her shoulder. "Are you feeling okay?"

Did she know? She was quite astute at times. Walter graced her with an obsequious smile, smoothing his hair back before rubbing his palms together. "I've never been better, I assure you. Might I add you look very lovely this morning, my dear?"

Agent Dunham's sister grinned at the compliment, but suspicion clouded Agent Farnsworth's delicate features. Her dark eyes locked on his face as she studied him. "You can add whatever you want, Walter," she said after a moment. "But flattery will get you nowhere with me. What are you doing down here in the dark, anyway?"

"Oh, well, I was merely building a hypothesis on the nature of...uh..." He fell silent, fascinated by a mole on her left cheek. Or was it a spider? Or even worse, a tic? They were nasty little devils, and proof—in his opinion, at least—that if there was a creator, she had a cruel sense of humor. Was it moving? Perhaps he should say something, give warning. Lyme disease was always a threat when out in the woods, especially in the Northeast. Had they been out the back country?

Abruptly the two women vanished. In their place, a pattern of red and yellow and brown plaid hung in the air. He blinked, but the pattern remained, obscuring his vision. It was on the floor now, on the walls, the table, coating everything like a second skin. A human-like shape moved inside the plaid, hand gesturing.

"Walter...?" The plaid figure sounded like Agent Farnsworth. "You know what? Forget it. If we miss her upstairs and you see Ella, don't let her leave again. I swear that little girl is a master at avoiding detection."

"Tell me about it," the taller plaid said. "Thank you, Dr. Bishop."

And then the shapes turned and clumped up the plaid steps. When they were out of sight, Walter sighed and rubbed his face, pressing hard on his eyeballs until he saw fractals instead of plaid. He opened one eye carefully and then the other, checking his surroundings. The moment had passed.

There would be more waves following, however, each growing successively larger until he peaked in several hours. Like surfing, the trick was to stay ahead of the crest, and let it carry you in. Walter had never been much good at surfing, but it had been many years since this particular recreation had gotten the best of him.

#

The lab was vacant when Walter finally emerged from the storage room. He shivered and pulled a thin pair of gloves from his pocket and slipped them on, while glancing around in the dimness. A tenuous softness lay all around him; the world beneath the world. Tables, shelves, the countertop—it was all malleable, or a paper-thin veneer. The centerpiece was his chemistry set, squirming and writhing in slow motion, yet simultaneously still. The metallic tang was increasing, his saliva rising. He gave the mass of glass and metal an amicable smile on his way past.

A voice calling out from the hallway washed the lab in sparkles of red and blue particles. Agent Dunham's sister. Yes. Ella was the girl's name. She reminded him of Peter at that tender age, always asking questions, making inferences on every subject his curious mind could ponder. Was she having fun with the spyglass? He hoped so. It was important to allow children to explore their world; it was the best sort of learning.

The squat piano tucked away in the back corner of the lab glowed in a spotlight of vibration. Walter worked his way over to it, avoiding the distractions running rampant across his vision. He gazed down at an oscillating patchwork plaid of black and white, and thought of Peter, of Elizabeth in the parlor, legs tucked under, listening with tears in her eyes. Gingerly, he pressed the C8, and smiled at the soft peal that rolled through the lab. He pressed it again, harder, holding the note, eyes closed. The piano was poorly-tuned, yet in spite of that, tingles of light burst through his chest from the sheer beauty. He pulled his hand away slowly and sighed at the loss. The note's absence felt like a depression in reality, a well of silence with its own special kind of gravity. Was that possible? Some new sort of phenomenon? Before he could ponder the thought further, his stomach rumbled, sending the subject hurtling off into the outer reaches of his thoughts.

Some found eating while on a trip difficult. Belly had been one, Nina another, but he'd never minded. Taste was just another of the senses to be enhanced, for good or ill. He grabbed a strip of Gene from the container on the pantry shelf, then glanced around the lab, suddenly irritated by the lack of light. A little daylight was what he needed, and fresh air. He averted his gaze on his way past Peter's table, heading toward the back door.

Sunlight blasted Walter's retinas when he pushed the door open. Wincing at the blinding light, he shaded his eyes and gazed out across the vast emptiness of the quad. The outdoors, the sunlight, they offered a different tenor than the darkness inside; lighter, freer, less intense but more immersive. The carpet of leaves rustled softly, gentle caresses that made his hair stand on end. The wind an ecstatic lover's touch trailing across the surface of his skin. He closed his eyes at the contact, and let his mind wander as it would. As always, it was the past he turned to. The past. Before Peter, before Elizabeth even—back when he'd been a young man, fresh, and barely grown. He could picture the day with crystal clear clarity. As if he were reliving the moment. The past and present coexisted for a moment, and then he settled into the flashback.

He was in the quad with Belly. It is the Sixties again. They are, of course, floating a mile high on several doses of blotter acid—Belly's special blend. His new friend has introduced him to this particular extracurricular activity only recently. The sky overhead is blindingly azure, crisp, the texture of pure serenity. A chorus of songbirds sings its praise. Students move past their bench, with voices tinny and distant, yet loud and overwhelming at the same time. He likes this new substance, this lysergic acid, appreciates its contradictions, the way it twists one's thoughts and senses—and therefore reality—into a mishmash of colors and sights and sounds. They are talking, passing a joint between them, and speculating on whimsies, on the future. Their future. Belly would like to join him in the lab, and he is considering taking him up on the offer. William is extremely intelligent, rivaling Walter himself, and has ideas in line with his own, on pushing back the boundaries of known and accepted science. They would be a good match, he thinks, a good team. As they talk, a striking young woman with long, flaming hair sits down next to Belly. Without a word, she pulls the slim roll of crinkled cigarette paper from his hand. She takes a hit, smiles and exhales, then reaches across William and passes the joint down the line. And just so, Nina Sharp introduced herself.

Walter came back to the present then, to the barren quad and the whispering leaves. When was the last time he'd thought of Nina Sharp? They had both fancied her at the beginning, but truth be told, she'd only ever had eyes for William. And Elizabeth had come into his life not long after in any case, making it a moot point. He wondered how she was doing these days? Was the post-civilization life treating her well? As he pictured her smug face, a sudden pang of guilt went through him. Nina had been injured. Her arm, wasn't it? What had happened to her? He felt as if he should know exactly what had happened to her, but he couldn't recall. That memory was part of the forgotten past—buried somewhere in the plethora of blank spots in his memory. And its lack was troubling. Very troubling.

Before he could dwell on the many holes in his recall, he forced his thoughts in another direction. One must stay in control, lest the trip take a sour turn. He glanced around Harvard Yard.

To his left, dirt mound bearing Gene's remains protruded from the leaves. Brown, oozing bubbles rose from its surface. Having to put her down was a pity, but it was better this way, for all parties involved. The old girl was tasty, however. He'd always loved jerky. Salt burned at his chapped lips as he chewed methodically. All at once, the need for water became apparent, overwhelming. He turned to grab a bottle of water from the refrigerator, but stopped when something tugged at his coat. He glanced down, surprised to find a length of solid black wire caught in the hem of his coat.

"What's this then?" he uttered, pulling the wire free. Oddly, it was looped and twisted around the inside door knob, forming a handle of sorts on the outside when the door was closed. He stared down at the wire with rising unease. A handle. When the door was...closed.

Walter swallowed thickly, then looked around the quad once again. It was frozen in time. Utterly still. Wisps of condensation rose from his breath in the chill air. The leaves began to throb, jagged outlines that faded in and out of focus in his peripheral vision. He wasn't sure what he was looking for until he saw it: to the right of the door, a patch of white in the leaves, some little distance away from the building. His gaze narrowed on the patch of white, and then he recalled himself and Peter dumping poor Judy in the vicinity, sans head and limbs.

A line of disturbed leaves led straight as an arrow to the dismembered corpse.

The uneasy feeling intensified. He gave the wire a tug. It seemed more than sturdy enough to hold the door's weight. Letting the door close quietly behind him, he stepped outside and rushed over to the white patch in the leaves. He gasped, covering his mouth at the squirming maggots spilling from the stump of its neck. There were more in the leaves, a great pile of them, further away from the body. Too far away.

He brushed the back of one gloved hand across his forehead. "Oh dear," he mumbled, now more anxious than ever.

Then he noticed another trail of overturned leaves, leading away from the body. The trail headed east in a straight line, cutting a path through the trees near where the John Harvard statue sat in front of University Hall. Above and beyond the trees, the towering structure of the Widener Library hovered in the background.

A cold, sinking feeling settled over him. He heard again the question that Agent Dunham's niece had asked, down in the storage room.  _What do you do when you're bored, Dr. Walter?_  He liked when she called him Dr. Walter—had he been called that before, sometime, somewhere? It was familiar. He had answered without thinking, without considering how literal children could be.

"Oh my dear," he whispered, pulling at the roots of his hair.

The girl's mother and Astral were still looking for her. _They won't find her_ , he thought. There was no proof the trail belonged to the little girl, but at the same time, he was sure of it. He'd never been surer of anything. Ever. Had he? How would one quantify such a statement? He shook his head, banishing the thought. All the pieces fit together perfectly, completing the ghastly puzzle. Agent Dunham would not be happy with him. Or Peter. Or any of them, especially the girl's mother.

The yard took on a darker tint. Shadows deepened, took on sinister shapes and forms. Skeletal hands reached out, knobby knuckles flexed, waiting for the unaware to pass by. A high-pitched wail rose over the yard—voices of the grave calling out for release. Walter screwed his eyes shut, forcing even breaths in and out until he regained control. When he opened them, everything was as it should be. No skeletons. Trees blowing gently in the breeze. Of course they were.

He smoothed the front of his coat, then walked carefully back inside. He was going to need a light.

And a weapon.

#

* * *

#

"This isn't real, is it?" Sonia said again, turning for another lap down the corridor. Her stilted shadow matched her pace, cast diagonally on the opposite wall by the battery powered lamp on the floor just inside the open armory door. Her face was pale, eyes bulging with bewilderment and more than a little bit of fear. "This can't be real," she continued. "Agent Rodriguez was with us. There must be some mistake."

Olivia leaned against the door frame and silently watched the redhead travel back and forth. It was the fifth iteration. She glanced down at Charlie. Her partner was sitting on the floor against the corridor wall, almost hugging his knees, eyes vacant. He looked terrible, and appeared to not even notice his distraught wife, which was a very bad sign.  _There's something wrong with him_ , she thought.  _He's having some kind of breakdown_. She should have seen it before, or suspected, at least. It was something to do with what happened with Agent Rodriguez.  _Or the other Agent Rodriguez_ , she amended the thought. Something more than what he'd told her.

It was all so insane, so surreal. And Rodriguez had been friends with John. What did that mean? Why hadn't John ever mentioned him? His last words had been an apology. For what? There was something there, but now wasn't the time to think about it. Not now, not in front of everyone.

She felt the brush of Peter's gaze. He was watching her from his spot against the wall. Of course he was. He was always watching her it seemed, now more than ever. She didn't mind, and never had when it came down to it, even before. She supposed she should have taken that as a sign of things to come. His eyes shifted to Charlie on the floor across from the armory entrance and then back to her. He was looking for her to take the lead.

 _What do we do?_ his blue eyes asked the question.

 _Like I know_ , she thought, shrugging a reply. Reality was unfolding around them. Buckling, coming unhinged. Two bodies. One man. It was impossible, yet both of them were sure, and she had no reason to doubt them. It certainly explained their current state of mind. Another occurrence to toss on the growing pile of impossibilities. Maybe the infection was just some form of madness, and they were all already infected.

Peter's eyes turned intense and darted around the corridor, back toward the elevators.  _We can't just stay here_ , she read in his intent look.

He was right, of course. They couldn't just sit around. As disturbing as this new discovery was, their purpose still lay several floors above them yet. Olivia nodded, then grinned faintly at the blatant relief on Peter's face.

"Charlie...," she started, crouching down in front of him. "Are you all right? I know this must be...difficult, but, we still have to get up to Broyles's office."

Her partner was silent for a moment, then looked up with tortured eyes. "I can't stop thinking about it, Liv. I let him die, but he's right here. Somehow he was already dead. How is that possible?"

"I don't know. But we'll have to figure it all out later." Olivia hesitated, wetting her lips. "Look, why don't you stay down here with Sonia, and keep an eye on things. Peter and I will go up. It shouldn't take long. Either we find something or we won't, and then we can all get the hell out of here."

She expected him to protest. The old, confident Charlie would have never agreed to it. But instead, this Charlie merely nodded his head, eyes locked on the floor between his knees. "Sure. Whatever. Maybe that's for the best," he agreed quietly. "You two go on ahead, we'll wait here."

"Are you sure we should split up, Olivia?" Sonia said, stopping in front of them. "Maybe we should all go."

Olivia glanced between the husband and wife. She didn't exactly like the idea herself, but Charlie didn't look like he'd be in shape to go anywhere anytime too soon, and might even be a liability in his current state of mind. This floor, at least, seemed safe enough. "We'll be fine, Sonia," she told the other woman. "It's not far. Just a few floors up from here."

Sonia made a steeple over her lips, but then nodded and took a seat next to her husband. She leaned her head on his shoulder. Charlie went still at the contact, but then reached for her hand. Olivia sighed internally, watching the two of them. Maybe not all was lost. It was a sign, if nothing else, that the Charlie Francis she had always known was still in there somewhere. It would have to do. She rose to her feet, knees popping, and motioned for Peter to follow her back into the armory room. She avoided looking at the body on the floor, and noticed him doing the same.

They had just been getting started with their inventory when they'd discovered the body in the big cabinet. Surprisingly, it all appeared relatively untouched by scavengers. Assault rifles, sub-machine guns, and pistols were all racked inside gun cabinets, just as she remembered them. It would be a shame to leave so much behind, but there was so much more than they could ever possibly hope to carry. Still, she intended to take as much as they could; there had been several large duffel bags in one of the cabinets that looked like they might be useful.

She tossed Peter a holster from one of the equipment cabinets. His method of shoving his sidearm into the waistband of his pants like some cheesy action star was a bomb waiting to go off, and she wasn't shy about telling him so. She watched discreetly as he loosened his belt. Unbidden, her mind began to wander places that it shouldn't and she started to turn away, but then she remembered that it  _could_  go those places, now, and watched him openly instead. Events of the previous night began to flow past in perfect clarity, right down to the smell of him, the rough scratch of his beard on her neck. A grin played across Peter's face, widening into a knowing smirk as he snaked the holster into place. Olivia twirled away from him, cheeks flaming.

 _What is Rachel going to think?_  The thought came out of nowhere as she knelt down in front of another cabinet, smaller than the others, and locked. How would this new thing between her and Peter affect her sister? Or Ella? Part of her wanted to keep it a secret for a while, to keep him a secret. Was that selfish of her? All she knew was that it felt right, like a puzzle piece fitting into place, and that there was no place for doubt or hesitation. Not anymore. If Rachel had a problem with them, well, too bad for her, though truthfully she expected little resistance.

Putting her sister out of her mind, she pulled open the small cabinet's door. Inside were a number of metal cases that glittered in the lamp's brightness. They looked like large handgun cases, but why weren't they with the others? Olivia frowned and pulled one out onto the floor in front of her. She couldn't recall ever seeing them before, ever, during her entire tenure at the FBI. When she opened the case, she understood why.

The handgun inside was pressed into knobby, black foam and looked similar in design to her own Glock 23, but with one glaring difference. "Peter," she hissed, glancing back at him. "Look at this."

Peter came to her side, adjusting the holster on his hip. He peered over her shoulder. "Is that what I think it is?" he asked, sounding impressed. "What did the FBI need silencers for? Isn't that more of a CIA thing?"

Olivia shrugged and lifted the handgun free from the foam. Technically, the long, black canister screwed into the end of the barrel was a suppressor. "I don't know. I've never seen these before. Maybe they were used by the HRT agents?" She doubted her own words even as she spoke them. No agent that she'd ever seen had used a suppressor in the field. They were the tools of spies and assassins and criminals. Not FBI agents. She ran a finger over the cool metal of the canister. Was it removable? She gave it a twist and the cylinder broke free with little effort. She screwed it back in place. Its extra weight would take some getting used to. "These could be useful," she said, glancing up at him.

"You think?" Peter grinned, and reached for another of the cases.

When they emerged from the armory, Charlie was still sitting where they'd left him, shell-shocked. His eyes were somewhere else, reliving some horror by the despair burning in their depths. He was much worse than she'd ever seen him. Much worse. Olivia wondered how long he'd been managing whatever he'd been dealing with. Since they had made it back to the lab? And the migraines he'd told her about—were they a symptom, or the cause of his affliction? She wished she'd never shown him the damn body. She should have suspected that something like this might happen. After what he'd told her, she should have known.

She felt Peter move next to her, his hand on her arm, propelling her away toward the elevators. He gave her a knowing look. "We'll be back soon," she told Sonia, who had taken up pacing again. "There's all kinds of weapons in there, take whatever you feel comfortable with."

Sonia nodded. "Good luck you guys," she called after them. She was still watching when they turned the corner.

#

They hurried through the dimness toward the elevator doors. Olivia hoped the stairwell door was open, and the stairwell clear of infected. Peter was silent beside her, but there were gears turning behind his eyes. They had both left their melee weapons behind, opting instead for the suppressed pistols. He was going to ask about Charlie, she thought, and he did when they were almost back to the elevator lobby.

As they crossed through a shaft of light spilling from an open office door, he stopped her with a touch to her sleeve. "Olivia, what was that?" he inquired, motioning back down the corridor. "What happened back there? Beyond the fact that we apparently have a guy who died twice, Charlie looked and acted...well, bat-shit crazy for a minute there, and believe me, I know crazy."

She hesitated for an instant, then shrugged. It was all going to come out now, anyway. One way or another. So she told him the story Charlie had told her, about saving his wife, and in turn, letting the other man—Agent Rodriguez—die, and all the guilt he'd been dealing with ever since, about the migraines, and how she thought Charlie might be suffering from some of the effects of PTSD or something similar. That her partner's mind might be fracturing, splintering apart bit by bit, wasn't something she could say out loud, even to Peter. He was right about one thing. There had been madness in Charlie's eyes, the kind that could cloud judgment, or impair rational thought.

Peter was quiet when she finished, his brow furrowed in thought. The story had bothered him on multiple levels, that much had been obvious. She wondered if he was thinking of the bridge, and what happened with Rachel. After a moment he met her gaze. "What about you? You okay?"

"Me?" Olivia raised her eyebrows. "Sure, why wouldn't I be? This is no more insane than anything else we've been dealing with."

"I saw your face, Olivia. When you saw the guy's ID, you looked and sounded...disturbed, to say the least. Did you know him from before?"

She shook her head. "No. I'd seen him around the office, but...I never..." She trailed off, embarrassed, but saw understanding in his gaze. Arms length. "Anyway, supposedly he was friends with John, from the Marines, but, I never knew that. John never mentioned him to me. Charlie said they showed up together the outbreak. After  _this_  Rodriguez was murdered. And it had to have happened before it all started, otherwise he'd have turned.

"Shit...," Peter sighed, scrubbing a hand through his wavy hair. "You're right. But still, it doesn't mean that John had anything—"

"I know it doesn't," she cut in. "But it is circumstantial." She swallowed, seeing John's face again, the blood welling from the bite in his neck. "When John was...dying—bleeding out on the sidewalk—he told me something. He was trying to apologize, said something about The Pattern, about not being able to tell me. I never told him about the Pattern. At the time I thought it was just delirium, but now, I don't know what to think, Peter. They were together. John, and a...a...lookalike of someone murdered inside the Federal Building, right  _before_  the outbreak started." Something else occurred to her then, something she'd never considered before. How could she have missed it? She grabbed Peter's arm. "John was also at Boston General at the same time as Richard Stieg. They were on the same floor the day Stieg was suffocated in his bed. Right after he told me that there was a mole in our office—inside the FBI."

"Olivia, you don't seriously think—"

"I don't know what to think anymore, Peter," she interrupted, lifting her shoulders futilely. She spun away, wiping a hand across her eyes. The dead body cast her relationship with John Scott in an entirely different light. Surely he couldn't have had anything to do with it, could he? With either of the murders. She would have seen something, would have suspected something. Wouldn't she have? Suddenly she wasn't sure. Maybe she'd been blinded by lust, by whatever her feelings for him were.

Peter stepped in front of her. "Look. There's no way to prove or disprove any of it now, Olivia," he said, taking her hand in a featherlight grip, giving her the option of pulling free if she wished, or as if he still wasn't quite sure of his standing with her. "Don't torture yourself over what-ifs or maybes. For all we know, John was a good man who loved you. And that's all we know for sure." His thumb was stroking softly over the back of her hand.

After a moment, Olivia relaxed under his touch. She nodded, and gave his hand a squeeze, then stared up at him. His cobalt eyes, so similar yet different than John's. He was taller than John also, several inches, at least. More than once it had snuck up on her when she had least expected it. "You're right," she admitted. "You're right. We don't...know anything, not for sure." She shook her head and gave him a sideways glance. "You know he hated you right? And now you're defending him."

Peter snorted and gave her a wry smile. "Yeah. You may have mentioned that before."

"Just making sure," she said sweetly, and pulled him toward the elevators. "Enough standing around. I want to get out of here today if we can."

Her newfound good mood lasted until she shined her light through the tiny square window of the emergency stairwell door. It seemed that there was a reason that someone had been using the elevator shaft to move between floors. Infected packed the landing, shoulder to shoulder, and up and down both stairs. The one nearest to the door had bits of flesh still stuck in its teeth and utterly insane eyes. It might be possible to fight their way through them, but it was hardly worth the effort. Not when there was a clear path right there.

"On second thought, let's just take the elevator," she said, turning back to Peter. The handguns hanging from his belt looked good on him. Dangerous, like some kind of gunslinger from the old west. Not that she was into that kind of thing, of course not. The extra sidearm on her thigh had felt a bit strange at first, but she'd quickly acclimated.

"Let me guess, our friendly-neighborhood undead greeting party?" he asked, peeking through the window. She noticed sourly that he didn't have to stand on his tippy toes to do so.

"Yep. They're packed in there like sardines," Olivia said, and crossed over to the open elevator door. She peered up into the darkness of the shaft at the dim squares of light marking other open floors. Was the higher one her floor? The distance looked about right, though her light barely penetrated half the distance. She swung her leg out into the darkness, holding the door's edge in an iron grip.

"Who do you think was here before us?" she asked in an effort to distract herself from the gaping abyss below.

"Could have been anyone, I guess," she heard Peter reply. "The front door was wide open. Though, considering the Boston FBI headquarters were housed here, I'd put money down that the building was never empty, not all the way at least. And Charlie said Broyles was trying to get back here. Maybe he made it."

Her foot found a rung in the darkness. It felt impossibly far away. Had the fucking ladder moved? Surely it hadn't been so far on the way up. She tried not to think about falling, about being impaled on the equipment mounted on top of the elevator car below. Heights had never been a great phobia of hers, but the step out into the blackness bordered on creating a new one. Her right hand splayed across the concrete wall of the shaft, searching for a handhold. Where was it? Her rapid breaths rasped in her ears. She stretched farther, and felt a jolt of panic as her grip on the door began to slip through gloved fingers.

A hand grabbed her left arm and held her in place. "I've got you," Peter said softly from out in the hall.

Olivia swallowed and closed her eyes. _Maybe the stairs would've been the better alternative_ , she thought, taking in deep breaths. She exhaled, then stretched again farther than before. A second later her fingers closed on metal, cool to the touch through her leather gloves. "I got it," she gasped with relief, and then pulled herself out onto the ladder.

After her heart stopped its pounding, she climbed up to a level above the open doors, and then shined her light down on the ladder below. He appeared in the doorway an instant later, awkwardly reaching for the ladder. She felt the urge to ask him about his shoulder but didn't. He would soldier through, just as he'd been doing all along. His longer arms and legs appeared to make the task infinitely easier than for her, and after several grunts and curses, he was on the ladder below her a moment later.

"You ready, Peter?" she asked.

"Ready as I'll ever be. Lead the way, Agent Dunham."

Olivia grinned as they started upward, climbing past floor after floor. As the first set of open doors came into view she craned her head toward the light. What floor was it? From her angle it was hard to tell. A dark corridor with a window out of view. The corridor ended at a tee, where another shaft of light far down the hall revealed several cube-shaped blobs blocking the passage. Vending machines? Some of them had narrow slots on one side, like tiny shelves. Suddenly she knew what floor it was. Food carts, the sort used in a kitchen. There was no movement, no sign of infected.

"What floor are we at?" Peter hissed up from below.

"Seventh, I think," she whispered back. "I never really came down here, but I'm pretty sure there was a cafeteria on this floor."

"You mean you never ate? What a shocker," he replied dryly.

"Hey, I eat," she growled, as they resumed their climb. Where had the stupid misconception that she never ate come from? She used to eat all the time, only in small amounts. Was it her fault everyone else over-ate? "If I was going to be here all day, I'd eat in my office. I was usually in the field though, you know, doing my job. And not relaxing in the lab with Walter."

A chuckle echoed up from below. "Relax, Olivia, I'm just kidding. I know you eat. I've seen the way you devour Indian. And for the record, babysitting my father wasn't what I'd call relaxing. It was more like a form of cruel and unusual punishment, or possibly torture."

Olivia snorted a laugh at that. "You're exaggerating, Peter. He wasn't that bad."

"Yeah, well, you didn't have to live with him back then, when he was fresh out of St. Claire's. You know what song he liked to sing himself to sleep with? Row, row, row, your fucking boat. All night long. I dare you to sleep with that going on in the background."

"Really?" She giggled, pulling herself up another rung. She could picture Walter singing, and a very frustrated Peter lying on his couch in the dark. Had he covered his head with a pillow? It was an amusing image. "Was that why you were always so grumpy when I picked you up in the mornings?"

"Hey I was suffering from acute sleep deprivation," he retorted, sounding wounded. "I think I deserve a little slack."

"Do you now?" she questioned, glancing upward at the faint daylight above. It was closer, only several floors away. "You remember that morning when I tried to get you to sign that waiver release form? The one that I was  _required_  by my boss to give you? You blew up in my face and then stormed out of the lab." Another thought popped into her head at the memory. That was the same morning Walter had mentioned something about a discrepancy in Peter's medical records. She had never gotten him to elaborate. What did it mean? Did Peter know, and should she ask him?

Peter didn't reply immediately. When he did, his voice was reticent. "Um, yeah... I was kind of hoping you'd forgotten about that. Is it too late to say I'm sorry?"

Olivia stopped and peered down at him between her legs. His face gleamed in her light, as she was sure hers did in his. She thought about stringing him along further—it was kind of fun, in a way—but the distressed look on his face made her think better of it. "I suppose I can cut you some slack, Peter," she calmed him with a smirk, and then started upward again before continuing. "Apology accepted—this time, anyway. So did you ever end up signing it? The waiver, I mean. I told Broyles you wouldn't."

She heard Peter clear his throat in the darkness. "Yeah, I did, actually," he admitted, voice embarrassed. "Broyles cornered me one day and made it clear that I wouldn't be getting a paycheck or free lodging unless I signed."

"So much for those lofty principles, Peter," she teased, flexing her fingers against the rising chill in her fingertips. The metal was getting colder with every floor they passed by. "You should've let Broyles have it, not me." She fell silent as the surreality of their present circumstance was suddenly glaring. The two of them together—on the verge of being lovers, no less—bantering in a forgotten elevator shaft. The two of them just getting along for any length of time was not something she'd have thought possible back when he'd stormed out of the lab that morning so long ago—and that was without the advent of the apocalypse happening on top of it. "How the hell did we end up here, anyway?" she asked. "Climbing up an elevator shaft in the dark after the end of the world. Sometimes I feel like I'm watching myself in a movie, like none of this can possibly be real."

"I know, it's weird isn't it?" he agreed. "And you know what else? In the movies, climbing up dark elevator shafts actually looks fun and exciting. Turns out it sucks." Olivia stifled a laugh in the sleeve of her coat as he went on. "Speaking of movies, you ever see that old horror flick,  _Invasion of the Body Snatchers_?"

"Which version?" she asked, grinning in the darkness. "The Siegel or Kaufman?"

"Wow," Peter chuckled. "Color me impressed, Dunham. Now that's a story I want to hear sometime. But I was thinking of the remake. You think Charlie and Sonia are right? That there really can be two of him?"

The next pair open doors was just above her. A tiled ceiling was visible through the opening, but that was all. "I don't think we need to worry about falling asleep and waking up as pod people," she said, pulling herself up another rung. "But it's clear that something strange is going on. We have a body, and there has to be some rational explanation for it. If there are...or were, two of him—which sounds completely insane, by the way—which one was the original?"

"Well, if this were a horror movie," he mused, "it would have to be the one we found. The copy would be the one who was with them. If this were a horror movie."

"It all seems pretty horrific to me," she muttered, pulling herself even with the open doors. She leaned out off the ladder, getting a look at the floor for the first time. The darkened lobby looked familiar, the pale green walls, the corridor with windowed offices to either side. A thrill of excitement went through her as she squinted at the number on the nearest office door. It was her floor, with her section's offices, and more importantly, Broyles's. "This is our stop, Peter. And someone was nice enough to leave the door open."

Olivia made the awkward step out of the shaft. The lobby appeared clear of infected, and the corridor beyond from what she could see. Peter emerged a moment later, reaching out for a handhold with his left arm. For a moment, he stood teetering on the brink with rapidly widening eyes, before she yanked him to safety.

"I've got you," she breathed softly, finding her chest pressed hard against him.

Peter swallowed and made no move to pull away from her. "Yeah, I guess you do," he murmured in a voice barely audible.

His hand tightened on her forearm as their gazes became entangled. His breath tickled her cheek, lips slit open. She found herself wanting to pull those lips to hers, to taste him again. The air suddenly seemed warmer, her skin also. After their night in the condo, being alone with him in such close proximity was setting her nerve-endings aflame. But then the smell of decay wafting through the corridor broke through the spell. Now was not the time for such foolishness. But would there ever truly be a good time, she wondered, or would there always be something else, some other duty that came first? Something else that needed doing that was more important.

Olivia gulped and shook her head slightly, then forced herself away from him. And she did have to force herself. Peter stepped back at the same time, taking in a huge breath of air. Their eyes met again and they both laughed a little in the dim light.

"Sorry," he said, rubbing at the back of his neck.

"Nothing to be sorry about," she answered with a shrug. She intended to make time. And soon. "C'mon. Let's keep moving. And keep your eyes open."

#

They crept toward Broyles's office through alternating patches of daylight and shadow. The corridors they passed by were vacant but choked with the smell of old death. Some were barricaded off with desks and chairs and tables stacked into jumbled piles. There were signs of heavy fighting. Broken glass from shattered office windows crunched under their feet. Dark pools of dried blood stained the floor, splattered corridor walls riddled with bullet holes. Bodies lay prostrate across the hall, in open doorways. Most were little more than dried husks, grinning grotesquely in advanced stages of decomposition. Whether or not they'd been infected was impossible to determine. All were shot in the head, however, and most appeared to have been agents from the clothes they were wearing, the IDs on grimy cords about their necks. Olivia didn't look at any of them too closely—she preferred not to know if they'd been acquaintances. Open office doors displayed signs of habitation, cots and makeshift beds made out of blankets.  _They were living up here_ , she realized.  _What happened to them all? Who did this?_

"Looks like a fucking war zone," Peter muttered, straightening from his crouch over a body wearing suit pants and an FBI jacket. A woman from the stylish boots on her feet. "Or a slaughter. And I'm not entirely sure it was infected they were fighting."

"It happened a long time ago," she said, glancing down the corridor ahead. Her old office was just around the corner. "If not infected, then who? Who would do this?"

"No idea. Whoever it was, though, they're long gone now."

It certainly appeared that way. Other than themselves, the floor was completely silent. She thought of the infected packed in the stairwell below. Where had they come from? Could they have wandered in from the street? It seemed unlikely. The Federal Building was a huge complex, housing many more government agencies than just the FBI in its small corner. Had they too tried to ride out the disaster as they had on her floor? Would there have been conflicts over resources? Over food and water? It was possible. Maybe at the end, the inherent violence of human nature had once again reared its ugly head, even here, among her people. The thought was depressing, and she was glad she hadn't been there to witness it.

They moved on, faster than before, and found the corridor leading to her office an inky shade of black, with nary a ray of daylight in sight. Olivia frowned at the darkness; somehow she'd never noticed the lack of windows before.

The scars of battle were less obvious, as if most of the fighting had taken place in the main hallway. Only a single body was to be found, slumped back in an office chair behind a wide desk. She recognized the name on the plate outside the door: one of the section chiefs she'd worked beneath before Broyles came along. A gun lay on the floor next to him, beneath outstretched fingers showing more bone than flesh. A mosaic pattern of blood and bits of skull plastered on the wall behind him made his manner of death clear.

Olivia turned away from the door. She had never considered the man a coward—a sexist asshole, on occasion—but never a coward. Had despair driven him to it, or something else? Perhaps he'd been bitten.

"You know that guy?" Peter asked as they left the dead man's office behind.

"Yeah. Before Flight 627, I used to work beneath him."

"You all right?"

"We weren't exactly close, Peter. I don't think he liked me very much, or maybe it was just that I'm a woman—and good at my job—that he didn't like."

Peter grunted at that, giving the receding office a disdainful look over his shoulder. "Well, good riddance then."

Her old office slid into view a moment later. The door was closed, and the clouded vertical window facing the corridor still intact. The sight of her nameplate filled her with a sudden longing for her old life. They were feelings she'd done her best to suppress a long time ago, and she didn't particularly care for them surfacing now. When Peter asked her if she wanted to stop, she refused, claiming that she'd already moved her possessions to the lab. That was mostly true, but the deeper truth was that all that was left in there were memories of the past, of John sitting on the corner of her desk, of the way things used to be. All that was behind her now, part of another life that no longer held any meaning. Everything she held dear was with her now, or waiting back at the lab.

When they reached Broyles's office, the stout wooden door was wide open.  _Is that a good sign or not_? Olivia wondered, and stepped inside, shining her light all around. A low cot sat in one corner with a wadded up bundle of towels for a pillow. Had Broyles actually made it back? There were pictures on his desk facing the cot, pictures of children she'd never seen before. A boy and a girl, both close to being teenagers. And an old photo of a woman who must've been his wife, though he wasn't married. So ex-wife. Of the man himself there was no sign. Had he been among the bodies they'd come across? There was no way to know, unless they searched each one of them for an ID, and that wasn't happening.

She met Peter's furrowed gaze. "Search his desk," she told him. "I'll take his file cabinet. What am I looking for anyway?"

"I don't know. But I'll know it if I see it."

#

* * *

#

The row of shelves seemed to have no end. Book after book appeared out of the blackness ahead, with more always behind. The ceiling ducked low overhead, almost pressing down on the top shelf, and crushing those beneath into tight stacks, like pancakes being squashed down. The smell of books filled her nose, like the smell of her library back home, but better somehow.

Ella stopped and looked back. The view behind her was no different. Her little flashlight barely let her see anything at all. She started forward again, shoes pattering on the reddish floor tiles, determined to reach the end. The other rows had had an end, and this one would too, so she pressed forward and shortly stepped out into the space at the end of the rows. Despite the pitch-dark, there were some windows. They were small, however, and widely spaced, and provided just enough light to show how dark it was between them. She looked around.

So far, all she'd discovered was that the book part of the library was huge, with more books than she could believe.  _Ginormous_ was the word that popped into her head as the end of the row finally came into the range of her light. She'd heard the word somewhere before. From Peter? Or maybe it was Charlie. It meant bigger than anything, than everything. She liked the sound of it.

She shined her light on the yellow tags stuck to the bookshelf end. Large, black letters were written on the tags, with smaller numbers below. The numbers and letters were how you found the book you were looking for, she knew that much. But not how to use them. Her mother had always found books for her back at their library, in the special kid's area. And there had been computers to help, too. She hadn't seen any computers, or a kid's area. And there was no electricity, anyway. The next bookshelf over, the letters on the tags changed from  _Fr_  to  _Fu_.

 _Are they what the books are called_? she wondered, eyeing the letters before entering the next row.

Ella picked one at random; a thick, red book with curvy, golden letters on the side. The curvy letters reminded her of the way her mother wrote sometimes. Inside, the print was tiny, with too many long words that were too hard for her to figure out. Frustrated, she shoved the book back in its place. More of the same. All the books the she'd tried were like that. Were there any books here for her?

At the end of the next row, she found something different; a narrow set of stairs, going up and down, with a thin, metal handrail that reflected her light off into the darkness. She hesitated in front of them, peering about in the blackness. Was her light not as bright? She turned it on her face and squeezed her eyes shut at the blinding white. No. It still seemed okay.

She took the upward set of steps. The thick, wooden treads seemed older than time. At the top, her mouth dropped open as her little flashlight revealed the next floor. More books! Shelves and shelves of them, nearly a perfect copy of the floor below. The stairs continued upward and she hurried up them without a second's thought. The next floor was the same! And still the stairs continued upward! Ella pounded up the steps, passing floor after floor of books.  _They go on forever!_ she thought, swinging around the metal handrail in her excitement. How could there even be so many books in one place?  _They really must have every book in the whole world!_ There  _had_  to be something for her. Without warning, the stairs came to a sudden end. She was at the top.

Panting, and rubbing at the burning in her legs, she squinted about. "It's ginormous!" she whispered to the dark.

The top floor held the same tight rows of bookshelves as the floors below. It smelled different, however, sort of dirty, or old. Kind of like the inside of her gram's closet in her extra bedroom. She had always imagined the closet was what a grave must smell like, full of dust and ancient, cracked bones. Maybe even a ghost or two.

On some of the books, instead of letters and words on the sides where the titles should be, were strange symbols and shapes and squiggly lines. Ella traced one of the wavy lines with her finger, and then pulled the book free. She glanced around, then sat down and opened it in her lap and flipped through the pages. There were more of the off symbols inside, rows that go up and down the pages, along with pictures of men and women with dark hairs and eyes and tan skin. And an alien city with tall and narrow signs of bright blues and yellows and reds mounted on buildings above a crowded street. The same squiggly symbols were on the signs too. Were they words? The people in the city all wore white masks over their mouths and noses. _Weird_... she thought, flipping the page.  _Maybe the air smells really bad there._ There were other pictures, of tall mountains, of empty deserts full of sand and pointy rocks, and giant stairs covered in green grass cut into of rolling hills. It looked like someplace in another world, someplace out of a story. She wished she could go there and climb up the stairs, or see what was on the other side of the mountains. Was it cold? From the blankets of snow covering their jagged tips, she thought it must be freezing.

She flipped through a few more pages, then let the book fall shut. On the cover were two large symbols, a black square with a line through its center and a rectangle with what kind of looked like the letters  _F_ and  _L_  mixed together inside, but she thought they were neither. She wondered if Dr. Walter or Peter knew what they meant—they seemed to know everything.

Picking up the book, she glanced around the empty rows. Could she take it? Or was it stealing? _Everyone is dead, silly_ , she decided after a moment's thought.  _Why not_?

Ella's stomach growled as she climbed to her feet. She froze, suddenly aware of how much time had passed. How long had it been? More than five minutes, of that she was sure. An hour? An hour was a long show. Had it been that long? She didn't know, but from how hungry she felt, it was probably past lunchtime. And that meant trouble.

_Mommy will be looking for me, and Astrid too. I have to get back. I have to go back now!_

Holding her new treasure in one hand and the tiny flashlight in the other, she rushed back to the stairwell. Without stopping she plunged into the darkness, directing the light on the treads in front of her as she swiftly descended toward the first floor. The staircase was smaller than before, somehow more confining. Or maybe it was her flashlight that was different. Instead of blinding her, the light was a yellow that seemed to flicker. She smacked the little light against her leg, and the white beam flashed brighter, though not quite as bright as it had been. Were the batteries running out? The thought gave her a bad feeling in her stomach that propelled her feet even faster. She bounced down the stairs, leaping off the bottom step at each landing. As it had on the way up, the staircase seemed as if it would never end.

Until if did end, finally. Ella reached the bottom, legs full of fire, and gasping for breath. She stood still for a moment and listened to her racing heartbeat, then hurried toward the way out. After a minute or two, she slowed and glanced around with gathering unease. Something was wrong. Was it darker than before? And the ceiling seemed even lower, with bars of metal showing. Had they been there? Had the floor been gray concrete, or some other color? She chewed on her lip, trying to remember, but she hadn't been looking at the floor or ceiling before, not really. She had come for all the books.

She started forward again, following the bookshelves. They were arranged in the same way she remembered, the same line of long rows with a bigger space on the outside that was kind of like a hallway that went all the way around. It was all the same. Wasn't it? Except when she reached the spot where the door should have been, it was gone, and a solid wall of pale, yellow bricks stood in its place.

Swallowing down a mouthful of bitter fear, Ella spun around. Beyond the tiny circle of her flashlight beam was a wall of interminable blackness. Where were the windows? There _had_ been windows before, little ones that had made little spots of daylight. _I know there was,_ she thought, taking a few steps back toward the stairs. Had she gone down the wrong steps? No. There hadn't been any others. Then she remembered that there had been stairs going up _and_  down when she'd first seen them.

A smile broke across her lips, and she almost giggled in relief. It was the basement. She had come too far, that was all.  _I just have to go back the way I came_ , she reasoned, feeling as if she might start to float.  _Back up to the next floor. That has to be it._

And that was when the flashlight blinked, stuttered, and then went out. The pitch-blackness that enveloped her sucked her breath away in an instant. Ella squeaked out a choked gasp, shrinking against the bricks. Her knees began to quake, her hands also.  _Please come on_ , she prayed, and banged the light on her leg as she had done before.  _Please come on_.

The little light came on.

Its glow was feeble, a dull orangish-yellow that struggled to push back the dark. Ella stared at the light with dismay. A powerful shudder started in her shoulders and raced down her back, leaving her breathless. If the batteries died all the way she would be lost, alone in the dark. Forever. No one would find her—they didn't even know she had left. Tears blurred her vision. She would never see her mommy again. Or Aunt Liv, or Peter, or any of them.

Not unless she started moving.  _I have to go!_ she thought, blinking the tears away.  _Before the batteries run out all the way!_

Taking in a massive breath, she started to run, retracing her route back to the stairs. She followed the puny circle of light bobbing in front of her. Bookshelf-sized shapes flew past on her right. She almost missed the stairwell when it suddenly reared out the darkness on her left, and had to skid to a stop before speeding up the steps to the next floor. At the top, her eyes darted for something familiar but it all looked the same. The floor was covered in a whitish tile, however, instead of gray concrete, and she took that as a good sign. She sprinted around the bookshelves, following the outside wall to the way out.

Only there was no way out.

The wall kept going; a smooth, and unbroken line of bricks painted white that faded into the blackness ahead.  _Maybe it's a little farther_ , she thought, and followed the wall until she came to corner. No. It was too far. She hadn't made any turns before. Ella ran back to where the door should have been, but wasn't. She gave the wall a shove, as if that might somehow make the door appear. It did not, and she turned away, struggling to hold back rising terror.

The blackness was suffocating, pressing in from all sides. Tears tumbled down her cheeks, leaving wet trails behind. It was hard to think, hard to move.  _There...there has to be a way out_ , she thought, breathing in a shallow, open-eyed pant. _Maybe...maybe it's the next floor. It has to be the next floor._

Summoning the last bits of her courage, she ran back to the stairwell. The flashlight's beam was almost invisible, and could hardly reach the floor. She flew up the steps and around the bookshelves again, and again, came face to face with another blank wall instead of the exit. There was no way out.

Ella smacked the wall with the flat of side of her hand, hard enough to sting. The sound seemed to echo loudly in the silence. "Where am I?" she whispered at the darkness. "How do I get out of here?" When no one answered, she finally admitted the truth to herself, though she had secretly known it all along, ever since coming upon the first blank wall. _I'm lost_ , she thought, and on the heels of that came another truth. "I want my Mommy."

Leaning back against the wall, she cried and wiped at her eyes on the sleeve of her coat. She wished she had never left the lab, had never even seen the library. If she ever made it back to the lab, she was going to promise to never leave it again. Not ever. And she would mean it, too.

She tried to think of her aunt, and what she would do.  _Aunt Liv would be brave_ , Ella told herself,  _and find the way out_. Only she didn't feel brave, she felt scared, more scared than she'd ever been before. More scared than when the fire bombs were falling at her aunt's house, or when they'd been running to the bridge while being chased by all the dead-faces and the bad men in the truck. Because she hadn't been all alone, then.

 _But I don't know how to be brave, Aunt Liv_ , she thought, and tried to imaging the sound of her voice. And thinking of her aunt, picturing her smile and kind face, Ella suddenly remembered her gift: the necklace with the cross of gold. Taking in a quivering breath, she pulled it from inside her coat. The cross glittered in the fading beam of her flashlight.

 _If you're ever scared, just hold on to it..._  Aunt Liv's parting words came back to her.  _It'll keep you safe._

She wasn't sure how the little cross could keep her safe, but her aunt had said it would, and Aunt Liv never lied. Holding the cross in a tight grip, she imagined that Aunt Liv was there with her now, holding her hand, and moved off into the gloom. There had to be a way out, and she was going to find it. Even if she had to search every floor.

On the next floor, she hurried to the corner where the door should be. The flashlight went out twice on the way, but hitting it on her leg as she had before brought it back to life each time. When she rounded the last row of bookshelves, her heart sank.

"Shit..." Ella whispered. There was no door. The wall ahead was blank, just like all the others.  _How can the way out just be gone_? she wondered. "Shit. Shit!"

It was the first time she'd ever said the dreaded  _S-word_  out loud, but from what she'd seen and heard—mostly from Peter and Charlie—now seemed like a good time to try it out. She said it again, and decided that she liked it, that it felt good to say adult words. Like she was older than her five-years. As long as her mother never heard her say it, of course, that would be very bad. She felt better, and smiled. There was going to be trouble when she got back to the lab, probably a lot of trouble, but she  _was_ going to make it back. After all, it was just the dark, and she wasn't afraid of the dark, not anymore.

When she returned to the stairwell to try the next floor, her flashlight outlined a man standing in front of the bottom step. Ella's heart leapt in her chest. She froze, one foot hovering in the air, then set the foot down slowly, careful to make no noise. The man was facing away from her, staring out into the darkness. His body swayed slightly, as if he were listening to music. The way his shoulders slumped, his shirt and pants, they kind of reminded her of Dr. Walter. He was tall like Dr. Walter, too.

Was it Dr. Walter? She couldn't tell. Maybe he'd come looking for her. He would do that, wouldn't he? They were friends.

She took a silent step closer to get a better look at him in her meager light. It did look like him. The hair was the same wavy gray. It was him. A wave of dizzying relief went shooting through her chest. She let go of the cross and took another step toward him.

"Dr. Walter?" At the sound of her voice, the man seemed to jerk awake like Dr. Walter would sometimes, and shuffled around to face her. "I'm so glad you're...you're..." She fell silent, noticing for the first time that the man carried no flashlight, or anything at all, and that his hands were dirty, almost black. And then she saw his face, or what was left of it. Her throat went dry, and for an instant, it felt like she was looking down on herself from some impossible height before being zapped back into her body. "You're not Dr. Walter," she whispered, shrinking back a step, and then another.

Other shapes stepped into the tiny circle of light. Other dead-faces. Their golden eyes glowed faintly.

#

* * *

#

"There's nothing here, Olivia," Peter said at last. He turned away from the desk, slamming the drawer shut. "Nothing at all about the infection, about Nina Sharp or Massive Dynamic, or anything like that. Fuck. Maybe he just emailed her. Or maybe, it wasn't even Nina Sharp he was trying to contact in the first place. But either way, we're screwed."

Olivia sighed and lowered her head.  _Goddamnit._  He was voicing the same thought that had been running through her mind since not long after their search had begun. It was difficult to admit defeat—it had never been in her nature to do so—and that the harrowing journey into the city had been for no good reason at all. But the facts were the facts: they've failed. It was all for nothing. She pulled a personnel file she'd found inside the cabinet drawer, and slid it closed.

"I know, I've been thinking the same thing, Peter," she admitted with reluctance. "If Broyles learned anything, he didn't keep a record of it, not on paper at least. I guess it makes sense—the world was falling apart at the time. He probably had more pressing matters to deal with, like surviving, from the look of things here. I found this, at least." She passed him the manila file folder. "I thought you might like to see it, for a laugh, if nothing else. I seem to remember you asking what was in it once upon a time."

Peter's brow furrowed as he opened the folder and began to read. A flashlight they'd found in the armory sat upright on the desk pointed up at the ceiling. Olivia turned away from him and gazed through the glass at the grid of desks and cubicles in the open space below Broyles's office. She recalled how her former boss used to stare down at them, arms crossed and eyes boring, face impassive like some iconic statue. And he had always appeared to be watching her, too. As if the force of his will could propel her to find the answers he required. Apparently he had been like that with everyone; Charlie had reported something similar when they'd spoken on it. The man had been intense. She wished she'd had the time to get to know him better.

A movement below caught her eye, and she swept her light toward it through the glass. A lone infected man was struggling up the steps toward the door to the hallway outside the office. It was wearing a suit, but she couldn't make out who it had been, other than that it wasn't Broyles, not with the hair on its head. She swung her light further to the left, and saw thankfully, that the door was closed. Part of her wanted to put the undead man out of his misery, but a more practical voice wondered why she would bother. After they left, the likelihood of anyone stumbling into it were negligible.

"This is my file?" Peter asked behind her. "You mean the one you before told me didn't exist?"

Olivia nodded, but kept her light on the dead man. He was almost at the top of the steps. It must have heard them through the window, or more likely, seen the white light on the ceiling. Paper rustled behind her. She wasn't sure why she had given him his file. Because she had lied to him about it? Or was it because she wanted him to know that she knew what was in it—that she knew what he'd been doing, the things he'd done, before. Some of them, at least. No doubt there were some things missing, but one didn't make the waves he'd made in the Middle East, and elsewhere, and go unnoticed. Not by the people who were watching for them.

"And you've read it all? The whole thing?"

She turned away from the window at the sound of his voice and leaned back against the glass. "Of course," she admitted in a casual tone. "How do you think I found you in the first place?"

Peter met her gaze silently from across the desk. It was still fairly dark in the office, but still enough light for her to read the look on his face. Embarrassment and shame were both prevalent. _Peter...this has to stop._  She was tired of seeing them both. They didn't suit him. Not at all. Not the Peter she had come to know.

"I don't know..." he said finally. "I guess seeing it all laid out here, line by line..." He dropped his eyes, and when he continued, his voice was full of self-loathing. "You must've really been desperate for Walter's help."

"I was desperate to save John, yes," she agreed, pushing off the glass and crossing over to him. "I would have done almost anything. But after that, with the Fringe task force, Broyles told me I could have anyone I wanted on my team. Anyone at all."

"So you asked for Walter, and I came with—"

"I wanted both of you," she interrupted. "Broyles pushed for just including Walter, and I had to vouch for you. I had to convince him you weren't a walking security leak. That you were just as vital as your father. And I know what you're going to say—that you weren't vital at all—but you were, Peter. You were. Walter would have never saved John without your help. I remember. I remember everything. And I knew everything that was in this—" She plucked the file folder from his hand and tossed it away, showering sheets of paper all over. "—back then. Just like I do now. Do you understand?"

Peter's eyes flickered to the file spread out on the floor. When he lifted his head, his chest was heaving slightly. His nostrils flared, and she had the distinct impression that he was about to erupt. Was he angry? She just had time to register the sudden hunger flare in his gaze before he stepped forward, pulling her into his arms.

Olivia gasped as his lips crashed down on hers, soft and hard at the same time, but quickly managed to catch up with him, wrapping her entangling arms about his neck, curling her fingers into the hair at the nape of his neck. She pressed up against his taller frame, opening her lips, accepting what he offered. For a little while, she forgot it all; her new doubts about John, their failure to find anything useful, and the trouble with Charlie—it all vanished in a haze of lust and long-repressed urges. Peter seeped into her senses, his taste, his rough smell, like leather and whiskey. She couldn't get enough. Her body thrummed. A mewling sigh escaped her lips as the kiss deepened, and she felt, more than heard Peter groan against her lips in an urgent reply. The sound of him turned her insides electric. She forced him backwards onto the desk, maintaining the exquisite contact, and moved between his legs. She felt the flick of his tongue and the heat of his hands on her hips under her coat, leaving searing trails across her skin. Olivia gasped and threw her head back as he trailed his lips along her jawline and then nibbled at that spot in the hollow of her neck. A great heat was pooling in her chest and jolts of electricity burned in her loins, building and coiling, winding tighter with each passing moment. She ground hard against him, relishing his moaning hitch of breath, then sucked in a sharp breath of her own as his smooth palms glided higher, nearly encompassing her ribcage, and then higher still, kneading, thumbs working until she couldn't take it anymore.

Her fingers searched for his belt of their own accord, fumbling with her urgency. His own intense excitement was evident through his jeans, matching her own. As her fingertips found the metal of his zipper, a gnarled face thumped up against the glass, highlighted ghoulishly by the toppled flashlight. Gray-skinned fingertips left streaks on the window. Olivia blinked, but the face remained, mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water, and gazing in at them both with its own brand of hunger.

Her head swam as the bubble of desire evaporated in an instant. "Peter..." Olivia gasped, coming up for air. "Peter we should stop. I'm sorry, I just...I don't want our first time to be on Broyles's desk, with one of the infected staring in at us through the window."

Chest heaving, Peter pulled his hands away from her skin, turning his head to the side to get a look. He let out a low chuckle she could feel through her hands on his thighs. "You may have a point there," he agreed with a swallow. "Who the hell invited him? I don't recall signing on to be in a peep show, do you?" Their eyes met, and she could still see a lingering hunger in his gaze. "Please tell me we'll continue this, Olivia, and sometime soon."

Olivia let her chin fall against her chest, then pushed her hair back, tucking it behind her ears. Were they always going to be interrupted, or having something come between them. It almost felt like the universe was conspiring against them. And back at the lab it would only be worse. The thought of Walter walking in on them was disturbing—though daresay he would probably enjoy it, knowing him. And there was Ella and Rachel to consider. She could already hear her sister's argument—that it was way too soon, too fast. As if Rachel had room to talk. She looked down at Peter and shook her head at the wide grin he sported. Did he think this was funny? Arching an eyebrow, she dragged a fingernail over the front of his jeans, enjoying the way his breath hitched and eyes widened.

"You can count on it, Peter," she said, sliding off him and putting a safe distance between them. Maybe it was a good thing. She wasn't at all prepared for such an encounter and doubted he was either. "You ready to get out of here?" she asked, straightening her shirt and coat. "If there's nothing here for us, then there's no reason to stay. Maybe we can be back on the road before dark." She gave him what she hoped was a seductive look. "Maybe we can find somewhere with a bed."

"Now you're talking," Peter said, grinning like crazy. He sat up, and went about rebuckling his belt. "Duty calls and all that. Hey, maybe we should check out that other floor before we head back down. Just to be sure. Maybe we'll get lucky and find some real food left."

#

The climb back down to the cafeteria floor went smoothly, as if navigating by way of elevator shaft was a completely normal thing to do.

Olivia stepped out of the shaft ahead of Peter, and then reached back to give him a hand. When he was safely in the tiny lobby, she hurried over to the emergency stairwell door. The door had been out of view from inside the shaft and was cracked open, propped in place by a body lying face down on the floor. She stepped over the corpse carefully and found the stairwell empty, on that floor at least. Certainly it wasn't below. She tried to imagine what must have unfolded for both the stairwell and the elevator to be open, but couldn't fathom the scenario.

"It's clear," she whispered, returning to Peter's side.

He was standing in front of a recessed fire cabinet that held a reeled fire hose, rubbing his chin. The cabinet's glass door was shattered, and the two hooks inside that might've once held a fire axe were both empty. A window to the right revealed a darkening sky. On the street far below, a smattering of infected milled about. How long had they been in Broyles's office? Time had flown past; it was much later than she'd thought. So much for finding them a real bed. The thought of spending the night in the Federal Building wasn't particularly appealing, but it was probably wiser than searching for a safehouse in the dark by way of red light. She was about to ask what was so interesting about the fire cabinet when a creaking groan echoed from somewhere nearby.

"What was that?" Peter mouthed, turning and peering uneasily into the darkness of the adjoining corridor.

Olivia shrugged. "I don't know," she replied in a low voice, and drew the suppressed pistol from the new holster strapped to her thigh. "But I'm not taking any chances." Not with that creature wandering about. Peter nodded and did the same, squeezing the pistol grip in his right hand. She watched approvingly. He was adapting. They waited for the sound to repeat itself, but it never did. "C'mon," she said after a moment. "Let's find this cafeteria."

They passed out of the lobby window's light and into the darkness of the corridor, guns raised. The tiled floor was slippery in places and their red lights reflected of patches of thin ice. Water-damaged ceiling tiles sagged overhead, exposing the building's internals, and a musty smell filled the air. Their footsteps echoed in their building's silence. Shortly, locked wooden doors emerged on the right side of the hall. Straight ahead were the overturned carts making a partial barricade at the tee, along with the tipped-over vending machines she'd seen from inside the elevator shaft.

Before reaching the tee, another hallway appeared, branching off to the left where the main corridor was darkest. Olivia grabbed Peter's arm and nodded toward the intersection. After his answering nod, they turned the corner in unison. Their red beams criss-crossed, and reflected off a line of windows running down the left side of the hall. Inside the window was a fitness room with mirrored walls and exercise equipment that looked as pristine as the day civilization fell. Apparently, working out had not been a priority in the aftermath of the apocalypse. Beyond the fitness room was another locker room, segregated into male and female halves unlike the locker room on her floor. Both seemed thoroughly scavenged, with locker doors hanging askew. Across the hall was another door, wider than the others, plated with sheet metal on its lower half.

Peter tried the knob and then pushed the door open. The heavy door rebounded, swinging into something solid almost at once. "What the hell?" he said, glancing back at her. He pushed again, putting his weight slowly into it. When the door still refused to budge, he peered through the narrow gap between door and frame. "Something's blocking it," he reported in a low whisper. "Some kind of equipment. A...refrigerator? It's not moving—not without making a lot of noise, at least. You said there was a cafeteria on this floor?"

Olivia blew a wisp of hair out of her face, eyeing the darkness behind the door. There would be food inside, or would have been. Possibly a lot; enough to last for months if it were only a person or two, although the lack of fresh water would be a problem for any survivor. She pulled Peter away. "Let's go around. There's gotta be another way in."

They quickly retreated back to the main hallway and crept forward, pistols trained on the broken barricade. Empty shell casings rolled beneath their shoes. From the sheer number of them, along with all the scuffs and bullet gouges marring the corridor walls, it appeared a pitched battle had taken place. Bodies emerged from the darkness, sprawled in unnatural positions on the tiled floor. A chrome-plated automatic stood out near one of the bodies outstretched hands. Definitely not an FBI standard issue service weapon.

Peter toed the body over with his boot, cringing at the waft of putrescent fumes and the stringy decay left behind on the floor like old chewing gum. "Ugh...," he coughed, turning his head away. "Shot in the face, I think. I haven't seen too many infected holding pistols. What about you?"

She shook her head. Who had been fighting who here? "None of this makes any sense, Peter. Are there any other injuries? Bites?"

He crouched for a closer look, covering his nose. "Not that I can see," he said through his fingers, "but then again, it's a pile of goo wearing clothes. Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"That there was fighting here, and not with infected? Yeah."

Straightening, Peter peered about in the darkness. "Well, whatever it was, it happened a while ago from the looks of this fellow. Probably about the same time as what happened on your floor. What does that mean?"

"I don't know. But I don't like any of it. C'mon."

They continued on, approaching the intersection and the barricade of overturned food carts and vending machines just before it. As they stepped between the debris, another of the creaking groans echoed, stopping them both in their tracks. Olivia met Peter's wide eyes, waiting for the noise to repeat itself. It did not, but they heard something else instead. Wet, scratchy sounds, and the rustle of cloth? She cocked her head. Interspersed was another sound—the low murmur of whispering groans just barely audible.

"What is that?" he mouthed silently.

She answered with a shrug, and raised her pistol. Peter nodded, and they moved forward together, hugging the left-hand wall of the corridor. A small sitting lounge with a window slid into view to the right. The sky outside was even grayer than it had been just minutes ago. They peered as one around the corner to the left. The corridor was fairly short, and lined with closed doors on the right-hand side, and a closed double door at the far end on the left. But none of that interested her. What did interest her, was the mass of infected clogging the hall in front of the double doors.

"Shit," Peter hissed, going tense beside her.

Olivia took in their numbers at a glance—at least thirty, possibly as many as forty. They appeared to be all old dead, and to her sorrow, most wore clothing that signified them as former agents. The two doors were buckled inward, but somehow still held fast against the collective weight of the undead. Something on the inside was preventing their opening. Another of the groans echoed down the corridor as the doors flexed inward under the pressure.

Peter inhaled sharply beside her. "Somebody could still be in there, Olivia," he said in her ear.

She nodded in reply. The same thought had already occurred to her. "How good is your aim, Peter?" she asked, keeping her voice a whisper.

"Well, I was never a crack shot, if that's what you're asking," he said with grunt of discontent and fingered his left shoulder gingerly. "And it hasn't improved since then, but I'll manage if we can get close enough."

It would have to do. "All right," she whispered. "Sixteen rounds in the magazine, one in the chamber. I'll take the left side, you the right, so we're not doubling up. Try not to miss. Let's get as close as we can."

They swung around the corner as one and crept toward the crowd, sweeping the hall with their red lights for any stragglers they might have missed. There were none. Drawing closer, she noticed that the undeads' attention seemed to wax and wane, that the pressure on the doors wasn't constant. Those closest had their fingers curled into the space between them, but those in the rear appeared oblivious for one moment, then surged forward without warning, only to break off and resume their vapid existence. Did that mean something? Was it important? She tucked the information away. When they were within twenty feet or so of the horde, she stopped Peter with a hand on his arm.

"This is close enough," she said, brushing his ears with her lips. "You ready?"

"I thought you'd never ask." Peter replied with a smirk.

Olivia found herself grinning fondly despite the gravity of the situation. She recalled how his little one-liners and offhand comments had used to irritate her, back before she'd come to know him well. Most of the time, they were how he dealt with stress, and fear. As she raised her pistol, she wondered what his...acquaintances from his former life had thought of his sense of humor.

She took a bead on the nearest of the undead on her side of the hall, and noticed Peter doing the same in her peripheral vision. With the suppressor's added bulk, aiming was different than what she was used to. Her first shot missed low, striking a black-haired woman between its shoulder blades. Peter's gun fired almost simultaneously and a woman with matted red hair bound by a familiar-looking ponytail holder collapsed. The resemblance to one of the street level security gate agents was unmistakable. Olivia's next shot struck home, blasting a gaping hole above the dark-haired infected's left eye as it turned to face them. She moved on to the next.

Between the two of them, the infected never stood a chance.

Taken unaware and packed tightly in front of the double doors, most of them never made it more than a step or two before falling under their hail of bullets. Olivia had done most of the work—in her opinion, at least—and had to reload once while Peter covered her. By the time the last of them had dropped, the acrid aroma of gunpowder choked the hall in a thick cloud. A waist high mound of bodies lay askew in front of the double doors and the corridor walls were washed in brackish blood and bits of gore. Spent shell casings formed an oblong halo at their feet.

She glanced behind them, wondering if the gunshots had drawn any others in. Contrary to how they were depicted in movies and TV shows, the suppressors had only muffled their gunshots slightly, reducing the muzzle blasts to loud claps that seemed to grow quieter over time. Still, she thought they would be more than useful. At least firing one out in the open wouldn't draw every infected within a mile.

"Nice job, Peter," she told him with a smile, and watched as he ejected a magazine and loaded another. "That went surprisingly well."

He flashed her a wide grin that reduced his age to that of an overeager teenager. "I'll say," he said, looking extremely pleased with himself as he inspected the black canister of the suppressor. "That was probably the most fun I've had since this whole shitstorm began. In fact, I think it's something everyone should do at least once before they—fuck, that's hot!" He sucked a singed finger into his mouth.

Olivia shook her head, unsure of whether to be amused or offended by his comment, considering what had nearly just happened up in Broyles's office. "Really? That's the most fun you've had?" she wanted to know, pursing her lips and dropping a hand to her hip. "You sure about that, Peter?"

Chuckling, he reached for her hand. "I should clarify," he said softly, rubbing his thumb across her palm as if that would mollify her, which surprisingly, it did. "The most fun I've had that didn't involve another person. C'mon. Let's see if there's anybody home."

They approached the mound of bodies, and after poking and prodding a few to make sure there were no surprises waiting for them, went about clearing a space in front of the doors. The work was gruesome, and Olivia did her best to avoid looking at any of the ruined faces. When they had cleared a small area, Peter gave the doors a push, then peered into the open gap.

"It's barred on the inside," he reported. "Looks like something is stuck through both doorhandles. A piece of wood or metal, I think."

Olivia took a look through the gap. Something red and rectangular with what looked like a piece of slender wood with deep grains sticking out of one side. She frowned at the object for a moment, then recognized its shape. "I think it's a fire axe," she said, and stepped back. "Probably taken from that cabinet by the elevators. Hold it open so I can get a clear shot at it, Peter."

He started to do as she instructed, then looked back. "Wait a second," he whispered. "What if somebody's standing on the other side?"

"Then they can probably hear us talking and are moving out of the way," she said in a voice loud enough for anyone within earshot.

Peter's brow furrowed, then shot upward. He cracked the doors open once more. "Good point. Here."

Olivia lined up the shot, placing the suppressor inches from the wooden handle and angled downward toward the floor. She fired twice and heard the splinter of wood and the sound of ricochets inside. Then Peter stepped back and placed a well-aimed kick even with the inside handles. The door slammed opened, then smashed loudly into something on the other side as a heavy clunk of metal rang out, along with the lighter timbre of wood bouncing on the tiled floor.

"Somebody shoved the tables up against the doors, too," Peter observed, looking back through the gap, now much wider than it had been. "They really didn't want anyone getting in here." He looked back at her, eying her up and down in a blatantly appraising manner. She wondered if he would've been so open about it before their encounter upstairs. "I think you can squeeze through, and then let me in."

"Do you now?" she said primly, giving him a narrow look.

"Yep. Definitely." A faint grin appeared on his lips as he moved out of her way.

Olivia rolled her eyes, but felt her face growing hot under his piercing gaze. She shook her head, clearing it of him, then squeezed sideways through the opening. She climbed atop a circular table and looked around.

The cafeteria was fairly small—about the size of a fast-food restaurant—and reeked of old shit, urine, and death. A buffet line sat off to one side, near a beverage table where fountain soda and coffee and tea were once served. Two huge plastic water jugs sat next to the soda dispenser. Both appeared empty. Beneath a window across from the buffet line was a body wearing suit pants and a white shirt. The body was slumped to the side, away from her. She thought it was a man. Another body lay in the corner, face down.

 _We're too late_ , she thought, fighting back a rising hopelessness.  _We're always too late. Goddamnit._ Someone had been trying to hold out, had been waiting for rescue. And they had failed them. It was just another failure in a long line of them, going back to the beginning. _Fuck._  She felt like breaking something, but there was nothing handy. Maybe it was something breaking inside of her.

Instead, Olivia sighed and jumped down off the table. She pushed and pulled the mass of tables away from the door until there was enough space for Peter to squeeze his way through. His sharp eyes took in the room and the bodies in an instant, before coming to rest on her.

"We did everything we could, Olivia," he said after a moment. "We can't save everyone."

With a shrug, she turned away from him. "It doesn't look like we can save anyone, Peter. All we've accomplished so far is nothing. Just failure after failure."

He stepped in front of her and looked down with his steady, blue-eyed gaze. "You saved me," he countered. His voice was quiet, tender. "You saved your sister and Ella. That's gotta count for something."

"I know...," she said shortly, eyes locked on the floor. "I just... Once we committed to coming here, I always thought that if we made it, that we'd find something, some clue—and Walter would be able to figure it all out. I could see it happening. Maybe there would even be people still alive." She gave a little laugh, wiping her hands over her eyes and down her face. The gloves' fabric was rough and unforgiving, like her mood. "Instead we find this. Nothing. Just more death. I knew some of the bodies out in the hall, I'm sure of it."

"We can't save everyone, Olivia," Peter repeated. She looked up when he cupped her face, brushing her cheek with his thumb, "But you've always held out hope. You've held us together with your hope. That's your strength. It's what you do, and you do it better than any of us. You're what keeps us going, you know that right? Even if there is nothing here, we're still gonna keep going."

"Should we though, Peter?" she asked. "Should we keep going? We've gotten nowhere so far. What if there is no cure? What if there's nothing we can do? Maybe we should just try to live, try to make a life somewhere while we still can."

Peter frowned. "You want to give up? I don't believe that for a second."

She laid her hand over his and leaned into the contact. He was right, of course. Giving up wasn't an option—not for her. She wasn't built that way, and never had been. But a small part of her, a vocal minority, wished sometimes that she could set it all aside. But she couldn't; the duty had fallen to her shoulders, and she had to bear it no matter how much it weighed, no matter how much it preyed on her. She glanced up at Peter, giving him a morose smile.

"Maybe not," she admitted. "But sometimes I wish I could, you know? Just for a minute. You can't fault me for that, can you?"

"Fault you?" Peter chuckled and stepped closer, encircling her with his arms. Olivia sighed and reciprocated, closing her eyes and holding him about the waist. If felt good to be close to someone, to share the load, even if just for a little while. She burrowed against his neck and he rested his chin atop her head. One of his hands moved up and down her spine gently. After a moment, he spoke in a quiet but firm voice. She could feel the vibrations against her cheek. "Olivia, I'd think there was something very wrong with you if you never had any doubts," he told her. "Only religious nutjobs and the insane never have doubts. The difference is you don't let them sway you."

She looked up, meeting his gaze. "Why? Why are you so sure about me?"

"How could I not be?" he asked softly, holding her tighter. "You've been doing the impossible from the moment I met you. First with John, and then with everything that's happened, everything you've been through since then." He pulled away slightly, looking down with open admiration. "You amaze me, Olivia Dunham."

Olivia swallowed and stared up at the light burning in his eyes. Something unfurled inside her, something warm and bright, spreading through her chest like rays of light breaking across the horizon at sunrise. Her throat tightened and a burst of happiness filled her to the brim, even amid all the death and decay. "Well...you're not so bad yourself, Peter Bishop," she grinned, then brushed his lips with a kiss.

She had intended the kiss to be innocuous, but her prior passion flared anew almost instantly, filling her head. And his also, judging by how quickly he responded, pulling her closer with constant pressure on her lower back. Their lips collided, fought for dominance. She was about to shove him backwards on top of one of the cafeteria tables when an unmistakably familiar voice spoke out behind them.

"Fraternization...," the voice said weakly out of the blue, "is against Bureau policy, Agent Dunham. I thought you'd learned your lesson."

#

* * *

#

Another wave crashed—the highest one yet—as Walter sauntered across Harvard Yard.

The carpet of leaves pulsated and wriggled in tune with his galloping heartbeat. In the sky above, cottonballs were engaging in a slow dance to some otherworldly rhythm resonating outside of his perception. The swaying tree limbs left skeletal afterimages behind, imprinted in his vision. The images faded shortly; it took a moment or two for them to catch up with the now of the present.

If he could have seen himself in a mirror, his pupils would be blown wide-open, dilated to their fullest extents. Not that he would've wanted to see himself in a mirror in his current state; viewing oneself through the psychedelic lens was always a risky endeavor. Doors could swing open, doors that he'd learned long ago were better off left undisturbed—unless the conditions were ripe, of course. And they definitely were not ripe at present.

He trudged on, following the path that seemed to have a depth beyond itself at times, as if it were a fissure in reality leading him to some other place. The wind gusted, sending comet tails of brown and tan streaking across his vision, spinning and twirling to their own music. He continued stolidly through the vortices, doing his best to ignore their glamour, to not become distracted and pulled off course. Distraction was not something he could afford to fall prey to, not now.

The slender wooden handle of the pitchfork he'd pulled from atop Gene's grave burned his bare fingers in the cold. He had left his gloves behind. For what he suspected lay ahead, a firmer grip would be required. After finding nothing suitable in the lab, he decided that Gene would have wanted it this way—she had gotten along well with the girl also. The pitchfork's quartet of tines had a slight curve to them, and were exceedingly sharp at the point. They would do well, or so he hoped.

Walter reached up and adjusted the head lamp with the red filter he'd swiped from Peter's table. The strap was looser than he'd like, but the means of tightening it had eluded him. Trying to understand the minutiae of adjusting the clips had been like grasping at clouds, or reaching for the moon, with comprehension slipping away right at the moment of recognition. The affliction was quite common in his current condition. Simple tasks and ideas could seem baffling, while conversely complex systems like the clockworks driving the universe unfolded with startlingly simplicity. It was always that way. He and Belly had discussed it on many occasions. The mind could focus on the infinite or the infinitesimal, but not both at once. And so the strap had remained loose.

The trees parted around him. The girl's trail was easier to follow underneath their ungentle branches, as if the fissure in reality's mesh ran deeper. Never wavering from its eastward course, the trail led straight through the wide gap between University and Weld Halls. Off to his left, the John Harvard statue slid into view. Walter stared at it, bewitched, and came to a stop.

The distant past transposed over the present. For an instant, he saw it as he had seen it once before—with the dignified, bronzed head emerging from the roof of a red automobile. A coupe. The automobile was sitting in his lap, wheels dangling high off the ground. In his mind's eye, students and teachers are standing in a wide ring around the statue's base, fingers pointing, eyes wide with wonder and confusion, and some with consternation. The urge to fall face-first into the memory was overpowering, like a starving man faced with a plate of his favorite dinner. His mouth watered. He could already taste it.

"NO!" Walter cried, and pulled himself back from the precipice. He shook his head to dispel the image and an associated sorrow that made his knees weak. "I haven't come here for that," he said to the statue, which only looked on impassively.

Averting his gaze, he followed the path between the two buildings. Beyond was another endless layer of brown and tan, the steepled Memorial Church, and the towering structure of the Widener Library, higher than all the other buildings in the area. He nearly ended up on his face after falling prey to a hidden sidewalk while staring up at the library's namesake inscribed above the entrance. Only desperate flailing with the pitchfork saved him from catastrophe.

As he'd suspected, the girl's trail led straight to the library's wide set of stairs. Walter took them two at a time. At the top, he hesitated, studying the center pair of glass doors. One of them was shattered completely in its frame. He doubted the broken glass was the girl's handiwork—her nature was not one of wanton destruction. No, someone else—or something else—had done it. But had they been going out, or in? If there was a way to tell from the fallen splinters of glass, he didn't know it. The glass was everywhere. Such knowledge lay in the forensic realm of the lovely Agent Dunham. And considering how the splinters were shifting about, it would be impossible to tell even if he did know the technique.

The darkness inside the doorway was a fluctuating patchwork of kaleidoscopes and fractals of cascading colors. He briefly pondered the naive bravery of a five-year old, and then stepped through the window frame.


	16. Whispers in the Dark

**-December 2008**

Olivia jerked away from Peter, spinning around in time to see the body beneath the window slumping slowly to the side. She gaped at the sight of the man's face; gaunt, skeletal, dark skin pulled tight over protruding cheekbones. His appearance almost made him a different person, or a caricature of his former self—and yet she recognized him at once.

Beside her, Peter's eyes bulged. "I...I don't believe it," he uttered, voicing her own thought out loud.

It was Agent Broyles.

_Broyles is alive._

The voices rejoicing inside her head fell silent when she reached his side a heartbeat later. He was alive, though from the look of him, just barely. Whatever strength he'd mustered to speak had already faded away, leaving his once-sharp eyes vacant and unseeing, focused on the tiled ceiling or perhaps on the fading light from the window above. His mouth lolled open like so many corpses she'd seen before, frozen in the instant of death.

A sickening feeling manifested deep in her stomach as she gazed down at his prostrate form. She looked for the rise and fall of his breath but saw nothing. Was he dead? Had they just witnessed his final breath? Surely fate couldn't be that cruel. But then she thought of the infection, of the end of the world.  _Of course it can_.

Olivia's hands shook as she fell to her knees. She reached for his wrist and nearly gasped at how thin it felt. It was like grabbing a child's wrist. Like grabbing Ella's. Now that she was closer to him, she could smell a foulness rising from him—the source of the stale urine and shit she'd noticed earlier—and feel an incredible heat raging beneath his skin in sharp contrast to the chill in the air. If there was a pulse she couldn't find it—though from the way her hands continued to shake, that wasn't particularly surprising. She pulled away from him, at a loss for what to do next.

"He's burning up, Peter," she said, glancing up at him. Horribly, the thought struck her that Broyles might be undergoing the process of turning. Right at that moment. It might even be construed as a something of a litmus test; if he turned, then she'd know he was dead. There was no need to check for pulses anymore. She forced that line of thinking away. _NO. He has to live. He_ has _to._ "What do we do? There has to be something we can do for him."

Peter's face was grim, all traces of his usual humor and sarcasm wiped clean. He crouched beside her and ran a critical eye over their stricken boss. "This is bad, Olivia," he stated after a moment while fingering along his jawline. "I'd say he's suffering from acute starvation, and dehydration also. In a normal situation, he'd need an emergency room—IV fluids, electrolyte replacement therapy—"

"Well that's not really an option, now is it?" Her voice was louder than she intended, and she blew into steepled fingers in an attempt to regain control of seesawing emotions. "C'mon, Peter, can't we just...I don't know, give him water or something? There has to be something. He's dying."

He shook his head. "No. I don't think so," he said, giving her a worried look. "Not at this stage—he's too far gone. He needs more than just tap water. Maybe...maybe there's some..." he broke off, eyes darting around the cafeteria. "Fuck. He's probably gone through everything in here already. Wait a second. What about those vending machines out in the hall? Gatorade might work, Olivia, or any kind of sports drink." She was already running for the door before he finished his sentence. "Something clear if they have it. With electrolytes," his voice followed at her back. "And no soda, either!"

Olivia nodded on her way through the double doors. She passed by the mound of undead without giving them a second glance and raced back to the fallen barricade around the corner. A reddish glow bathed the corridor, the last rays of the failing daylight outside the sitting area window. Night would be upon them sooner than later.

_He can't die_ , she thought.  _He might know something. He might be the key to everything._ She tried to remind herself that he was a person too, but the harsh reality was that it didn't matter. Considering what had befallen them all, the information he may or may not have was too important. He  _had_  to live. Whatever the cost.

She made her way through the jumble of stacked office furniture and tipped over food carts. The vending machines were ripped with polka-dot patterns of bullet holes. Two out of the three were snack machines and utterly empty other than a mostly untouched row of  _Funyons_ in one of them—the flaming hot variety, she saw with distaste—still held in place by the spiral curl of metal. She moved on to the last and found the beverage machine she'd been looking for. It lay on its side and was badly dented, corners and sides smashed by something heavy. She wondered if someone had taken out their frustration on the poor machine, or if they'd simply been trying to get it open. And futilely, it seemed. Further inspection revealed the access door still firmly locked. She scanned down the column of pushbuttons, looking past various flavors of sodas and juices, until she saw what she came for; red and blue  _Powerade_  logos adorning the last two buttons.

There was nothing clear, but they would have to do—if there were any left, at least. She peered closely at the locking mechanism—a circle of thick metal with another circle set inside it—and then drew the suppressed pistol. The possibility of a ricochet never entered her mind as she fired twice into the lock, turning her face away from the bits of flying shrapnel.

The muffled echo of gunshots still hung in the air as she tugged on the heavy access door. She could feel metal grinding as the door shifted on its hinges, but refused to open despite her best effort. She was about to fire into the lock again when a clatter of racing footsteps stopped her hand. She heard Peter call her name, and then he skidded around the corner, one hand resting on the butt of his pistol. His eyes searched for the threat, and finding none, he relaxed visibly.

"You okay?" he asked.

Olivia nodded impatiently and motioned him to her side. "Help me get this open, Peter."

Together they wrenched the soda machine's door open with a groan of protesting metal. The inside was splattered with sticky soda syrup, some from cans frozen over, others punctured by stray bullets. A sickly sweet aroma filled her nose. At the very bottom were two plastic bottles, both red. She tore them free of their housing and turned to Peter.

"How should I give it to him?" she asked, staring down at the red liquid. It was cold, at least.

Peter lifted his shoulders in a shrug. "A little bit a time?" he suggested, sounding unsure. "Drops, I guess. Anything more than that and he'll probably just throw it all up."

"Okay..." She took in a deep breath and sorted through her racing thoughts.  _Charlie._  He needed to know. "Okay. I'll stay with Broyles, and see if I can get him to take any of this, and Peter, I need you to get Charlie up here. However you can. Maybe knowing Broyles is alive will wake him up. And search any other soda machines you come across. I have a feeling we're going to need a lot of this."

A look of uncertainty crossed Peter's face like a shadow and then disappeared. "All right," he said, and then flashed a wide grin. "I think I'll be taking the stairs if you don't mind though, I think I've had enough fun in elevator shafts to last me a lifetime." Olivia opened her mouth to protest but he forestalled her argument—that the stairwell was packed full of infected— with a raised hand and his usual smirk. "Don't worry. I've got an idea. And it might even be a good one."

She didn't particularly like the sound of that, but understood his reticence. And she trusted his judgment. He could take care of himself. He had to. At some point since leaving the lab, his presence at her side had become crucial somehow, and she wasn't ready to give him up. It was difficult to pinpoint the exact moment when that threshold had been crossed, when fondness and attraction had turned into something else. After she'd told him everything? When he'd nearly been bitten in the stairwell? Or maybe when she'd seen the infected gnawing at his wrist, seconds from removing him from her life. She shoved the thoughts to the back of her mind for later perusal.

"Whatever you need to do," she said, reaching for his hand. "Stay safe, Peter."

"I wouldn't dream of doing anything different." His thumb drew circles on the back of her hand, and then he pulled free and hurried off. He didn't look back.

Olivia watched until he disappeared from sight. A small smile played across her lips as she returned to the cafeteria. For the first time in what seemed like ages, the tiny spark of hope she'd been holding onto flared a bit brighter. It was a start.

#

Broyles was laid out on his back, head propped up on a wad of napkins that Peter must have grabbed from the buffet line. He seemed to be resting easier than he had been. His eyes were closed and his chest rose in shallow fits and starts without any natural sort of rhythm that she could perceive. She knelt beside him, taking in his wasted appearance.

His lips were cracked and peeling, and his cheekbones bulged against skin pulled too tight. Again, the thought struck her that it hardly looked like the same man, though there had been no mistaking the sound of his voice, even on death's door as he was.

She cracked open one of the  _Powerades_ and leaned in close to his ear. "Sir, I'm going to give you something to drink. Just try to swallow if you can hear me."

There was no reply, or any indication at all that he had heard her, but she tilted the plastic bottle to his mouth anyway. She dribbled a few drops over the slight gap between his cracked lips. There was no response at first, but then his lips twitched, followed by the tip of his tongue peeking out between them. His breath whistled faintly. She gave him another few drops and then waited. After an eternity, his dark eyes fluttered open. The whites were striated and bloodshot. His gaze swiveled in and out of focus. Was he aware of her? Was he even conscious?

"Don't try to talk, Sir," Olivia said when his lips opened a hair wider. "Just relax. You're gonna be okay."

His eyes shuttered closed. She gave him several more sips, less than an eighth of the bottle in all before his breathing evened out and he stopped responding. She watched the rise and fall of his chest. He appeared more at ease than he had been. Or maybe it was just her imagination. In any case, he needed to rest.

Olivia rose to her feet and glanced around the cafeteria. They'd had it easy at the lab; Broyles had been living in horrific conditions.  _How long has he been trapped in here?_  she thought, wandering over to the body lying in the corner.

It was a woman, and shot through the temple. Had she been infected? She must've been, though too much time had passed to be certain. She moved away from the dead woman, crossing over to the empty buffet line. Or not quite empty. Several of its tubs were sprouting entire forests of mold. She didn't look too closely. A pile of dismembered paper cups lay on the floor below the twin water jugs—both of which were empty. Clearly he'd had water for a while, or he'd be long since dead. How long had he been rationing? And how long ago had his supplies run out? Days? Weeks? On a table near the door into what must be the kitchen was a massive can of tomato sauce and a box partially eaten pasta noodles. The floor was littered with the remains of the kitchen's pantry; bread crumbs, crackers, empty cans of soup and beans, and even condiments like ketchup and mustard. All were signs of desperation. In the kitchen she found a massive refrigerator blocking the service entrance—the door she and Peter had tried first. Had Broyles put it there? If so, why hadn't he just moved it again and left? Something wasn't adding up.

Back in the dining room only a thin sliver of the sun was still visible above the horizon to the west. Sitting on the window sill above where they'd found Broyles was a black automatic. His service weapon. Five upright rounds were arranged in a neat row beside it. She picked the pistol up and found a single round loaded in the chamber. Its intended use was obvious. She wondered how close he'd come to doing it, if he'd stared into the muzzle's black maw, trigger-finger a hairsbreadth from applying the last ounce of pressure. He must have been in horrible pain, watching as his body slowly devoured itself.

An uneasy shiver ran through her at the thought and she glanced toward the door. She wondered how Peter was faring, but it had only been a few minutes. She had to give him more time than that. Had she made a mistake sending him alone for Charlie? The infected in the stairwell had been numerous. She hoped he wasn't going to attempt something foolish. For someone who was supposedly a genius, he could be remarkably stupid.

#

* * *

#

Ella reached the middle of the row and stopped. Her chest heaved. Her breath stuttered loudly in her ears as she pressed back against the uneven books and tried to think. She had to get out. She had to find the way back to the stairs. But where were they? Her flashlight went dark and she smacked it against her leg frantically, bringing it back to some semblance of life.

It wasn't the first time the light had gone out since she'd fled from the monster who she'd thought was Dr. Walter. Or the tenth. She had lost count of how many times it had left her in darkness. Each time it did, she thought her heart might burst, or stop beating at all. She didn't know if that was possible or not, but it sure felt that way.

What would happen when it wouldn't turn back on? The thought sent a tremor through her. More tears streamed down her cheeks. Her eyes stung from the flood and she wiped them with a coat sleeve already damp and growing damper.

Her flight through the blackness had left her without any idea of where to go or how to escape. She had simply ran where her feet had taken her, following the tiny halo of fading light bouncing on the floor in her panic. Turn after turn she'd made, until the rows of bookshelves had become an unending maze. Like one of the mazes she used get at restaurants with her mommy and daddy. There had been crayons also, for doing the mazes. Before.

Except there were no crayons in this maze, only monsters shaped like people. They were behind her. Or they could be in front of her, or to either side. She wasn't sure. Dead-faced monsters that were hungry. They were searching for their dinners—searching for her. They wanted to eat her. They wanted to make her one of them. She had seen other kids turned into monsters. They had been just as hungry as all the others.

At the thought of food, her stomach grumbled and began to ache. She was already hungry; lunch had passed her by long ago.  _Keep moving_ , a voice urged from somewhere inside her head. Ella nodded and crept along the length of shelves, careful not bump any of the books sticking out into the aisle. At the end of the row, she held her breath and peered around the corner. Left or right? Which way lead back to the stairwell?

She didn't know. Her dying flashlight did little to push back the invading darkness. She tried to separate the thumping inside her head and the hiss of her breath from the noises on the outside. And there  _were_  noises outside, beyond the paltry glow of her light. Whispered groans and dragging, scraping, footsteps. Slow and unsteady mumbles that sounded like words but weren't. The voices of the dead. Were they coming closer? She couldn't tell. The drum pounding in her ear was too loud.

_The stairs— I have to get back to the stairs,_ she thought, biting into her lower lip.  _It's the only way out._

The need to move became overpowering. She took a tentative step to her left, waving the light in front of her. There was no way to tell if it was the right way, only that it felt true somehow. She took another step and heard something; a heavy thump, and then a scraping, tearing sound—like the sound her jacket made once when it had gotten caught on a branch in her hiding place back home. The tearing of cloth was followed by a low grunt of breath—of breaths, there were more than one—that seemed to go on forever.

They were close now.

A row over? Or out in the aisle?

She turned in a slow circle, searching the blackness with her light. But there was nothing, only books and more books. She swallowed, and stared wide-eyed into the imposing darkness, searching for movement. The sounds came again, closer than before. Her breath hitched. A shudder started between her shoulders and traveled down her back. She took a step backward bumped into something, barely managing to hold in a startled scream. Her fingers brushed a cool, flat surface, a narrow groove. The brick wall of the basement. The realization did little to stem the panic rising in her chest. What to do? It was impossible to think. She wanted to run but her feet seemed glued to the floor. A tiny voice in her head whimpered to keep going, just a little farther.

_But where?_  she argued, pushing away from the wall gingerly.  _I don't know where to go. I don't know how to get out of here._

She made it no more than a step before her nose caught a scent in the air, an awful smell, not of books or libraries. Ella knew it well. The first time she had smelled it was in her aunt's apartment—after her daddy had locked himself away. It had crept out from under the door and she'd known that she would never see him again. Not alive, at least. Since then, the yucky smell was everywhere.

Dead people.

Shaking now, Ella's breath hissed as she held the little light up behind her, shining it down the narrow walkway outside the shelves—but the dense blackness refused to yield. When she turned around, her mouth went dry.

A shadow stepped out of a row, then became the monster that looked like Dr. Walter, but wasn't. Glowing eyes swiveled in her direction, and the ruin of its face sucked the breath right from her mouth. Splintered teeth chomped up and down, making sharp clacks that echoed softly in the silence.

Ella turned to run and saw another dead-face coming out of a different row, almost on top of her. She ducked and sped past it, squealing as it lunged forward, clawing for face. For an instant, she thought she'd made it clear, but then her head was yanked back, throwing her off-balance. Stinging fire erupted along her scalp and she stumbled to her knees, shrieking, batting at cold skin and hooked fingers tangled in her hair. The pressure relaxed slightly and she pulled free, scurrying forward on her hands and knees. The flashlight clattered on the floor and was nearly lost, if not for the strap twisted about her wrist. The droning groans of the dead filled the darkness behind her. They overlapped, buzzing in her ear, driving icy spikes of terror through her chest. Finally, when they seemed far enough away, she scrambled to her feet and plunged into the darkness at a full sprint.

She followed the wall, staying to the outside of shelves until a shadowy form staggered out of the blackness ahead. It was a woman. Most of its face was missing, and one arm ended below her elbow. It lunged at her with its remaining hand and Ella turned abruptly, darting back into the rows of bookshelves. She was in the maze again, surrounded by books up to the ceiling. She ran blindly down the narrow aisle, flashlight bouncing on the floor, on the stacks of books on either side. The soles of her shoes smacked with every step and some part of her—a small part buried deep that was still capable of rational thought—recognized that she was being too loud, that the monsters would follow the sound of her footsteps, of her screams. But she couldn't stop; terror had her in its numbing grip. She had to get away. She reached the end of the row and flew across an intersecting aisle and down another row. At the end she spun around the corner and saw the wall of books rearing up in her path too late.

The unexpected collision knocked her breath away. Books showered down as she fell back, landing hard on her bottom. Her head rung off the floor and she cried out as a bright stab of pain blossomed across her nose and mouth, bringing on an instant gush of fresh tears. Her hand flew to her throbbing face and the flashlight went flying from her grasp. It clattered loudly somewhere close by and then winked out, leaving her in blackness so dark she could feel it settle over her, like a heavy blanket, or being underwater. She was drowning in it.

Panic muted her burning nose to a dull roar. She rolled over and felt around in the darkness, searching with desperate fingers for the missing flashlight. _Where is it? Where is it?_ The thought ricocheted wildly inside her head, repeated over and over. She found smooth floor tile and what felt like gritty bits of sand or dirt, but no flashlight. _Where is it?_  She spun around on her knees, spreading her hands out wide to either side. Over top her frantic breaths, footsteps where approaching, the dragging, scraping footsteps, drawing closer with every passing moment.

They were getting closer again. Had they followed her down the row? Or were they in the row over? She couldn't tell—the groans were coming everywhere at once. Maybe she was surrounded. Her fingers flew into a bookshelf, over the bottom shelf of books. She felt along their different shapes and sizes, and then found a space, a gap wider than her hand. She patted inside the space, feeling for her missing light, and tumbled more books off the shelf in her haste. They thudded loudly in the darkness. As if in response, the dirges grew even louder, even more vociferous. They roared in her ears. She could already feel their breath stirring the hair on the back of her neck, could imagine the cold sting of their hands as they pull her into waiting teeth. It was moments away. She forgot about the flashlight—it was unimportant, now.

_I have to hide. But where?_ She felt the books on the floor all around her, and an idea sprung into her mind, whole and complete. To hide. There was only one place.

Using both hands, Ella emptied the bottom shelf of books. Was it big enough? There was only one way to find out. She pressed herself onto it on her belly, scooting as far back and in as she could go, legs straight, and arms folded under as if she were praying. She would have prayed, only she didn't know how. Or to whom. Instead she buried her face in her hands and waited. She held her breath and listened to the darkness.

The growls and shuffling footsteps were almost on top of her. Her nose felt funny, bigger somehow, and burned like fire when she touched it. Her fingers came away wet and sticky. She tasted blood on her lips, in her mouth, and shivered. Could they smell it? She didn't know. She remembered on TV that sharks could smell blood somehow, even if they were in water. What if the dead-faces could smell it too? Before Ella could ponder the distressing thought, she sensed movement in the aisle to her right, close enough to touch. One of the monsters was standing right next to her, searching. She tried to hold her breath, to hold herself still, but an uncontrollable quiver racked her from head to toe. The shelf rattled. Above her, soft taps and light scratches broke the silence, followed by rough intakes of breath. Then came the flutter of paper and the thud of books falling to the floor. Something hard and lumpy pressed into her shoulder.

Ella covered her mouth, holding back a building scream. She felt something else then, something small and sharp pricking the skin of her palm. She grabbed it, and upon recognizing the shape of the tiny golden cross, squeezed it tight.

#

* * *

#

_Here goes._

The stairwell below and its occupants glowed an incandescent red. Peter exhaled a slow breath, stilling his wavering hand, and then pulled the trigger.

The back of the infected's head imploded, showering blood and gore onto the stairwell wall and its companions below. It collapsed forward down the steps, taking several others with it as it fell. The loud pop of the suppressed pistol echoing through the stairwell spurred the waiting horde into action. Just to make sure he had their full attention, he fired once more, blasting a cavernous hole between the vacant eyes of a dead woman with grayish hair who sort of reminded him of his high school librarian. He thought it might be its hooked nose. The remaining infecteds' lust-filled eyes swiveled toward him. Their teethed worked tirelessly in anticipation of their dinner.

He scrambled backwards up the steps, dropping several more along the way.  _Not today_ , he thought, squeezing off another round. There was something else in store for them. When he reached the landing, he waited, and made sure the horde was following before retreating to the bank of elevators across the hall. The shaft doors of the left-hand car were open, radiating the blackness inside the shaft. Opening them from the outside had been trickier than he had anticipated. His plan had nearly been scuttled before he could even put it into play. Behind him, infected poured out of the stairwell in search of their prey. He shot the first two through the doorway, dropping them in their tracks. With some luck, the obstruction would provide the time he needed.

Now came the most dangerous part, the part Olivia would have surely disapproved of if he had told her. There were risks, and then there were risks—hopefully he hadn't just taken an incredibly foolish one. But if it worked, it would be worth it. Judging by the condition Broyles was in, they wouldn't be leaving any time soon.

He holstered his pistol and then made the awkward step out into the elevator shaft, reaching with foot and hand for the metal ladder. Unlike the sister shaft they had climbed up from the basement level, the ladder was on the opposite wall, and required use of his left hand for the initial grab. Doing so stretched his flexibility to the limit. Stinging prickles of heat shot through his left side, up and down his back. He had the uncomfortable suspicion that coupled with their climb down to the street that morning, he wasn't doing his body any favors. But there was no other way; he was committed. The only alternatives were falling to his death or being devoured alive. What was a little pain next to those options? So he gritted his teeth and pulled himself out onto the cool metal of the ladder, then flattened up against it.

And just in in time, too, it seemed. Shadows moved over the floor in the narrow slice of failing daylight he could see from his slanted angle. Would they take the bait? Sometimes the undead appeared to possess some sense of self-preservation, and other times, none at all. There was no rhyme or reason to their random behavior.

Leaning out slightly, he tried to get a better view but still couldn't make out much. He could hear them though. Their groans and mumbles filled the lobby. Then a silhouette approached the open shaft. It stopped at the edge, teetering on the brink. A hand reached out, as if it was feeling tentatively at the darkness. Peter held his breath, waiting for the infected to take the last stop, but there it remained.

_Damn it,_ he thought, and let out a tired sigh. As he'd feared, they weren't falling for his ruse. Luckily, however, he still had one more card to play.

"Hey out there!" he called out in a booming voice. "I'm in here, you dead fucks!"

The undead in the hall pressed forward, forcing the one in front over the edge. It plummeted silently past him and a heavy boom echoed up a heartbeat later. Whether the elevator car was above or below, he didn't care—either suited his purpose. Another body fell over the edge, and then another. And then the bodies stopped. He waited, listening to his breath, but there were no more willing victims.

"And that's perfect...," Peter muttered. "This is gonna take all night."

There had been at least a few dozen of them in the stairwell, and those were just the ones he'd been able to see. More undoubtedly had been out of sight. He thought for a moment, and then hooked one arm through a ladder rung so he could dig through his pockets. In the armory he'd found all manner of useful items, including an LED penlight bright enough to induce blindness for several seconds. He pulled the tiny penlight free and flicked it on, holding it out where the infected could see.

The effect was instantaneous, and all he could have hoped for.

A buzz went through the undead. They rushed forward with all the abandon of eager children—and promptly dropped into the abyss, clawing futilely for the supernova blazing in their midst on their way past. A tirade of grotesque thuds echoed up from below. Several of the dead came close to grabbing his outstretched arm. He shifted his grip on the ladder, and the parade continued. After a while, the impacts below turned softer, somehow more fleshy sounding. His mind conjured the disturbing image of a growing mound at the bottom.

Still, Peter couldn't help but grin at the steady stream of infected. He waved the light like a cop directing traffic. "Keep it coming, ladies and gentleman," he said to the falling dead. "Step right this way."

Several minutes later, the flow of undead began to thin, and then finally trickled to a stop. He waited a moment, then let out a shout, just in case there were any others in the vicinity that had missed out on all the entertainment. None appeared.

He shined the penlight downward. The bottom of the pit was a squirming mass of arms and legs and torsos, gaping jaws, and unblinking yellow eyes. A sudden disquiet fell over him as he gazed down at the wriggling bodies. They had been people, once. Olivia's people, some of them. How long would they rot down there? Years? Centuries? In a millenia, would a team of archaeologists discover a cache of infected buried inside the living rock, remnants of the great plague of legend? What if it started anew? He shook his head. For that to happen, they would have to avoid extinction now, in the present. And that wasn't a wager he would care to make.

Peter flicked the penlight off and left the undead behind, pulling himself out of the shaft with a grunt. He glanced down the darkened corridors branching off the elevator lobby. This floor and whatever agencies it had housed were unfamiliar, as were all of the floors other than Olivia's and the detention level, where he had broken a guilty man's fingers with a coffee cup in another life. For her, though he would never had admitted it back then.

Drawing his pistol, he returned to the stairwell. To his pleasant surprise, his ruse had worked almost exactly as he had envisioned. The way down was clear, other than a few trampled bodies that still twitched, and those he finished off with the heel of his boot on his way past. When he reached the armory level, he found the door out of the stairwell unlocked—unlike its counterpart on the basement level—and pushed it open.

The floor where they'd left Charlie and Sonia was quiet, though he wasn't sure why it wouldn't be. He glanced around and found the stillness, the lack of violent insignia unsettling. It was too quiet. The normality seemed almost vulgar, somehow. Abnormal.

He started back down the corridor toward the armory, glancing upward, trying to pierce the floors between himself and Olivia. He wondered how Broyles was doing. Did he have any information for them? It was odd to think the survival of the human race might possibly depend on the life of one man, but there it was. How they were going to get him out of the Federal Building, and after that, back to the lab—if he even lived long enough to accomplish either? The man had looked more dead than alive. And there was something else, unimportant compared to the big picture, but still something to consider. Broyles had seen them in a rather...compromising position. He supposed it didn't matter, but Olivia seemed to respect him. He and their boss had never been close, to say the least. Maybe the man wouldn't remember, or think it a fever dream. Peter could understand that—he could hardly believe it himself. Just thinking of Olivia, of Broyles's office and what she'd told him set his heart to racing. And then later, in the cafeteria. Watching the hope die on her face—it had struck him like a physical blow. He shook his head, grinning faintly. He was falling hard and fast. And for a wonder, the realization didn't scare him, didn't make him want to run in the other direction. How things had changed.

The murmur of low voices silenced his thoughts. The other elephant in the room was just ahead around the corner. Peter slowed as he approached the intersection. He saw Charlie's face again, the uncensored madness in his eyes when they'd shown him the body. Or maybe it had been terror. Either were understandable, he supposed, in light of what Olivia had told him. It must have been an enormous shock to see the face, the dead body, of the man who had died so his wife could live. The man who died twice, apparently, as impossible as that seemed. Maybe it was survivor's guilt, a close relative of PTSD. It was common in soldiers whose squads were killed around them, in survivors of bombings and natural disasters. Those affected were consumed with crippling thoughts and feelings that they could have done more, that they shouldn't have survived when their loved-ones or squad-mates were killed. Suicide wasn't unheard of.

_That's all we need_ , he thought darkly. They would have to keep an eye on him.

The murmur of voices grew louder, until he could differentiate between male and female. He heard a ringing peal of laughter when he reached the main corridor and stopped just short to listen. Sonia was speaking, asking her husband a question about a beach somewhere, about the ocean and a jellyfish. Charlie murmured something he couldn't make out in reply. After several more exchanges, it became clear they were talking about their honeymoon. They had gone somewhere tropical. The conversation sounded fairly normal and innocuous, and Charlie even let out a low chuckle at something his wife said.

Peter sighed, and stepped around the corner. Maybe the man was back in control of his senses. For the moment at least.

The Francises were standing at the far end of the hall, looking down at something held in Sonia's hand. Was it a picture? Sonia noticed his arrival first, looking up at his footsteps.

"Peter!"

Charlie's head jerked up. His jaw was tight, but his dark eyes were clear. They darted past him, searching for Olivia.

"She's upstairs," Peter announced before the other man could voice the question blooming on his face. "And she's fine." He looked Charlie up and down and was about to ask how he was feeling, but changed his mind at the last moment. If the situation were reversed, questions would not be welcome.

"What'd you find?" Charlie asked. His face relaxed, and he resembled the Charlie of old. Mostly. "Tell me you found something up there, Peter. Anything at all. Tell me this whole fucking thing hasn't been one giant waste of our time."

Peter glanced between them. "Well, we searched Broyles's office and didn't find squat. But then, on our way back, we may have found something better than information."

Charlie's eyes narrowed. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"Not a what. A who."

"You mean you found someone? Alive?" Sonia frowned. "Who is it? Anyone we know?"

"The man himself."

"You mean Agent Broyles?" she gasped into her palm.

The blood drained from Charlie's face. "You're telling me Broyles is upstairs, right now?" he asked, taking a step closer. "And that he's been alive and well this whole time? Since the outbreak began?"

"Well...he's alive," Peter said. Or he had been. Whether or not that was still the case remained to be seen. "But he's not well. As for how long he's been here, I don't have a clue. He was trapped up there, though, and I think his food ran out a long time ago."

"Oh my god," Sonia breathed through her fingers. "How bad is he?"

Peter shrugged and rubbed the back of his neck. "I'm not gonna lie. He's in pretty bad shape."

It was a bit of an understatement, but it sounded better then telling them that Broyles had one foot in death's door. Charlie glanced down the hallway. He had his color back, and resembled his former self more than ever. At least on the outside, and that was good enough for the present.

"Where is he?" the agent asked.

#

* * *

#

Walter stopped just inside the entrance of the Widener library. He gripped the pitchfork like a thrusting spear, both hands spread out along the haft.

The mosaic shapes and colors had faded almost to the point of disappearing, but not quite. Faint traces still covered every surface—even the air itself—like a transparent veil, only made visible by the darkness ahead. He looked around, looked through the veil. Years had passed, no, decades, since he had last crossed the threshold. George Bush the elder had still been president and Elizabeth had still been alive. And he had still been a whole man, with all his faculties and memories intact. Much had changed since then.

The interior was dim, with long shadows cast across serene marble flooring and columns, across exquisite ceiling coffers of intricately molded squares that resembled the tin ceiling of old. It was different than he remembered, newer, perhaps more elegant, if that were possible. It seemed that in the interim since his internment, a renovation had taken place. He moved past a petite receptionist's desk and through a pair of security gates, both new additions. It was still and silent beyond the gates, with nary a sign of a little girl, or of the undead.

_Which way would a child go?_  he wondered, glancing upward. Should he call out for her? He dismissed the idea at once. If somehow, she had managed to avoid any undead in residence, his voice might awaken them. The ceiling rippled, giving off a fluidic appearance. Straight ahead was a wide archway and set of stairs that would lead up or down to one of the many reading rooms in the library, and ultimately, to the stacks themselves. Doorways to his right and left led to administrative offices, to secretaries and assistants. Or they had, before. The inset doors were closed and bathed in shadow.

He ground the handle of the pitchfork into the floor.  _Which way?_  he thought again, reaching up to flick on his headlamp. A brass plaque on the wall near the archway reflects the red beam, capturing his eye. He crossed over to it and found a library map painted onto the metal. Had she passed through the arches? It was mostly dark beyond, with the exception being several rays of waning sunlight cast through windows high up on the wall. Specks of dust floated in the rays of light, giving the impression of being underwater at the bottom of the ocean, of particulates drifting this way and that in the current. He glanced back at the darkened doorways. She would have gravitated toward the light, he decided, and walked through the marble archway.

An extravagant chandelier hung over the staircase, suspended by thick chains from the lofty height of the domed ceiling. His footsteps echoed softly in the solitude as he climbed the steps up to an anteroom. This space was also different than he recalled. The headlamp left bars of red tracing across his vision as he glanced around. Gone were the multitude of stately librarian's desks, replaced high-backed pleated chairs and love-seats arranged in groups. In the days of his youth, the desks had been manned by sharp-tongued women on the lookout for anyone displaying recalcitrant behavior. The corps of librarians had wielded their authority to bar access to the stacks with a fervor that bordered on religious.

Walter didn't miss them, particularly the old crone who had always smelled of foul lavender. Or had it been lilac? The memory was blurry, like looking though a clouded window. She'd had gaunt cheeks and a nose like a rat's. He fingered his chin, lost in days past, and then realized with a start that he was just standing in the center of the room, mouth agape. He blinked the past away and moved through the largest of three doorways, again following the light.

The cavernous reading room felt like walking backward in time. The rows of long reading tables were the same, in the same layout, with the same uncomfortable wooden chairs that seemed as old as the great library itself. His ass had come to know their contours intimately. Other details emerged, and were more alarming.

Chairs were overturned. Books lay open on the reading tables, along with portable computers, bookbags—all left behind. Left behind in their owner's haste to exit the building? Or had something interrupted them? Something other. The outbreak had spread even faster than he'd imagined it would, or could. He glanced around the reading room with disquiet. Through the tall windows into the courtyard below he saw not the sky, but some sort of tinted glass, the barest shade of green. He rubbed at his eyes, convinced that it was some effect of the LSD, but the glass ceiling remained in place.

_What kind of absurdity is this_? he thought, stalking over to the window. What he saw outside filled him with disgust and added a crimson tint to his vision. The library's interior courtyard and all its character were gone. Closed off. And the outdoors with it; all the plant life and their fragrances, the feel of the noontime sun beaming down, and the coo of pigeons roosting on the parapets high above. It had been peaceful. A place for thoughtful repose. In its place were sterile tables and chairs and computer screens. How dare they? Who would have authorized such a thing? It would have never happened in his day. "Unbelievable..." he muttered, turning away from the window and the anger it exuded.

_Focus_... a voice whispered in his ear. He took in a calming breath. There was no sign of the girl. Had he made a mistake? No. The trail of disturbed leaves had led straight to the library's steps, and she had expressed an interest. And he had as much told her to go. The reading room was lined with holding shelves filled with books waiting in vain for reshelving. They weren't the sort of books the girl was looking for. The true treasures lay hidden in the stacks—all ten floors of them in the east, west, and south wings—the greatest of which were the rare books, located in the lavish Memorial Room on its mezzanine at the library's heart. Perhaps he could even pay the room a visit, maybe borrow a few of the treasures for himself. If there was still time after he found the girl, of course. Yes.

Swirling patterns developed on the floor at his feet. He stared down, mystified, for several heartbeats before prying his gaze free of the spectacle with no small amount of effort. The world was growing sharper again, more defined. More real. There was little time to waste. He wandered toward a wide doorway on the far side of the room. "Stay focused on the task at hand," he reminded himself. "You're here for the girl, and for nothing else."

The next room was just as empty as the first, and the next also. He came across more signs of renovation. None so egregious as the ruination outside the window; only computers and updated technology that hadn't existed before the fire in the lab had sent him away. In the final room before completing the circuit back to the anteroom, he spied the unassuming door into the stacks proper. Would little Ella have noticed it? And if she had, would she have had the courage to enter? The stacks were dark places, with the little in the way of natural light, and none at all in the four basement levels. The thought of traversing those narrow spaces was unnerving, and he was a man grown.

_Perhaps searching the remaining rooms on this floor first would be prudent_ , he thought, eying the wooden door. For an instant it melted into the surrounding wall before popping back into focus again like a jack-in-the-box. Another wave was approaching. Walter could feel its momentous portents building in the base of his spine, the persistent finger pressing between his shoulder blades. His peak would arrive soon, and with it, his senses squashed flat for the duration.  _It would be best not to be in darkness when it arrives_. It would be best no to be outside the comforting confines of the lab at all, but what had happened had happened, and he must deal with it.

He hurried back through the anteroom and crossed over into the west wing, a near perfect carbon copy of its counterpart. After making a quick circuit of the various reading and study spaces—all of which showed more signs of renovation and not a sign of the girl—he hesitated, stroking his chin with false indecision. Where to go? Up to the second and third floor reading rooms? He could search them all; every room, every nook, and every cranny. But he still wouldn't find her. He knew it, the same way he had known the trail in leaves was hers. Intuition. Reading rooms and study spaces were not what had given her the courage to enter the building in the first place.

It was books she was looking for. The stacks. And she would have kept on until she found them.

Which meant that he must enter them also. In spite of his misgivings, and in spite of the deep unease that struck at the thought of actually doing so. The problem was his to fix.

#

The wooden door into the stacks was scarred and battered, evidence of its long history. Was it an original? As ancient as the library itself? Why hadn't it been replaced during the great renovation? Perhaps it was some architect's attempt at preserving some of the building's character. The nicks and gouges shifted about on the umber panels, winking and open closed like eyelids. Dante came to mind, and the doorway down into hell. He shook his head slightly, blinking the illusions away. There was no putting it off any longer. Indeed, he had put it off for too long already.

Walter wet his lips, and then shoved the door open. He brandished the pitchfork with shaking hands as it swung back, prepared to thrust the needlepoint tines through anything that moved, through anything that wasn't a five-year old girl.

But there was nothing, no movement at all. Only the swirling darkness. The headlamp's red beam played across a wide row of bookshelves and silence. His fingers tenses and relaxed on the wooden haft, and crossed over the threshold. A familiar aroma wafted over him; of books, of learning, age-old and musty. Uncountable memories of days gone by blurred across his inner-eye in a torrent. He forced the memories down, swallowing through a thickness in the back of his throat, and moved to his left, toward the only source of light inside the stacks. And a quickly fading source it was.

The tiny window overlooked Harvard Yard. Below, the yard was cloaked in a gloomy haze. Abstract yellows and browns, the deep reds and oranges of sunset, all blended together like wet paint on a canvas. The lab's silhouette stood out against the background of matchstick trees, small and insignificant. Daylight was bowing out, giving way to nightfall. Where had all the time gone? Surely it had only been mid-afternoon when he'd stepped outside the lab. He bent over, peering through the window, and imagined a spec of light moving in one of the Kresge Building's upper windows. Or was it an illusion, a trick of his mind? He squinted, pressing his face up to the glass. Yes, there was a light. It swung from side to side. Searching. Was it Astro, or Agent Dunham's sister? They were undoubtedly aware of his absence by now. He could imagine the fright the young mother must be feeling at that moment. The possible loss of one's child was the most mortal of fears. And the mind was drawn to the worst case scenario, always. And the worst case scenario was very frightening indeed.

Walter turned away from the window. There was little time. He hurried around the stack's perimeter, swinging the light down each aisle as he passed them by. Before completing even one circuit, however, he came to a troubling conclusion: all of his assumptions were more than likely wrong. He had ingested a large dose of LSD, after all. It was simply unfathomable that a child would dare explore the ocean of unnerving blackness in which he found himself. Unimaginable. Surely any little girl—or boy, for that matter—would have been frightened half out of their mind and turned back. If they had entered at all. Perhaps there had been no trail of leaves. Perhaps it had all been a conjuration of his mind. Such elaborate hallucinations were not unheard of, not in the slightest.

Maybe the girl wasn't lost at all. Maybe  _he_  was the lost one, and the others were searching for  _hi_ m—the girl included. Peter would be irate when he found out about this little misadventure. He could already hear his son's scolding voice, could see his cutting eyes. The conversation would be absolutely dreadful. With Peter's disapproving face in mind, he made a sharp turn into the stacks, intending to take the direct route back to the entrance.

And then an indeterminate thump out of nowhere stopped him short. A chill raced down his spine.

In the constant silence, the sound stood out as a full moon stood out on a clear night, obvious and unmissable. As if pointed out by a giant neon arrow in the sky. It had come from behind. Somewhere. He spun around and pointed the pitchfork into the blackness. A rush of manic energy tensed his muscles, wavering the pointed tines. He exhaled slowly, and listened, but the noise refused to repeat itself. Tiptoeing carefully out of the row, he retraced his steps, returning to the outside aisle. He peered about, moving to his right, and did his best to still his racing heart. What was it? And from where? There was nothing obvious, only books and bookshelves, floor tile and masonry walls.

A stairwell loomed out of the darkness ahead. He knew it at once, had traversed its narrow confines on countless occasions. The stairwell to the other levels of the stack. He moved closer. The sound had been muffled. An echo of an echo. Could the noise percolated up or down from another level? He glanced around the darkness and came to the reluctant conclusion that it was probable, perhaps even likely. But which way? Up or down? Both seemed equally unappealing.

When he set foot on the landing, the atmosphere changed. Not in the air, but inside himself, or around him, or on the inner surface of his skin. He could feel a sort of...pressure building, a tickle in the back of his mind. Eddies of color sparked over the stair treads, the banister, all varying shades of carmine, with hints of racing periwinkle and malachite. The approaching wave, the peak. Its imminent arrival had slipped his mind.

"Oh dear..." Walter gulped and stared down at the red swathe cutting into the blackness of the stairwell. "This is rather unfortunate timing." Unfortunate was a drastic understatement—indeed, the timing couldn't be worse or more inopportune.

There was only one thing to do, and that was to brace himself, to keep his psyche ahead of the rising crescendo. It was nearly upon him. His back straightened at the mounting tension. There came a moment, a microsecond gap before it arrived. The pressure vanished, like the ocean receding ahead of an incoming tidal wave. He sighed at its absence, and then the wave hit—the upsurge. It washed over him, forcing his eyes shut and clenching his jaw like a vice. His ego flattened, then shattered into a million fragmented pieces. When he could think again, when the particles and electrical charges that made up his inner-self reformed, the world was a different shade, filled with stunning complexity. He could imagine, could almost envision the great gears driving the universe; a massive axle about which all worlds revolved, ever spinning, ever churning out new realities with every choice made and not made, ever growing; a great tree expanding in all directions, branch sprouting branch, and on and on into infinity. He gasped at its magnificence.

What was at the center? What was the linchpin that held it all together? He yearned for the knowledge, thirsted for the knowing. His intelligence pressed against the curtain between himself and comprehension, probed at its boundaries for a way past. And then, for one orgasmic moment, he could see it! Decades had passed since he'd last broken through the barrier. The curtain parted. The tiniest of cracks let in the light, and it was all there, dangling right in front of him. Tantalizing. He could see the shape of  _it_ , the harmonic outline.  _Of course!_  he thought rapturously. There was a moment, a fraction of a second, where understanding bloomed. Understanding of everything that had happened, of everything that  _could_  happen.  _It's so beautiful!_ It was a tapestry, complex and interwoven, full of colors and light and...and what?He reached out for the knowledge with his inner hand—and it flitted away, retreated before him. Like grasping at air, or the incorporeal. Again he reached out, but the curtain was already drawing closed again, the lights in his mind extinguishing, until he was left in spiraling darkness.

Walter breathed in and out. His pulse was racing, thundering static in his ears. He tried to summon the image again; what he'd seen, what he'd felt, but it was already fading, dissipating into the distant recesses of his mind. There was a faint impression of something unexpected, something wondrous to behold, and then it too was gone.

He opened his eyes to a world of conflicting darkness and color.

How much time had passed? It could have been seconds or minutes—even hours. The length was always different. The stairwell emitted purplish and red highlights. The treads flowed like an escalator, up and down, the motion steady and constant. Beneath his feet, the floor tile blurred pink, undulating and mirage-like. Tiny bubbles oozed to the surface and pressed outward. His shoes were sinking into it, despite the still rational part of his brain telling him in a dry voice that such an occurrence was an order of magnitude more unlikely than being struck by several meteorites at once, or growing another pair of arms or legs. Or a head. The transparent patterns floating in the darkness about him metastasized into a violent orange. Even the silence was no longer silent; he was hearing voices. A faint scream rang out, shrill and piercing.

He blinked, and when he opened his eyes, the shifting colors had given way to the plaid. On the floor, the walls, the shelves. Even himself. Always the plaid.  _Why plaid_? he wondered, and not for the first time. Belly and he had passed much time discussing the phenomenon on countless occasions. It was his old friend's opinion that the plaid overlay—a grid, in actuality—represented a two-dimensional membrane. The mesh upon which reality was imprinted and visible only through the heightened perception granted by large doses of LSD or similar psychoactive substances. Much of their early research had been attempting to prove its existence. Had they succeeded? For some reason he couldn't recall, which seemed oddly strange. Wouldn't he have remembered such a great discovery? That singular rush was what all men of science were after, wasn't it?

Before he could dwell on the thought any further, a sound intruding on his awareness brought him up short. The plaid scattered to the four winds. It came to him that it wasn't the first time he'd heard it, either. And that it wasn't in his head at all, but part of the real world. He heard it again.

A voice. A scream! For help? He could still hear it in his mind's eye. No. Of terror.

Walter started as the dawning realization struck home.  _The girl—she's here!_ He'd been right all along. He waited for another of her cries but none more were forthcoming. Where was she, on a level below or above? He started upward, but then spun around mid-step and hurried downward, toward the basement. What led him to do so, he couldn't say, only that when intuition struck he followed without hesitation. He always had.

#

Upon reaching the first basement level, he swung the pitchfork around, searching the abyssal blackness. The tines squirmed in place but he ignored their diversion. He turned his head, running the red beam over the stacks and down the aisles near enough to see.

The layout was similar to the floors above; shelves running east to west, perpendicular to the exterior wall. Not far from the landing he spied a book lying on the floor. It was open, with both covers upturned, pages bent and creased beneath. As if it had been carelessly dropped. He frowned at the characters on the front cover. Unless they had drastically reorganized the library's layout, Chinese literature belonged on the topmost level of the stacks. He remembered that detail clearly. There had always been a foul odor up there, as if something had crawled under one of the shelves and died. How had it come to be in the basement? There seemed only one obvious answer.

Walter glanced around, swallowing uneasily. How to proceed? Should he call out for her?

He was still trying to decide when the unmistakable odor of decaying flesh wafted across his nose. The source of the stink followed a moment later, staggering out of the darkness to his left. He gasped silently at the spike of panic sliding through his chest and pressed himself up against the wall of stairwell, away from the approaching undead.

Had it seen him? His hands shook as he pulled the pitchfork up against his chest. What had Peter told him regarding the range of the undeads' visual acuity in darkness? His mind had chosen utter blankness on the subject. Out-of-sync footsteps drew closer, and a low, groaning whisper, almost as if the creature were mumbling under its breath. Nostrils flaring, he peered around the corner.

It was almost parallel with him, moving with a stutter-step gait. It had been a woman, with raven hair down to her shoulders.  _Who was she_? he wondered, following her progress. A professor? A library administrator? Its locks were matted with filth and writhed like Medusa's herself.

The dead woman seemed unaware of his presence, its singular mind focused on some destination at the southern end of the stacks. The girl? It must be the girl. Why else would it be moving at all? Peter and Agent Dunham had been quite specific in their descriptions of the undeads' behavior. And he had witnessed it himself—from a safe distance, at least. Up close and in the dark by himself, however, was something else again. Walter swallowed, exhaling a rickety breath as it moved past his hiding spot.

He tried to put aside the fear rushing through his veins—the creature was mindless, and he knew it on an intellectual level—but there was no escaping the sinister atmosphere, not in his current condition, at least. It was all too much; the moaning, color-filled darkness and the crushing silence, his pounding heart and the bubbling whispers of his prey.

Yet he had a job to do, even still. The undead had passed him by, moving off into the darkness.

He wiped the sweat from his palms, and then stepped away from the wall. A glance to his left revealed that it was a lone wanderer, out for a stroll. He crept after the dead woman, bathing her formerly-elegant clothing in crimson light. How close did he need to get to it? What was the proper range for attack? Fear muddied his senses, clouded his judgment. It came to him that the others had been dealing with such terrors daily for months, all while he'd been living in the safety in the lab.

Did they resent him? How could they not?

The undead woman was directly in front of him. Its shoulders swayed from side to side. It was time. Walter held his breath. Squirming coils of flickering color danced on the edge of his vision, but he remained focused. Squeezing the wooden haft in a crushing grip, he lunged forward, lips pulled back in a silent snarl, and thrust the pitchfork into the mass of writhing hair.

It was almost too easy. The needle-sharp tines slid through the back of its skull with an eerie efficiency. The creature collapsed at once, dropping in a heap at his feet. He yanked his weapon back and struck again, pressing down with all his weight until the tines ground into the floor.  _I can't believe it's not butter_! came the thought out of nowhere. He repressed an urge to giggle maniacally and tore the weapon free.

His forearms ached, and he relaxed his death-lock on the wooden haft finger by finger.  _Not exactly like feeding Gene_ , he thought, surveying his work with renewed confidence. Though it wasn't altogether different, either. The intense fright had been unexpected—he'd not felt such since he was a boy—but understandable, given the unnaturalness of the situation.

He'd been able to feel the strength leave its body, as if its muscles had turned to jello the instant its brain was compromised. The very instant. Like a connection was severed. Was there a connection? To what? He thought of the toy car his son had built once as a boy. A Christmas present for a disinterested child. The car had been controlled remotely, by tiny servos for steering and manipulating the electronic motor's rotary switch. A wireless receiver had interpreted the signals from the transmitter—a curious device shaped like a handgun, of all things—and the car would stop dead when it traveled out of range. All at once, without warning. It had been a neat little toy, until a passing truck had ended its short life, at least. Peter had been irate.

A noise plucked him back to the present; the flutter of paper, the thump of books falling to the floor. The girl! Was she running? Hiding? He refused to admit the very real possibility that she was dead, devoured alive while he was lost in the past like a damn fool.

Walter squinted about, pulling at the roots of his hair. There had to be more of them, he reasoned. More out there in the blackness, lost inside the stacks. And the girl with them. He had to draw them off her, had to create a diversion of some kind.

Raising two fingers to his lips, he hesitated, then blew with all his might. The ensuing whistle was piercing in the silence, even louder than he'd expected. He blew another penetrating blast as he moved away from the corpse, and more on his way into the darkness from which the undead woman had emerged.

They would come. Indeed, they would be helpless not to. He prayed it was enough. He prayed that he wasn't too late, that she'd had the sense to hide.

When he reached the north wall of the basement, he let out a final whistle, then peered about, searching the narrow gaps between the rows for movement. Finding nothing, he relaxed and took in a deep breath. He was alone, but not for long. And there was still one more thing he must do. He set his weapon aside.

"Hello! This is Dr. Walter Bishop!" he shouted, cupping his mouth. "If you can hear me...if...if you're not deceased that is, stay silent, child, and stay where you are. And I'll find you!"

With the last part of his impromptu plan done, Walter grabbed the pitchfork and hurried into the stacks, following the aisle west until he reached the far wall. There, he turned and headed back to the south, slinking along the wall. Shortly, he began to hear things, ahead in the darkness, off to his right. There were faint susurrations, the rustle of cloth. The patter of footsteps. Weren't there? Or were they merely his imagination? He wasn't sure. Differentiating between reality and the LSD induced hallucinations—of which there was no shortage—required his full attention. He ignored the creeping darkness, the plaid grid of reds and browns and yellows superimposed on the floor and walls, on the exposed pipes and conduits on the low-hung ceiling, even on the very air itself, contracting and expanding in slow motion. None of that was relevant.

So it was that he almost missed the figure emerging from the row ahead. His heart convulsed as an undead man wearing a plaid shirt—real plaid, not the hallucinatory kind—stepped into his light. The man's face was ghastly, the stuff of nightmares. At ten paces, pupils flecked with yellow madness came alive. It lurched forward, arms reaching out.

Walter tensed, raising the pitchfork. Should he charge it? Screaming a battlecry like a knight of old? Or wait for it to approach? He wasn't sure; the others had never elaborated on the best method for a dispatching one of their undead neighbors in a full frontal attack. He was still trying to decide when the dead man crashed into the pitchfork, impaling itself through the throat.

Its weight forced him backward, skidding his loafers across the tiled floor. Liquid gargles filled the air. Thick gushes of blood spewed from between its grinning teeth as it clawed at the wooden haft, scraping a track across the back of his right hand. He made desperate pivot, using its own momentum to heave it to the side. The dead man stumbled over its feet and ended up on its back, thrashing, pinned to the floor by the throat. He ripped the pitchfork free and sank it in again, into the soft flesh of its cheek and through one blazing eye. The reaching hands fell limply to the floor.

_Is it always like this_? He gazed down at the unmoving corpse, catching his breath.  _Always so violent_? Peter and Agent Dunham had been downplaying the savagery of their encounters, the dangers involved. It was no walk in the park, as had been described. His son needed a stern talking to when he got back.  _That is, if he returns at all_ , a small voice reminded him. He swallowed and jerked his weapon free. Yes, there was that. Peter would return—he had to.

He waited for another of the undead to appear, and when none did, hurried onward. Either there were no others, or they had exited the stacks on the other side. His nose picked up the thorny scents of mold and mildew, enemies of libraries the world over. With no power, the lack of adequate ventilation in basement levels would quickly take its toll. The realization brought with it a pang of sadness. So much irreplaceable knowledge would be lost.

There was no sign of the girl when he reached the south wall. He searched for places in which a child might secrete herself and found depressingly few. Several reading nooks, a plastic trashcan, a row of reshelving carts sitting in a row against the exterior wall. The girl was in none of them, which left only one alternative.

The stacks themselves.

He stalked down aisle after aisle, looking and listening for any hint of her passage. The stacks were narrow spaces, with inexplicable dead-ends and hidden crannies. There was no wasted space, and becoming lost within their convoluted confines was entirely possible. He had seen it before, first-years lost for hours in the dim expanse of the basement levels. And sometimes, with older students, losing oneself in the stacks with a significant other had become a rite of passage. He had partaken in that forbidden fruit himself, in the rarely visited Yiddish literature section. Several painful friction burns on his kneecaps had been his reward.

When he entered the British history section, a lingering scent of decay hung in the air. Walter slowed, casting his light ahead down the aisle.

The undead were close. Or had been. He listened to the darkness.

There was only silence at first, but then he heard it. A faint creak of metal shifting. He held his breath, listening for it again. Where was it? In his row? Or one over? He moved forward carefully. The floor tiles had stopped their bubbling, and instead he crept through the revolving polka-dots cast by an invisible pink disco ball. The Bee Gees were playing in his ear, crooning  _Stayin' Alive_  to the beat. The aisle ended in a hairpin turn of bookshelves constructed to wrap around a thick column holding up the floor above. He stepped around the odd protrusion, and then recoiled at as the red beam fell across a shape in the corner, tucked up against the shelf base.

For several thudding heartbeats, Walter thought the squirming black coil was an enormous spider, preparing to spring. Perhaps even a  _Phidippus audax_ , though an uncommonly large specimen. A hallucination, of course, except instead of disappearing or changing shape, it remained in place, pulsating on the floor. He bent to retrieve it and a flutter went through his chest when he held it up for inspection.

He found it wasn't a spider at all, but a headlamp, similar in design to the one on his brow. The light inside glowed a pitiful yellow and petered out even as he watched. Was it from the lab? From the stash Peter had brought back from one of his walkabouts? It must be. How else could it be there, with still-working batteries? The girl had brought it with her. And then had dropped it. There was no other explanation. Had no one explained the red spectrum to the child? He ground his teeth in irritation. They'd been fools, all of them, underestimating her. A young girl's curiosity knew no bounds. He shoved the dead lamp into his coat pocket.

Around the corner there was more evidence of her passing; dozens of books spilled off the shelves onto the floor. Signs of a struggle? He swallowed the bile rising in his throat. No. There was no blood in the vicinity, no evidence of foul play. He stepped over the books and hurried down the aisle. She was close, one way or another. He could feel it.

As he reached the end of the row, he imagined someone calling his name. It was a quiet voice, pleasing to his ears. Wait. Not his name, but Dr. Walter. Dr. Walter. The music playing in his head came to a jarring stop. He wasn't imagining the voice, he was hearing it! With his actual ears.

"Dr. Walter...?" a tiny voice was whimpering from behind, just above the threshold of silence. "Dr. Walter?"

His heart leapt and Walter spun around. "Ella, dear?" he hissed, scanning the blackness. "Where are you child?"

Something moved on a bottom shelf, back near the piles of scattered books. A small shadow seemed to slide out of the shelf. And then it stood up.

"Is that really you?"

Abject terror filled her voice, pure and unadulterated fear. The sound of it broke his heart. The horrors she must have endured, all alone in the dark, stalked by nightmares come to life. "Yes, it really is me," he whispered. "At least I think it is. I've been looking for you. I've come to take you back."

He set the pitchfork aside as the shadow rushed forward into his light. Ella threw herself into his arms and he lifted her up, hugging her to him. A shudder ran through her small body, and he could feel her racing heartbeat against his chest. She buried her face in his coat and started to cry. His throat tightened at the feel of holding a small child in his arms again. He gripped her tight and made soothing noises dredged up from the distant past, when another small body had been distraught with mortal fear.

After a time, the tremors racking the girl ceased. She lifted her head. Her hair was tangled, cheeks streaked with dust and tears. "I'm sorry I left the lab, Dr. Walter." Her voice was puny, full of a child's remorse. "I didn't mean to, not really. I saw a dead person outside and I ran, and then I saw the library. I just...wanted to see inside. But then I got lost. I couldn't find the way out."

"Oh it's all right, my dear," he said, patting her back gently. "We all get lost at some point or another. As for leaving the lab, I suspect you've learned your lesson, have you not?" Ella nodded, sniffling through her nose. "Sometimes being burned is the best way to learn about fire, don't you...don't you...agree?" Another wave—less intense than the last—struck mid-sentence. A halo of colors surrounded the girl's expressive face, tinted burnt orange around the edges. He looked past her, into the darkness. Were there more footsteps approaching? Whispers in the dark? How long had they been standing there? Too long. He listened, but heard only static and the girl's slight hitches of breath. Setting her down carefully, he took her hand. "Come, child. It would be best if we exited the premises."

"Did you get rid of all dead-faces, Dr. Walter?" she asked in a hushed tone. "They were after me. They almost got me."

Walter's lips curled into a grin. Children were such a delight. "Dead-faces. What an apt description. But yes, I dispatched two of the creatures. Were there more than two?" Ella nodded a frantic affirmative. Her dark eyes were opened all the way, showing the whites all around. "Then we'll have to be very careful and quiet, won't we?" he said. She nodded again, doing her best impersonation of someone who was calm. He applauded the effort.

He grabbed the pitchfork and led her down the aisle. At the far end he stopped and peered around the corner. The coast seemed clear. Perhaps the other undead were still occupied with his diversion. He could only hope so. They crept out of the row and started back toward the stairwell. The barest scent of death still hung in the air as they passed out of British History and into the Celtic. He glanced at the yellow call numbers on the shelf ends.

As an undergrad, he'd never spent much time on this particular floor. The levels below, the sections on science and technology had been of great interest, however. Multitudes of volumes by the greatest minds of the twentieth century resided there; Einstein of course, Oppenheimer, Planck, Feynman, Lemaître, Watson and Crick, and on and on the list went. He'd spent the majority of his time there, reading, pouring over their combined works. At least until his research had moved beyond their scopes. Then he and Belly had operated in the unchartered waters of the imagination.  _Here, be dragons_. The old proverb came out of nowhere, a warning from days past. He'd never been much good at heeding warnings—neither of them had. It was what had made them such excellent partners. And they had found their dragons. Hadn't they?

"Dr. Walter! Look out!" Ella's tiny hand ripped free of his grasp.

Lost in thought, in the past, the girl's warning took him by surprise. He started at a shadow moving out of the aisle directly to his left. It resolved into a dead man, barrel chested, with wavy gray hair, face a ruin of torn flesh and sinew. The undead man lunged, mouth gaping wide.

He batted hands curled into claws aside with the pitchfork, acting more out of instinct than anything else. The heavy body crashed into him, forcing him backward until he thudded against the wall. The pitchfork was trapped between them, sideways across their chests. He pushed back with both hands, holding the dead man's snapping teeth at bay. Foul breath burned his nose. His stomach heaved at the stench. In the background, the girl's screams escalated to a fevered pitch. She was on the floor, on her back, scrambling away from another of the dead; a one-armed woman who must have followed the heavyset fellow out of the row. It would fall on her in moments.

"No!" Walter cried. An image flashed through his mind, of the child being eaten, of her rising from the dead herself, eyes filled with golden death. "You can't have her!"

Pressing back with all his might, he shoved the fat man to the side, forcing it away with a great heave that sent fire through his arms and chest. The undead man stumbled back against a low book cart and fell to its knees. Walter rushed to the dead woman, swinging the pitchfork like a baseball bat. His swing for the fences crashed across its right shoulder. To his horror, the wooden haft snapped in two midway down the haft. The metal tines pealed off the floor tile and bounced away in the darkness as the undead woman staggered drunkenly to the side.

He gaped at the broken shaft remaining in his hands.  _Oh no..._ , the thought flitted through across his mind as the dead woman recovered.

With a guttural snarl, it turned and charged, arm outstretched. Walter made a desperate thrust, driving the splintered end deep into one of its maddening eyes. A shower of slick blood burst from the ruin of its face and the stake was yanked from his grasp as the woman collapsed. The girl's screams continued unabated, wordless shrieks at the upper limits of human hearing. There was a desperate edge to them, however. A warning. He lunged for his only weapon, sensing the other undead approaching from behind.

The wooden stake was coated and slippery. He only just managed to pull it free and spin around, raising the stake in front of him as the larger male hurtled into him. Its growls were inhuman and filled with lust. He cried out as the fat man's weight knocked him on his back. His head cracked hard on the floor. For a moment, he forgot where he was, forgot who he was, and what he was doing.

#

Walter came back to utter darkness and the suffocating stench of rotting flesh. Something sharp rested against his cheek and a dreadful weight lay across his chest.  _The undead fellow_. He reached up and felt a face, a head lying against him. The something sharp was teeth! Panic took hold and he struggled to free himself, rocking and shimmying, pushing the dead man's limp weight to the side.

When he was finally free, he stared up into the blackness, gasping for air. His body hurt all over. He wondered how he was still alive. Had he been bitten? He felt along his face, but there were no injuries, no gouges of missing skin that he could feel. The headlamp was gone from his brow. He turned his head and saw a tiny red circle on the wall. The headlamp itself lay not far away. He reached for it. As he pulled it to him, the bouncing light fell across the girl's form, still lying on the floor where he'd last seen her.

He staggered slowly to his feet, feeling at a growing lump on the back of his head. It was going to be quite a shiner. He shined the light on the dead man and gasped. The wooden stake protruded from under its layered chin, driven up into the cranial cavity from below. Luck had saved him. Chance. He was covered in blood—his hands, his coat. The foulness was on his lips, on his face. There would be no hiding any of it if they managed to make it out. He intended to see that they did. Both of them. For a wonder, he felt utterly sober. The massive dose of adrenaline he'd endured had cleared his head. For the time being, at least. It wouldn't last. The drug in his system was simply too powerful to be over-shadowed for long.

_I'm far too old for this business_ , he thought, limping over to the girl. A sharp sting lanced through his left knee with every step. He tried to distance himself from the pain, but mostly failed. He was too old, too slow and too weak.

Ella's eyes were wide open, but sightless. She was shaking, quivering. Her face was frozen in a visage of terror, lips working silently. A liquid pool spread out on the floor beneath her, the faint aroma of urine rising.

_Poor thing_ , he thought, bending over her.  _She's frightened out of her mind._  "Ella. Can you hear me, dear?" he said softly.

Her eyes rolled toward him, but remained unseeing, dazed, and confused. He touched her smooth cheek, and jolt seemed to run through her, as if she'd stuck her finger in a light socket. She scrambled away from him, scooting on her hands and feet like a crab over the sand.

"Ella, it's me! Walter Bishop," he said, holding out his hand. He realized he must look a fright, and wiped at the undead blood on his face with his coat sleeve. "Please don't go, child. I wouldn't want to have to track you down again in the dark."

The girl's panicked eyes came to rest on his face. She blinked and seemed to see him for the first time. Had he gotten through to her? Her breath hitched and she took in a huge gasp of breath. "I thought...I thought the monster got you, Dr. Walter..." Her voice was a whimper. She sat up slowly, hugging her arms about her chest. "I thought it got you..."

"It almost did get me. I was saved by a stroke of fortuity." He knelt beside her, wincing at the pain that shot through his knee. He suspected he would have a limp for some time to come. "Are you okay, dear? Were you hurt?"

She looked down at herself and shook her head. "I... I think I had an accident, Dr. Walter," she got out, and then started to cry again in earnest. Great tears tumbled down her cheeks. He touched her face and she glanced up at him. "Can we go home now? Go back to the lab?"

Walter nodded. "Of course we can. And the sooner, the better." He refit the headlamp on his brow and climbed painfully to his feet. When he went to pick her up she leaned away from him, shaking her head rapidly from side to side. "Whatever is the matter, child?" he asked with a frown.

"There's pee on me, Dr. Walter. It's yucky."

"Pee?" he scoffed. "That's all? Hah! Don't you worry about that, child. A little urine is perfectly harmless. And besides, I've put my bare hands in far worse, on many occasions. Here, up with you now."

Walter helped the girl to her feet, and then lifted her up. She wrapped her arms about his neck and laid her head on his shoulder. He left his broken weapon behind, lodged under the dead fellow's chin. It was too short, and he'd come to the conclusion that avoidance was probably the safer path. The ache in his knee was fierce, and a faint throb was building deep inside his head.

They hurried to the stairwell. As it drew near, the first undead he killed came into view. He slowed, swinging his light about in the darkness, before moving onward. He stooped to retrieve the book on China on his way past. He held it awkwardly, along with the girl, and started up the steps. At the intermediate landing he stopped, shrinking back against the stairwell wall. Gooseflesh broke out all over his arms and legs.

A number of silent figures stood near the stair's exit on the floor above. Wizened faces and dead eyes made their condition clear. And he had nearly bumbled right into them. They swayed slightly in the circle of his light. Where had they come from? He'd seen no sign of any others on the floors above. Lost in the endless rows, perhaps? And then drawn in by the ruckus below. It was the only explanation. He eyed their numbers—at least three, with possibly more out of sight—and their proximity to the stairwell.

It was too risky.

He turned and started back down the stairwell. There was another way out, luckily. The girl began to stir in his arms. "Shhhh...we must remain as quiet as mice, child," he whispered in her ear before she could speak. "There are more of our undead friends at the top of the steps. It's all right," he said as a tremble went through her. "It's all right. We'll just have to go another way—through the tunnel into the Pusey stacks. There will be another exit there. Do you understand?"

Ella nodded against his shoulder. Walter hurried down the steps to the deepest level of the basement. When they reached the bottom, he followed the ancient bricks around the outside of the stacks. This time around, he checked each row before passing it by, and they reached the far side of the space without incident. The wide, gray door into the tunnel emerged from the blackness ahead. He moved toward it stealthily, uncertain what might await them on the other side.

The girl had remained still and silent for some time, and he wondered if she had fallen asleep. Her breathing was slow and steady against his chest. It would not be surprising if she had, given everything that had happened. Sometimes sleep was the body's best response to extreme situations. A moment later she proved him wrong.

"Dr. Walter?" she whispered suddenly.

He jerked at the sound of her voice. "What is it, dear?"

"What does...for-tuity mean?"

Walter smiled against her hair. "It means by luck, or by chance," he explained. A giddy wave of relief went through him. She was going to be okay. Given her blood relation to Agent Dunham, he supposed it shouldn't have surprised him.

"Fortuity," she repeated slowly, sounding out the word, and nodded once more. "Okay. Got it."

"We're here," he said, giving her a once over. Her cheeks were dry, face full of life again. "Can you walk, or would you like for me to continue carrying you?"

"I think I can walk, but where are we?" She twisted in his arms, glancing around.

Walter set her down carefully and stretched the ache out his arms. He pushed open the door slowly, peering through the widening crack before opening it all the way. He recalled that this particular tunnel had odd acoustical properties, an inadvertent result of its construction and shape. Sounds would linger inside it; voices, footsteps, and any noise at all would remain trapped in its confines for longer than was normal—or seemed to. He had never actually tested the veracity of the effect, though he had always intended to before becoming distracted by more important research. Other tunnels on campus had intricate murals and paintings decorating the walls, but not here. His headlamp bathed the narrow tunnel in a red glow. The myriad of black-iron pipes and steel electrical conduits racked on the walls and ceiling gave it a submarine-like appearance, cramped and confining.

"We're at the tunnel connecting the Widener Library to the Pusey," he said as she squinted about. "We'll find another exit to Harvard Yard upstairs. And from there, a short walk back to the lab."

"But what if there are more monsters?"

It was a poignant question, and one he could only answer with the truth. "I suppose we'll just have to avoid them, or...or else remain down here forever," he said. A buzz was intruding on his thoughts again, pulling his thoughts in scattered directions. The flood of adrenaline was receding, and the LSD reasserting its dominance over his psyche. Gossamer colors began to invade once more, ethereal glows on the edges of his vision. He took her hand and led her into the tunnel. "Come, Ella. Let's get you home."

#

The sky was nearly black yet full of mystery when they finally emerged from the vacant Pusey Library, each of them only a little worse for wear. He with his knee, and she with her pride. The library's entrance was sunk into the ground like an old war bunker, all concrete and geometric angles exposed beneath a covered mound. They struggled up steps buried beneath an avalanche of leaves and headed west through Harvard Yard toward the lab.

When they passed by the wide steps in front of the Widener, the girl looked up at him. "Do you think my Mommy is going to be very mad, Dr. Walter?" she asked, sounding more than a little nervous at the prospect.

"On the contrary, I'm sure your mother will be delighted to see you. Mothers are like that, you see. And fathers also, I suppose," he added. "You may be in a bit of trouble for scaring her, but that will come later. What matters is that you are safe, and alive. But at least you got what you came for. Here. I believe you dropped this."

He passed her the book from China, showing her the cover in his light. She looked up with surprise, grinning widely.

"You found it?"

"Right where you dropped it," he said with a nod. "I didn't know you spoke Chinese. That's very impressive. Was it difficult to learn? I never managed it myself."

Ella hugged the book against her chest. "It's Chinese? I...I just liked the pictures," she said with a sniffle. For a moment he was sure that she was about to burst into tears again, she regained control, and instead reached for his hand. "Thank you for finding me, Dr. Walter. I shouldn't have left, should I?"

A knot formed in his throat, and grew larger at her earnest expression. "No. But that's all in the past," he said, swallowing through the lump. "And just call me Walter, dear. That's what all my friends call me anyway. And...we're friends, aren't we?"

The girl flashed him a wide smile and squeezed his hand. "Friends."

Widener receded behind them, and they passed between University and Weld Halls. John Harvard arose to his right, but he avoided the man's gaze. As they neared the copse of trees shrouding the lab from view, a distant shout warbled across the yard, followed by another close on its heels. Through the gaps between tree trunks, crimson spikes of light stabbed at the intruding night. One was elevated—someone standing atop the wall of vehicles, he guessed—and the other below, outside their little compound and in the yard itself. The lights swung back and forth, highlighting the carpet of leaves in wide swathes.

He glanced down at his new friend. "They're looking for us. Shall we go to them?"

Ella nodded and they hurried beneath the swaying tree limbs, angling toward the barricade of cars and trucks. A slight breeze swept in from the east, stinging one side of his face. He shoved his free hand deep into his coat pocket. His knee ached. Sharp lances of pain traveled up his leg and into his hip with every footfall. Had he torn something? Meniscus? Ligament damage, perhaps? He hoped it was only his years showing, as arthroscopic repairmen were luxuries of the past.

When they exited the trees, another shout echoed across the yard. The two beams converged on their location, a pair of scarlet starbursts that left afterimages hanging in the night. The higher of the two lights bounced crazily as its owner leapt down from the wall. The lights raced toward them across the yard. A flurry of trashing leaves and desperate calls preceded their arrival.

"Ella? Ella!"

A voice he thought might belong to Asteroid called from the silhouette on the right. "Walter!"

The running figure on the left resolved into the girl's mother. She dropped to her knees as Ella raced to meet her, sweeping her into a clutching embrace. They both began to cry, with Agent Dunham's sister alternating between soothing, motherly noises and questions about her daughter's health. Walter looked away when Agent Farnsworth stepped in front of him.

"Oh my god..." Her dark eyes grew wide as she took in his appearance, the undead blood on his face, his coat. "Are you okay, Walter? I was so worried. What happened? Where did you find her?" Before he could answer any of her questions, she stepped forward and threw her arms about him. He returned the hug awkwardly, patting her back with one hand. After a moment she pulled away, shaking her head. "What happened?" she asked again. "You told us you hadn't seen her."

"Yes. Well, after you left, I...noticed a trail through the leaves," he explained, motioning vaguely in that direction. "And concluded it was hers. She was in the library. She merely wanted a new book. The poor thing is bored out of her mind here."

Asteroid sighed, and rubbed at her forehead. "Why didn't you just come and tell me? I could have gone, or all of us, together."

He lifted his shoulders and glanced over at the mother and daughter. Agent Dunham's sister was questioning Ella quietly. "It never occurred to me to do so, my dear," he admitted softly. "You see, I may have inadvertently given her the idea to go in the first place. I had to fix it. It was  _my_  responsibility."

She shook her head slowly. "Oh, Walter...this wasn't your fault. Come on, let's get you both inside."

Walter nodded, wringing his hands together. "Yes. I believe that would be for the best."

Agent Dunham's sister rose to her feet. He squinted as her light shined in his eyes. "Thank you, Dr. Bishop," she said. "Ella told me what happened. I...I just can't thank you enough for finding her. If anything had happened to her, I think I would have—"

"Mom, I'm all right," the girl interrupted.

"Don't you take that tone with me, Ella Blake," the mother blazed, rounding on her. "We are still going to have a long talk about this. Later. Do you have any idea how scared I was? You could have been turned into one of those things! You could have been..." She broke off, choking back tears.

"I'm really sorry, Mommy," Ella offered meekly. "I won't do it again. I promise."

"Miss Dunham, if I may," Walter interjected. "I believe that after what she's endured, it's safe to say that there will be no recurrences. Will there, Ella?"

The girl shook her head rapidly, which appeared to mollify her mother, at least in part. She stared down at her daughter, then picked her up and started back toward the barricade, holding her child on her hip as mothers often do. Ella looked back and threw up her hand in a little wave, which he returned.

"Walter, you  _are_  hurt!" Agent Farnsworth exclaimed when he moved to follow them.

"Um...yes. I had a bit of a scuffle in the stacks. I believe I twisted my knee at some point. It doesn't hurt too bad," he lied.

The junior agent dropped her hands to her hips. "Not too bad? You're covered in blood and walking with a wicked limp," she said, and then squirreled underneath his left arm, taking on some of his weight. "C'mon, you silly goose. Let me help you."

#

* * *

#

Later, long after the sun had drifted below the horizon, Peter sat down on a stack of spongy exercise mats in the fitness room, around the corner from the cafeteria. He winced at the icy chill seeping through his jeans, but settled back against the wall anyway, letting out a tired groan as he did so.

His body ached, his head, his shoulder. The soles of his feet felt as if he'd walked over shards of broken glass or a bed of carpentry nails. He fumbled for the laces to his boots and slipped them off, then went about massaging some of the pain away.

The harrowing events of the day had taken their toll, on his body—on his sanity. He wasn't sure which carried a heavier burden. He tried to make some sense of it all, but his mind was sluggish, thoughts slow-moving with exhaustion. Between all the running, the fighting for what had seemed like hours on end, the inexplicable creature and its tracking of them with an unnerving single-mindedness, and the mystery surrounding the body they'd discovered, he felt like sleeping for a decade or two.

The only bright spots were Olivia, and Broyles—assuming the man made it through the night, which was not at all a certainty in his unprofessional opinion. The man was resting now, with others watching over him. But he'd had to get out of there. Too much stimulation for one day. Too many close calls. Olivia hadn't minded.

He fingered his left wrist, and for an instant, he could feel the teeth closing about it again, the animal gnashing.  _Definitely too many close calls._  His luck was going to run out, eventually. It was just a matter of statistics. Of probability.

With a sigh, he hugged himself against the hateful cold. Even his eyelids hurt. They grew heavy, and slowly gave way to gravity. He listened to the Federal Building's mechanical complaints about the weather, the contradicting creaks of expansion and contraction, and the steady thump of his heart. The sounds had a hypnotic effect, lulling on his senses. Exhaustion pulled him downward, downward, as water spiraled down a funnel.

In the eye of his mind, a picture of Baghdad formed. Baghdad with its vaporless heat. He saw the shady bar in the Green Zone that he had frequented in his search for prey, smelled the pungent spices of the market district vendors, gunpowder and death. Was he dreaming or awake? He wasn't sure; his consciousness hovered the fuzzy border in-between, his body weightless. Iraq and its heat faded, and were replaced by a field of white. He was a boy again, alone, and on his knees in the center of the field. Moist earth soaked into the fabric of his corduroys. He looked around and found a girl sitting across from him. Hair like golden curtains of silk fell down her back. A ring of smoking flowers surrounded them both. Her cheeks were wet, streaked with tears. Who was she? She reached for his hand. And then snowflakes were falling, on their hair, on their faces. She met his gaze and smiled. Heat filled his chest. Her eyes were green, glittered with specs of gold. Did he know her? The girl opened her mouth to speak...and became his mother. She was running toward him. Behind her, was their old house on Reiden Lake. His mother's face was a picture of panic, of desperate pleading. She wanted him to stay. But where would he go? The scene...melted, into another. He was in his bedroom now, in his bed. Walter stood over him, staring down with a look of tenderness. Over his father's shoulder, the Challenger rocketed toward freedom. Walter reached for him. The watch lens on his wrist reflected the light of the bedside lamp. Inside, the minute and hour hands raced backwards. Light flashed, an oscillating blue flicker. He was floating now, sinking, drifting away from the light, falling into a well of darkness. The cold was everywhere at first, frigid and bitter, and then it wasn't. And he wasn't...anything; unfeeling, unthinking. There was nothing. The light dwindled to tiny pinpricks. When they disappeared, he was in another place. A place  _between_  places. Between worlds, between particles of light. Something approached out of the nothing. A shape. A reflection in a black mirror. Suddenly it was right in front of him. Another him. He reached out for the mirror's surface, smoother than the smoothest glass. Or was it a window? The other him, the one in the mirror reached out also, mimicking his movement. Other Peter's eyes were closed. When their fingertips met, his other self's eyes snapped open. They flickered a sickly, mustard-yellow. Ice-cold fingers closed about his hand. He tried to pull away, but instead found himself being pulled forward, into the leering grin of snarled teeth. Peter tried to cry out, but there was nothing—no air, no sound. And then his teeth fell out.

_"Peter!"_

Peter jerked awake, smacking his head against the wall. For an instant, he wasn't sure where he was or what was happening. A bright light burned in his eyes. Then he felt a hand holding his, applying gentle pressure. "Peter, wake up." Olivia was saying. Her other hand was on his shoulder. "Wake up. You're dreaming."

He blinked and then sat up straight, rubbing at his eyes. His heart was pounding, thrumming like he'd run a mile. "Olivia." He swallowed, took in a huge breath. "What time is it?"

"I have no idea," she said. "Night time. You all right? You sounded like you were having a nightmare."

He gazed up at her silhouette, then looked past her. They were alone. "I guess I was," he admitted, scratching the scruff along his jawline. "but I don't remember falling asleep."

"Well you did," Olivia said with grin, and then nudged him over before sitting down beside him on the pile of exercise mats. After passing him a bottle of water, she flicked off her flashlight, returning the room to darkness. "So what was it about?" she asked, settling herself against his side. "Your dream."

Peter hesitated, taking a pull from the water bottle. The water was cool and refreshing sliding down, and was the only good thing he could think of about the low temperatures. Olivia waited for him to speak, and for once, he sensed no impatient emanation from her, only curiosity. The details were already fading, but he told her what little he could remember. The dreams of his mother and Walter were familiar; he'd had similar ones before, though it had been years since the last that he could recall. When he came to the white field and the girl, he felt Olivia shift against him, but she waited until he was finished before speaking.

"Was it a field of white flowers?"

Something in her voice got his attention. An intensity? Recognition? "Flowers?" he said, wishing he could see her face. "I'm not sure. I guess the white could have been flowers, though I feel like it was snowing, which makes no sense if it was flowers. Why? Does that mean something to you? You're not gonna tell me you've been having the same dream, are you? 'Cause that would be a little weird, even for us."

He felt her shake her head. "No, it's nothing like that. It's just...strange, that's all. When I was nine or ten, I became obsessed with drawing white flowers. Tulips, I think. Or at least that's what they looked like. I used to draw fields of them, with me always sitting in the middle, alongside a boy. I think I still have a few of them, in a box somewhere in my apartment."

Peter frowned. It was indeed odd, but it had to be a coincidence. "Who was the boy?"

"I don't know," she shrugged. "Somebody I knew back then, I guess. Weird, huh?"

"I guess you could say that." He took another drink and then set the water bottle on the floor beside the mat. "How's he doing in there?"

"Sleeping again. Charlie and Sonia are staying with him tonight. We got him to take a little more fluids, so that's something. He still hasn't said anything else, though." He felt Olivia shiver beside him and she paused, then went on in a somber tone. "His pistol was unloaded, except for one round in the chamber. Can you imagine what it was like for him? Trapped in there? Out of food and water, with the infected right outside the door? I think someone was with him in the beginning. A woman. She must have turned."

"The body in the corner?"

"Yeah. Shot in the head."

He thought she might say more but she remained silent. Whatever had happened, it left the formerly Special Agent Broyles in bad shape. And he wasn't the only one. He wet his lips. "And Charlie?" Peter inquired carefully, neutrally. "How's he doing?"

Olivia didn't answer right away. When she did, her voice was uncertain. "Better, I think—I hope. He seemed that way, at least. We shouldn't have shown him that body, Peter."

"We had to show him," he disagreed. "How could we have known he'd react like that?"

" _I_  should have known, after what he told me."

Peter grunted, and shook his head at her stubbornness. It was just like Olivia, to shoulder the blame for something not at all her fault. She carried the weight of the world on her back. If the blame lay with anyone, it was with Charlie—though he could certainly understand why he had done so—for hiding whatever he was going through from them all. There would be no changing her mind however, so he changed the subject.

"What happens tomorrow?" he asked. "I'm not sure moving Broyles is a good idea." That their former boss might not make it through the night he left unsaid.

"We'll stay as long as we have to," she answered, "one way or the other. He might have the answers we need. He has to survive. Everything could depend on it."

"Then we're gonna need more supplies—food, water, medicine if we're lucky. Maybe some toilet paper. Tomorrow I'll start searching the other floors. This place is huge. There's gotta be something left somewhere."

Olivia gave him a light jab with her elbow. "You mean  _we'll_  search the other floors, Peter," she corrected him, and from her tone there was no room for discussion. After a moment, she laid her head on his shoulder. Her hair tickled his cheek. He couldn't believe how right it felt, how right she felt. Her breaths were even for several moments, and then she yawned, and went on in a tired voice. "What do you think they're doing back at the lab?"

She was asking in a roundabout way if he thought her family was okay. "Hopefully they're in bed sleeping, or getting ready to," he replied. "I'm sure Astrid is keeping my father out of trouble. As for your sister and Ella, I'm sure they're missing you, and can't wait for you to get back."

"And missing you, too...," Olivia murmured through another yawn. Her hand was on his leg, thumb making absent circles over the fabric of his jeans. "Ella has really taken to you, Peter. You're good with her." She grunted softly and shifted against him. "I never would have expected that, before, when we met in Iraq. Not in a million years." There was no arguing with that. He never would have expected it, either. It had taken the end of the world to finally make a decent man of him. He wasn't sure what that said about him, but it was the truth. She spoke again a few moments later. "Did you ever want to settle down, have children?"

He let out a self-conscious chuckle. "Would you believe I never gave it much thought?" he said. "My life, before you came into it, at least—I didn't exactly have it mapped out, you know? A wife and kids and all that...I never thought that was my future. In fact, there wasn't much planning for the future involved, at least beyond the next..." He swallowed and fell silent, unwilling to voice the thought out loud in front of her, even then. He supposed the old cliché was true. Old habits did indeed die hard.

"Beyond the next mark?" Olivia finished the sentence for him anyway.

"Something like that," he said, clearing his throat. "What about you? Did you ever dream of a houseful of kids with a white picket fence?"

The thumb on his leg stopped its gentle stroking. "To be honest, Peter, I've never thought it was in my future, either. There was my job, which I loved, and the duty that came with it, and I...I've never really thought that I was mother material—like...I wasn't programmed that way."

"You? Are you kidding me?" he said, shocked by her admission. Again he wished for light. "You'd be a great mother, Olivia. Why would you think that?"

She grunted softly, and didn't reply for several heartbeats that seemed like forever in the darkness. "I'm not so sure," she said finally. She sounded hesitant, unsure of herself in way he'd never heard before. "Do you remember me telling you that I had a stepfather once?"

Peter tensed at her tone. She was about to share something with him, some part of herself. Some rare secret, that she felt made her who she was. "Yeah, I remember," he nodded slowly. "You said he was a real bastard. Sounded like one too. You told me he left."

"He didn't leave, not willingly, at least," she whispered. "I shot him."

"You...shot him? Like, with a gun?"

"With his own pistol," she continued in her low tone. "I was nine years old. I shot him twice in the chest. And I'm not sorry that I did."

When she was nine. He recalled her telling him once that she'd made the decision to go into law enforcement when she was nine. Was there a link? Undoubtedly. "Did you kill him?"

"No. In the end, I...I couldn't do it. I couldn't pull the trigger one last time, even though he was almost daring me to. I could see it in his eyes. I still can. Maybe that's why I couldn't do it."

"I assume he deserved it?"

"He was drunk—he was always drunk—and beating the shit out of my mom. There was blood everywhere, all over her face. And I knew she wouldn't do anything—she never did anything." Her voice grew hard, full of old anger. "She just accepted it. Rachel was watching, she was...hysterical, going crazy. And I had to stop it. I couldn't let him do it to us anymore."

"So the bastard did deserve it," Peter said, reaching up and stroking her hair. "Sounds like you were protecting your family, Olivia. If that's what you've been basing your fitness to be a mother on, I'd say you passed that test with flying colors."

"My point, Peter, is that I've always felt different," she elaborated. "Ever since I was a little girl. Like I was apart from everyone else. Like I was from...some other planet or something. I think I was just built that way."

Her words struck something inside him, jarred something loose. He knew the feeling she was talking about, could relate to it on a personal level. For a large portion of his life he had struggled to fit in with his peers, as if he were slightly out of sync with everyone else. As he'd grown older, he had gotten used to the feeling, but it had never faded completely. In large part, he supposed that feeling had made it easier for him to do some of the more despicable things he'd done in his adult life. Not that it excused anything. That she had still turned out as she had spoke volumes to the differences in their character.

"I know what you mean, about feeling apart...," he offered, thinking back to his fragmented childhood. "When I was ten years old, I had this intense...feeling one day that wouldn't go away, that I'd woken up in another world, where everyone I'd known and loved was different somehow. Even my Mom and Walter. They were all just...a little bit different. You can imagine my obsession with  _Invasion of the Body Snatchers_  when I saw that for the first time. Walter told me I was being ridiculous, of course, and he was right. And then it came to me at some point that  _I_  was the one that was different—that there was something wrong with me. Needless to say, when you don't think the people around you aren't even real, you get in all kinds of trouble." He grunted and let out a little laugh. "So yeah, I was pretty screwed up back then."

Olivia moved against him, pulling her head from his shoulder. He had the impression of her staring up at him in the darkness. "Peter, what happened to your mother? How did she die?"

His throat tightened into a knot. As always, when he thought of his mother, he heard the crackly recording of Walter's stilted voice playing again in his head, relaying his horrible message. "She...killed herself," he murmured as the cord about his neck wound tighter and tighter. "Almost ten years ago. One day she just started the car in our garage and...got in."  _Peter, this...this is your father, Walter Bishop. I...I have terrible news, son. It's about...your mother..._ "I had already left Boston by then—I think I was in fucking...Bali, or somewhere in Indonesia when it happened. I didn't even find out about it until weeks later, after I got message from Walter in the institution. When I came back, all that was left was her grave." He paused, swallowing through the worst of the pain, eating it whole. "And the thing is...if I had never left her, she'd have never done it. I was the only family she had left, with Walter locked up. And I left her."

"You don't know that, Peter," Olivia said urgently, taking his hand. "Your mother was a grown woman. She sounds as if she were deeply disturbed, and you can't possibly blame yourself for her actions. Whatever it was eating away at her, it certainly had nothing to do with you. She was her own person. You have to know that."

Except that deep down, he did know that it had something to do with him. He had seen it in his mother's eyes every time she looked at him—in every pain-filled glance out of the corner of her eye. And the more pain he saw, the more she had drank. It had only grown worse after Walter left them, as if facing him alone was too much for her to handle. She had drunk herself into oblivion most nights, or cried herself to sleep on those she hadn't. In the end, it was her eyes that had driven him away. She'd been screaming silently through them every moment of every day for years, awful screams of torture and suffering. He'd had to get out of there. He couldn't take her pain anymore—the pain his presence caused her. And so he'd left, and less than a year later she was dead. It didn't take a genius to put two and two together.

Peter sighed and closed his eyes. The band of insurmountable pain around his neck relaxed, finally releasing him. He took in a replenishing breath. "Maybe it did and maybe it didn't, but she's at peace now, which I suspect was what she was looking for all along."

Olivia squeezed his hand in a tight grip and didn't let go. She burrowed into his side. He appreciated that she didn't argue the point with him, or try to apologize. Instead they sat in silence, listened to each other's breaths, soaked in the feel of the other's skin, the closeness of contact. There was nothing sexual in it, none of the intense physical need he'd felt in Broyles's office, only mutual comfort given and received. After a while, Olivia's breathing slowed, the grip on his hand relaxed. He thought she might be asleep, and felt himself drifting that way again also, floating on a cloud of emotion that filled his chest with light. It came to him that he'd never told anyone the full story about his mother before, ever, or about his brief bout of insanity when he'd been young. He had never trusted anyone enough. He thought he might be falling in love with her, right then, in that moment, huddled together in the dark. Was that possible? He could feel it sliding over him, like a veil of the smoothest satin. The realization took his breath away. How had she become so vital—like oxygen—in such a short span of time?  _All those fucking songs were right_ , he thought amazed by the discovery.

"Peter," she whispered suddenly, proving him wrong.

Her voice jolted him back to full alertness. "...Yeah?"

"Thank you for telling me."

"And you me, Olivia," he replied into her hair. Her own sad story must not have been easy to tell, either. He suspected she could probably count the number of people she'd told it to in her adult life on one hand. The two of them were more alike than he'd ever dreamt. And she had not let her tragedies turn her to the dark side.

Olivia shifted on the mat, sliding down to a lying position from the feel of her. She patted the vinyl between them. "Lie down, Peter. Let's get some sleep. Tomorrow will be here sooner than you think."

#

The next morning, Peter opened his eyes to a hazy light filling the fitness room, just a shade brighter than darkness. The light filtered in through the window from the hall outside, and ultimately, from the window back at the elevators.

He had slept like the dead, still and unmoving, and consequently, he hurt. The ache in his shoulder had not lessened, and was more pronounced if anything, with the addition of soreness in his legs and feet. Despite the chill in the air he wasn't particularly cold, other than the tip of his nose, which burned like dry ice, and the toes of his left foot. His right foot warm and cozy, however, entangled between Olivia's.

Incredibly, she was still curled up against his chest, snoring softly through generous lips parted in sleep. He gazed down at the lines of her peaceful face and felt a tugging in his chest. Her cheeks glowed alabaster in the scant light. Part of him wished things were different, that they had come together before, back in the old world. He could have shown her so much, and she him. But then again, back in the old world, John had still been alive. Perhaps the only reality in which they intersected was this one, where the improbable had become the norm, and all the horrors that came with it. Mostly however, he wished he could freeze that moment in time, with her pressed up against him, light breaths wisping softly in his ear. But that was a pipe dream. Some things were more important than others, bigger than themselves. He started to separate himself from her, and her eyes snapped open at once.

Olivia stared up at him, eyes wide. After a heartbeat, one corner of her mouth curled upward. "Hey."

"Hey."

Stretching out like a cat on the mat beside him, she let out a wide yawn. "What time is it?"

"No idea. Morning time," he grinned. Her smile widened, matching his own, and his heart ticked a beat faster at the sight. He nodded toward the window into the corridor. "I was gonna go check on Broyles, make sure that he's...well, you know."

"Still breathing?" Olivia offered, sitting up. "I'll go with you." She dragged her fingers through her lengthy hair, pulling at the tangles. After several swipes, she sighed unhappily and began pulling it into her usual tight ponytail, using a holder about her wrist. He watched her go about it, witnessing Olivia Dunham transforming herself into Agent Dunham for the first time. "What...?" she asked shyly at one point, meeting his gaze through her lashes.

"Nothing. Just taking in the view."

She snorted softly in reply and rolled her eyes, but he caught the quirk of her lips as she began pulling on her boots. Following suit, he quickly pulled on his own boots, and his belt with its new additions. The feel of the handguns, their weight on his hips still felt odd. He eyed the holster strapped about Olivia's shapely thigh as they walked toward the cafeteria, and thought he might grab one for himself. It certainly looked more comfortable, on her at least.

Sonia was awake and staring out the window at the street below when they walked through the double doors together. She glanced over her shoulder at the sound of their footsteps.

"Hey you two," she greeted, looking between them slyly. "Good morning. Sleep well?"

"How's he doing, Sonia?" Olivia asked, ignoring the other woman's question as she moved to Broyles's side. He was lying on another of the exercise mats, head propped up by several shower towels folded into makeshift pillows. More towels lay across his chest. "Has he woken up? Said anything at all?"

The humor fell away from Sonia's face. She shook her head. "No, nothing really coherent. He did cry out once...for a Diana, I think? Was that his wife?"

"I don't know," Olivia replied, staring down at their former boss with a fixed expression. "I thought he was divorced. Maybe it's his ex."

Peter knees popped as he crouched beside him. He touched Broyles's brow and winced at the heat still emanating from the older man. There was also a faint aroma of fresh urine rising from him, which burned in his nose. All in all, the man looked slightly better than he had when they'd found him, perhaps a shade less gaunt, though that might have been wishful thinking. He was still far from doing well. But, if he had urinated, even a little, that might be a good sign.

He glanced up at Sonia. "Has he taken any more fluids?"

She nodded in reply. "Yeah, I gave him more Powerade about an hour or so ago," she confirmed, "along with a few sips of water. Charlie and I took turns watching him all night. You two can take tonight, by the way, if we're still here."

Peter snuck a covert glance over at Charlie. He was sleeping on the floor some distance away, huddled in his coat and using his backpack as a pillow. And how was he doing? Had there been any more...episodes? Would Sonia even tell them the truth if they asked? He liked Charlie's wife, a lot, and hoped that she would, but was there any doubt with whom her loyalty lay? It was a can of worms, and he had no problem at all deferring to Olivia's judgment on the matter.

Olivia crouched down on her haunches beside him. "What do you think, Peter? Can we risk moving him?"

Before answering he gave Broyles a closer look.  _Move him how, exactly?_  he wondered silently. Carry him on their backs? Use a sling? There was only one way they were taking him anywhere, and that was by vehicle. And even then, walking would be required at some point. If they became surrounded again, the man would be doomed—they might all be, just trying to protect him. The best case scenario was Broyles carrying his own weight. He glanced down at the man's legs and arms, and frowned at how thin they appeared. How much muscle mass had he lost? His body had been in starvation mode for some time, that much was clear. Recovery could take weeks, if not months.

Peter noticed something else then, deepening his frown. There was an oddness to the lay of his right foot, and when he pulled back the leg of his tattered suit pants what he found there made him wince. He met Olivia's gaze. "I think he may have broken his ankle at some point," he said, pointing out the abnormal protrusion, like an out-of-round golf ball buried under the skin where a normal ankle should have been. He pressed his thumb into the lump and cringed at the bony mass inside. "It looks like it happened a while ago. No wonder he couldn't move that refrigerator. I'd be surprised if he could even walk. Must've hurt like hell."

The foot beneath his hand began to stir, and he jerked his hand back as if he'd been touching a hot stove.

"You're damn right it hurt like hell, Bishop." Broyles's whispered roughly. "It still does. Don't do that again."

"Sir!" Olivia hissed, falling back on her rear in surprise. She scrambled upright. "You're awake!"

"Observant as ever, I see, Dunham." Broyles stated. He swallowed, lips contorting in pain as he did so. "...You got anything to drink?"

"We've been giving you Powerade and water, Mr. Broyles," Sonia said. She reached for the half-empty bottle on the window sill. "It's all we have. Peter said you can't eat anything for a while still."

The Special Agent's gaze flickered from Sonia to Peter to Olivia, who answered his unspoken question. "This is Sonia, Charlie Francis's wife. She's been with us for a while."

"It's nice to finally meet you, Agent Broyles," she said, crouching down beside him. She wore a tearful smile as she gave him several swallows from the Powerade bottle. "Charlie is going to be so happy you're okay."

Broyles's eye slid shut, face a mixture of relief and pain. He breathed in an out for several moments, and when he opened his eyes again, there was a listlessness to him that hadn't been there before. It was obvious that remaining conscious was becoming a struggle.

"Agent Francis...he's here then?" he wanted to know.

"Yeah," Olivia answered. "He and Sonia made it back to the lab a couple of weeks after the outbreak began."

"Good...," Broyles panted wearily. "That's good." His blood-specked eyes drifted in and out of focus. "And what...what...ab..." His voice trailed off, and ended in a long exhalation of breath as his eyelids fluttered closed.

"Sir?" Olivia said, leaning close. His chest rose and fell slowly, but evenly. "Phillip?"

"Olivia, he needs to rest," Peter said, rising to his feet. He dropped a hand on her shoulder. She looked up at the contact and he could see the impatience burning in her eyes, her desperate need to know. "I know you want answers, but it's gonna have to wait. As for moving him..." He shook his head slightly, wishing he had better news to give her. "I think we're gonna be here for a few days."


	17. Others

**-December 2008**

Olivia's thoughtful gaze followed the lone infected as it wandered down the sidewalk below. Uneven stutter-steps carried it past a row of potted evergreens casting shadows made long by the rising sun, and into the sea of red bricks once known as City Hall Plaza. It continued onward, skirting the edge of the plaza until it reached the spot where a line of food trucks had once parked. In another world, a myriad of trucks had doled out such delights as sopapillias and falafels, or her personal go-tos of pad thai tofu or chicken curry. The thought of such delicacies made her stomach grumble in protest, an ungentle reminder that their remaining supplies, such as they were, were beginning to run dangerously low.

They had moved Broyles down to an office on the armory level on the first day of his convalescence. On the second, she and Peter — with some help from Charlie — had cleared most of the Federal Building's remaining floors of infected, giving them free reign of the building, all the while searching for any remaining food or water. There had been depressingly little. Since then, there was little to do but wait, and watch the days trickle past with all the speed of slow-moving molasses. Three days. Their supply of Powerade ran out on the fourth, and so Broyles began taking water. By the fifth, she was ready to burst from impatience.

She wanted to know what had happened to Broyles, his story, and whether or not he knew anything more about the outbreak. Most of all she wanted to get the hell out of there, and back to her family. Throughout, Sonia — who had apparently served as a candy-striper in her teens — kept a close eye on Broyles, but he had yet to remain awake long enough to tell them anything. And so they waited.

Olivia could have screamed from the lack of progress.

There had been little discussion of the body they'd found, and whether or not it truly belonged to Agent Rodriguez. She didn't have a clue what to make of that mess. None of it should have been possible. On the brighter side, Charlie seemed a little better, or if he wasn't, was better at hiding it. But he wasn't quite the same as he had been. He was more withdrawn now, less ready to take charge. She wasn't sure what that meant, and had yet to summon the courage to ask him. There was a distance between them now and it saddened her. Charlie had always been there for her when she'd needed him, but she didn't know what he needed, or how she could help him. Perhaps Peter's advice was best: to support him however she could, but to watch, and be ready.

On the sixth day, Broyles had had enough strength to nibble on some dry cereal and peanuts found in a vending machine in the DEA's office before falling back to sleep. Little by little, he began to improve. The color started coming back into his face, and while he was still painfully thin, he looked less like a skeleton wearing skin. On the seventh day, he ate some Gene-jerky, and had apparently remained awake long enough to have a short conversation with Sonia, but Olivia hadn't been there to witness it. She had not left his bedside for more than a few minutes ever since, not even to sleep. She had a pile of blankets in the corner for herself. The nights were cold — she'd gotten rather used to having a warm body at her side again — but some things were more important than others. Peter understood.

And so it was that on the morning of the ninth day, she found herself watching the sunrise and thinking of food, and of days gone by. The infected man in the plaza moved out of sight from the window, and she lifted her gaze upward to a wide swathe of gray clouds approaching in the distance.

_So much for a sunny day_ , she thought dourly.

With a sigh, she turned from the window and found a pair of dark eyes watching her without expression.

"Sir! You're awake!"  _Finally._ She hurried to his side and sat down in a chair next to his cot. "Do you need anything? Food? Some water?" She reached for a half full plastic bottle on the floor beside him.

Agent Broyles nodded. "Water, and thanks."

She passed him the bottle and watched his throat move as he tilted it back and took a deep swallow. His eyes closed, as if he were savoring the flavor of the life-giving drink. And maybe he was. After his ordeal, she imagined that there was much that he saw in a different light. Like food and water, and being able to serve himself.

He set the water in his lap and glanced around his bedside. "You got any more of that meat Charlie's wife gave me the other day? I'd kill for a steak right now, or anything with protein, for that matter."

"Meat?" Olivia frowned, and then grinned as recognition came. "Oh. You mean the Gene-jerky." She searched for the small package of rations they'd set aside for him and found a familiar bundle of aluminum foil.

"Gene-jerky...?" he asked, taking the foil wrap from her hand.

"Yeah. You remember Gene. From the lab?"

"That cow Dr. Bishop requested?" He unwrapped the foil and then looked up. "This is her?"

"Yeah. Thanks to Peter. Butchering her was his idea."

Broyles gave the strips of brownish meat a doubtful look, then shrugged. "I see," he said, and tore off a bite with his teeth. He chewed for a moment, then spoke again after swallowing it down. "It seems you've been busy, Dunham. What have you discovered?"

"About the infection?" Olivia snorted and shook her head, eyes on the floor tile beneath her feet. She raked her fingers through her hair, smoothing it back. "Not much. We haven't found anything even remotely close to a cure, and Walter seems to think it's not even biological in nature. He said something about particle physics, or some kind of...quantum event taking place, but we don't have any way of testing his theories. Mostly, we've just been surviving." She looked up and found him watching her with eyes as sharp as they'd ever been. "What about you, sir? I saw bodies upstairs. Not infected. Were you attacked here?"

"Attacked?" His face grew hard. "You might say that."

"What happened?"

"Human nature, I guess," he said in a bitter tone. "Greed. We holed up here after the phones went out and the bombs started to drop — we, and several other Federal agencies. The streets were filled with the dead — as I'm sure you know since you made it here. We couldn't leave. We tried rationing the food and water at first, but then it started disappearing, so we had to put it all under guard. There were certain...elements from the DEA and ATF who disagreed. The man we had on watch was killed one night, and his body dragged outside our sleeping area before he turned. By the time we realized what was happening, it was already too late. After that...well, I guess you could say it all fell apart."

Olivia nodded slowly. She'd been right, more or less. It wasn't a glad thought. If she hadn't known how lucky they'd been at the lab, she did now. "I'm sorry, sir," she offered. "That must've been...difficult. Someone told me once that fear and desperation bring out the worst in people, and I haven't seen any evidence otherwise yet."

Broyles latched onto her gaze. His dark eyes were expressive, full of emotion. "You're evidence otherwise," he said. "All of you. Thank you for coming. I owe you my life, Olivia. Don't think I'll ever take that lightly."

She nodded, and they sat in silence for a while. Then, suspecting he might be falling back into sleep, she voiced the question that had been waiting on her tongue since the first instant he'd opened his eyes in that cafeteria. No, even before then, when a dead boy had sat up on the pavement and torn a woman's throat out with his teeth.

"When Charlie spoke to you last," she started carefully, "you told him you were trying to get in contact with someone who might have answers regarding the infection. Did you reach them? And was it Nina Sharp?"

"It was Nina," Broyles confirmed with a nod. "And I did reach her...as much good as it did me."

Olivia's pulse began to race. "What did she say?" she questioned, sitting upright in her chair. Her fingernails dug into her thighs. "Did they know anything at Massive Dynamic? Were they the source?"

He shook his head. "They weren't the source. Or at least that's what Nina told me, and I believed her. I still do." He hesitated then, chewing idly on more jerky, and rubbed his chin. "What she told me fits, in a way, with Dr. Bishop's hypotheses, though don't ask me how."

"You mean what Walter said about particle physics? Some kind of quantum event?"

"I don't know if you knew this or not," he said, again nodding his head, "but there's a particle accelerator buried out in the countryside of upstate New York, private, owned wholly by Massive Dynamic and its subsidiaries, and one of the largest in the world."

Olivia hadn't known that, but it didn't surprise her one bit. She motioned for him to go on, and silently wished Peter was there with her as the subject was mostly foreign, but he was undoubtedly still asleep.

"A few days before the outbreak, Nina told me they'd detected strange anomalies during some experiment they were conducting. Don't ask what the experiment was, 'cause I don't know. I don't think it was relevant. It was the results that were unexpected."

"Well...what kind of anomalies?" she wanted to know instead.

"Not sure, really. Just that they were of a statistically impossible nature. That was all she told me. Whatever the hell that means. She also mentioned their satellite network had been acting up over the last few weeks, simultaneous worldwide disruptions that appeared random, without any cause they could detect. Disruptions that should have been impossible."

"Did she say anything else?"

Broyles closed his eyes and settled back on his pillow with a tired sigh. "No. We lost contact shortly after that...," he said, sounding oddly wistful. "I heard gunfire...screaming. And then the line went dead. I never heard from Nina again. And I tried to reach her, before the phones stopped working altogether."

"What do you think it all means?" she asked.

"I don't have a clue, Dunham," Broyles admitted, opening his eyes for a moment and giving her a hard stare worthy of his former position before closing them again. "The who, the what, the why...that's your job, or was. Yours and the Bishops. You think any of it'll help?"

"Well, it certainly can't hurt," Olivia said, tapping a finger against her lips. Statistical impossibilities. What did that mean, exactly? The phrase struck a chord. Had she heard it, or something like it, recently? Where and when? Statistics might be construed as another word for probability. They were certainly related. It came to her.  _The man wearing the fedora._ She rose from her chair. "Get some sleep, sir. I'll be back later."

There was no reply. His breath already whistled in the rhythms of sleep. She took the bottle of water from his limp fingers and set it aside, then rushed from the room.

#

Peter was sleeping soundly, buried beneath a clump of blankets in the office that had become their temporary home. It was a small room, with a desk pushed up against one wall and a single window with blinds drawn tight, but still let in enough of the sunrise for her to make out his shape in the corner.

Olivia hesitated in the doorway, watching the steady rise and fall of the pile and listening to his slight hitches of breath. A small smile crept onto her face. It wasn't the first time she'd observed him so. He looked younger in sleep — almost boyish, though she'd never tell him — with the lines of tension around his eyes absent. An unfinished game of  _Memory_  lay on the floor beside his mat, left from the day Sonia had brought word of Broyles changing condition. She stepped over the grid of cards and pulled up the window blinds, then crossed her legs and sat down on the exposed edge of the mat beside him.

"Peter...," she whispered, running her fingers through the waves of his hair. "Peter, wake up."

She gave his shoulder a little shake and his eyes snapped open. They darted about, blinking, widening until the whites were exposed all the way. After a heartbeat their pale blue settled on her face and he relaxed back with a confused grin.

"Olivia...," he said through a yawn that scrunched his face amusingly. "Morning, sunshine. And what brings you back to our humble abode on this fine day? It is daytime isn't it?" He suddenly snapped upright, tossing his blankets aside. "Wait. Did something happen?"

"Yeah," she nodded. "Something did happen. Broyles woke up. And we talked."

"Finally," Peter said, wiping at his eyes with two fingers. "What did he say? Did you ask him?"

Olivia nodded again. "Charlie was right. It  _was_  Nina Sharp. What do you know about particle accelerators?"

"Particle accelerators?" He shrugged, and waved a hand absently as he replied. "Um...well, that's a fairly ambiguous question. You talking about the little ones used in certain medical procedures, or the high-energy big boys smashing subatomic particles at near the speed of light?"

"You ever know Massive Dynamic to do anything little?" she countered with a smirk. "Did you know they have one buried somewhere in upstate New York? One of the largest in the world, according to Broyles."

Peter frowned, scratching at his beard. "Now that I did not know. And I don't know how they could have kept something like that secret. These things are huge — we're talking miles in diameter. What else did he say?"

Olivia repeated her conversation with Agent Broyles, leaving out nothing. She noticed Peter's eyes narrow at one point during her story, and gears beginning to turn inside their cerulean depths. When she was finished, he sat frozen, eyes distant, his attention focused inward.

"What is it, Peter?" she asked when the tension grew unbearable. "Does any of this mean something to you?"

His gaze flickered to hers. "I don't know. High-energy particle accelerators are used to smash subatomic particles together in the hopes that the resulting collision will reveal even lower-order particles — particles that are predicted to exist by certain theories, but we've never been able to prove they actually do. You ever hear of the Higgs boson? They had just finished building the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland to search for it this year."

"The...what?" she asked.

Peter chuckled and she gave him a look of warning that wiped his smile away. Secretly however, she liked watching — and listening — to him pull random tidbits of information out thin air. He was like a walking encyclopedia at times. He and his father both, though Peter was certainly the more user-friendly volume.

"The Higgs boson," he continued. "It's the elementary particle — in theory — that gives other particles their mass. It's not important. What is important, is that when they search for these theoretical particles, they have to sift through petabytes of data-points to find evidence of the one particle they're looking for, because they're extremely rare  _and_  short-lived, and because the collisions don't just make that one kind of particle — they make all sorts."

Olivia thought she understood what he was getting at. "So it's like searching for a needle in a haystack."

Peter nodded. "Or like searching for a particular grain of sand on a beach full of sand."

"So when Nina said they were detecting anomalies—statistical impossibilities," she said, speaking with her hands as well as her voice, "she was referring to their results, to their data."

"That'd be my guess," he agreed. "They must have found something far beyond some statistical threshold to call it an impossibility. Like say...flipping tails a million times in a row — it's possible, but so highly improbable that it might as well be impossible."

"But what does that even mean, though?" she wondered out loud. "What does it have to do with the infection? Remember that weird guy in the suit and hat that I told you about? And how he said something about probability also, and causality, that history wasn't unfolding as it was intended."

Peter was silent for a moment. "I don't know anything about your stalker-guy," he said, "but I'd say it is confirmation that Walter is more than likely right. The infection isn't biological. It could be a result of some...change, in the natural order, some physical constant, as insane as that sounds."

"We need to talk to your father," she said, uncrossing her legs and relaxing back beside him on the mat, pulling a portion of his covers onto herself. "As soon as possible."

She closed her eyes as a wave of exhaustion rolled through her. She had not slept well in recent nights. Her dreams had been troubled, haunted even, with images of Rachel and Ella, tepid as ghosts. She missed them both fiercely. The feeling had been building as of late, tugging at her heartstrings. It had been nine days, long past how long she had told them the journey would take. Did they think her dead? That she wasn't coming back? She imagined Ella's face, full of tears.

"I know this is taking longer than we told them, Olivia," Peter said softly. "But I'm sure Ella and Rach are doing fine. They'll be waiting for us when we get back."

Olivia felt him lie back down beside her on the mat. Had she been that obvious? She opened one eye and met his gaze across the tiny distance separating them. "Is that a personal guarantee?"

A broad grin appeared on his lips. "Of course," he said. "The Peter Bishop guarantee. Haven't you heard of it? It's world renowned." Olivia snorted and rolled her eyes, but found herself smiling anyway as he continued. "And, when we are ready to leave, Charlie and I finished arranging our transportation last night."

She turned on her side to face him. "What are you talking about?"

"He came to me about it the other day while you were sitting with Broyles. Did you know there's a brand-spanking new FBI truck parked down in the garage? Untouched and full of gas. Only problem was...no keys anywhere. Took me the better part of two days, but we finally got it started — after I almost completely rewired the ignition system, which I might add wasn't easy."

"Is that so?" she mused. A thrill of excitement raced through her as the possibility of leaving became more real. A truck. With Broyles seemingly on the path to recovery, how soon could they leave? Surely not more than a few days. They were running out of food and water, and no one seemed willing to leave the Federal Building to scavenge for more — not with the undead still filling the streets, and an unknown creature prowling about. And there was something else. "Wait. So you two are friends now...?" she asked, rising up on one elbow. "You and Charlie?"

"I don't know if I'd go that far," Peter admitted, shrugging on the mat beside her. His hands were folded across his chest, thumbs twiddling idly. "The guy isn't exactly a bundle of joy these days, but we got along well enough. Come to think of it, mostly he just stood on guard and watched while I did all the work."

"Huh...," Olivia grunted. "I'm sure you'll be okay." On an impulse, she leaned in and laid a light kiss across the corner of his mouth. "Thank you, Peter."

"Don't mention it," he replied softly, gazing up at her. Then his fingers twined in the hair behind her ears, thumbs tracing a path across her cheek. She sighed into his touch and felt a tremble go through him. "What will happen when we get back, Olivia?" he whispered. "Between you and me."

"Does something have to happen?" she said.

His voice wavered. "I...I don't want anything to change."

"Then it won't." She shrugged and smiled down at him. "I don't want anything to change, either."

"You know my father is going to have a field day with this, right?" Peter asked with a crooked grin. "I mean, he's probably been waiting for me to bring home a girl since the moment I entered..." He fell silent, eyes widening in sudden surprise.

"What is it?" she said, feeling a jolt of alarm, and pulled away from him.

Peter pointed over her shoulder. "Look. Outside."

Olivia swiveled toward the window. The gray clouds she had seen earlier now blanketed the sky, blotting out the sunrise. The air was thick with a haze of white particles, like cotton, flipping and spinning, tumbling downward earth in erratic displays.

It was snowing.

#

After Peter pulled on his shoes, they left the room and found Charlie and Sonia hurrying toward them from the other direction.

"You saw it?" Charlie greeted them when they came together outside Broyles's door.

"The snow?" Olivia said with a nod. "We saw it."

"We need to get the hell out of here," he went on in an urgent tone. "While we still can. You remember that snowfall a few years back? Almost two feet before Christmas."

"We can't leave until Broyles is ready to leave," Peter objected with a flat shake of his head. "He'll never make it. What're we gonna do when we have to ditch the truck and walk? In case you haven't noticed, the man was on death's door just a few days ago."

"And if we don't leave now we might have to walk the entire way," Charlie insisted. "We're running out of food, Peter, and I don't know if  _you_  haven't noticed it, but there aren't any snowplows clearing the streets anymore."

"Gee, really?" Peter snarked in return. "And here I thought the lack of traffic and all the dead people were completely normal. I didn't know you were a meteorologist in addition to an FBI agent. It could just be flurries, Charlie. It's still only December. For all we know it could stop in an hour. Or it could be fifty degrees tomorrow. A few more days won't hurt. I don't think there's any need to panic just yet."

"Or it could snow three feet, and then where would we be?" Charlie countered. "We have the truck ready now. I say we use it."

_Well, that didn't take long_ , Olivia thought, looking across at Sonia. The other woman looked worried, glancing between her husband and Peter. Both men were wearing their stubborn faces, both digging their heels in for a fight. They were both right, and that was a problem. Moving Broyles before he was able could be a death sentence for him. She could see that now, after having witnessed his struggles over the last week. But if they stayed, food was becoming an issue, and the risk of being snowed in was just as deadly. Boston was notorious for its unpredictable winters, the great Nor'easters that plagued the northeast from time to time. Multiple feet of snow falling over the course of a day or two was not unheard of. But then again, winter was just getting underway, so how likely was that? She didn't know. None of them did.

"What do you think, Liv?" Charlie said, looking her way. "Should we go now, or wait it out?"

"How about you two let me be the judge of whether or not I'm fit to travel?"

Olivia spun around at the quiet, but still stern voice. Broyles was standing in the doorway, holding the frame in a white-knuckled grip. "Sir!" she exclaimed, and took a step toward him. "What are you doing?"

"You really shouldn't be out of bed, Mr. Broyles," Sonia admonished at the same moment.

Broyles was standing on one foot. His gaunt face was tight with strain. He ignored them both and kept his glare focused on Charlie and Peter long enough to ensure their silence. "I appreciate your concern, Bishop," he said, sounding sincere. "But if you're talking about leaving, count me in. I'll manage."

"Sir... But don't you think—" Olivia started, but he forestalled her with a raised hand.

"I said I'll manage, Dunham. And if I can't...well, I lost track of how long I've been stuck in this damn building, alone. You have any idea how stir-crazy I am? I know there are risks. But I'm willing to take them."

Olivia glanced at the others. Charlie was nodding in agreement, and Sonia appeared more worried than ever. Peter frowned, but shrugged as if the matter were out of his hands. His set jaw was the only sign of his disapproval. She looked back at Broyles, inspecting his face more carefully. He did not look well, not at all. But it was his decision, she supposed.  _I guess I'll be getting my wish after all._

Broyles leaned his head against the door frame. "How soon can we leave?" he asked, and swallowed heavily. From his huffing, Olivia thought he was probably nearing the limit of his endurance.

"As soon as we can get our things together," Charlie answered. "We have one of the SUVs in the garage, Liv. Peter got it started last night."

"So he told me. We were talking about leaving earlier, Charlie. I just didn't expect to leave today."

"Are you sure you're up to this, Mr. Broyles?" Sonia questioned, casting a doubtful eye. "We had a hell of time just getting here."

Broyles's nostrils flared. "I don't want to be in this tomb another day, Mrs. Francis." He flashed her a smile that was close to gruesome with his emaciated appearance. "I understand I'm to thank you for nursing me back to health. Thank you."

"Call me, Sonia," she replied, moving toward him. "Why don't you just rest until we're ready to go. Let me help you."

"All right, Sonia, then," he said as she took him by the arm. "As long as you call me Phillip."

His voice sounded oddly strange to Olivia; apparently he could turn off the Special Agent when he wanted to. When the two of them disappeared into Broyles's room, Peter met her gaze briefly — pointedly ignoring Charlie.

"I guess I should get my stuff," he said, before turning on his heels and retracing his steps back down the corridor without another word.

"Hold up, Liv," Charlie stopped her when she moved to follow.

"What's up?" she replied, turning back to him.

He wiped a hand across his cheek and back through his dark hair as he watched Peter's departing back. When he was out of sight, Charlie pulled her aside. "Look, I didn't mean to get into it with Peter back there," he said, looking abashed. "He knows how to push my buttons, I'll give him that."

Olivia shrugged. It was hardly the first time the two of them had butted heads, and surely wouldn't be the last. "You don't need to apologize to me, Charlie. Peter excels at pushing buttons. When I first brought him back from Iraq, I came close to strangling him myself on more than one occasion."

Her lips curled as she thought back to the early days, with Walter, in the lab.  _Where'd you learn that? MIT?_  she had asked, not even bothering to veil her contempt; he  _was_  a criminal, after all.  _No, I actually I learned it by reading books. You should try it sometime. It's fun._ She vividly recalled stilling the urge to wipe the smug look off his face with the butt of her service weapon.

Charlie's perpetual frown vanished, replaced by a tight smile. His mouth opened, then closed. "Does he make you happy?" he asked finally.

_And here it is_ , Olivia thought. She'd been waiting to have this discussion with Charlie, or one similar. It hadn't started the way she'd envisioned, with him questioning her sanity. Did Peter make her happy? Did he? She had never looked to any man to find happiness, or anyone else for that matter. Her stepfather had ingrained that into her with his fist, and so the question was meaningless. Happiness for her had always come from within, found in small moments with family and friends, in doing her job and doing it well. Peter could make her laugh and smile certainly with his wit, and he could also be quite frustrating at times, with his unending sarcasm and his knack for getting into trouble. But he was also loyal to a fault. And he was kind, and easy to talk to, and listened just as well without judgment. To her, at least. His father was a different story, and she had yet to crack that particular nut.

She met Charlie's expectant gaze. "Not that it's any of your business, but I'm happy," she told him. "As happy as can be, at least, given the circumstances."

He nodded as if he'd expected no different. "All right. That's good enough for me, kiddo."

"And what about you, Charlie?" she asked bluntly, as it seemed they were being honest with each other. "How are you feeling since...what happened before? And what's really been going on with you? Something happened when you saw that body. Don't you dare try and deny it."

He looked away, wetting his lips before replying. "I don't know what happened," he answered, and then cleared his throat. "I guess it was just the shock of it. I mean, I saw the guy die, right in front of me. I'm still not convinced that's his body. I mean, how can that even be possible? Did you mention that to Agent Broyles? Maybe he knows something."

"I don't know how it's possible," Olivia said, watching him closely. Was he changing the subject on her? "I haven't mentioned it to Broyles yet. What about those headaches you told me about? Have you still been having them? You made it sound like they were getting better."

"They were...they are," he said with a too-quick nod, then scratched at the corner of his mouth. His eyes flickered about, refusing to stay still. "Truth is...I'm fine, Liv. I'm better now. It was just stress, and that body surprising the fuck out of me."

_He's lying_ , Olivia realized with cold dismay.  _He's lying to_ me.  _He's never lied to me before._

The signs were all there; avoiding eye contact, the constant tilt of his head, and even his shuffling feet. Lying. And he was a trained agent. For him to display such giveaways so openly — he was worse off than she'd thought. She put a thin smile in place. "I hope so, Charlie. For all our sakes." Sonia stepped into the hall in her peripheral vision and Olivia stepped away from him. "Well, we should get ready. It'll be good to be back at the lab, won't it?"

"Sure it will." He nodded, wetting his lips again before turning to his wife. "Is he gonna make it?"

Sonia's eyes narrowed slightly, glancing between them. "I'm not sure this is a good idea, Charlie," she said. "But I guess we don't have a choice. We can't risk getting stuck here, can we?"

"No, I guess not," Olivia agreed slowly. "I should get my gear. Peter and I will meet you two at the armory? We filled up all the duffels we could find with weapons and ammo. I want to bring back as much as we can carry."

Charlie nodded his assent, but she didn't miss his uneasy glance toward the armory around the corner before he and Sonia left for their room. Had he been back inside since that first day? She wasn't sure. On her way back to the room, she tried to put aside a sudden feeling that events were beginning to move too fast, to spiral, to spin out of control, but the effort was futile. It was too soon to be moving Broyles — he could have used another week or two in bed — but mother nature had forced their hand.

Olivia found Peter with the contents of his pack spread out on the mat before him. He didn't look up at her entrance. She stopped just inside the doorway and leaned back against the frame, watching as he rolled up a spare shirt and shoved it inside his pack. A bottle of water followed, then his small assortment of tools; his prized multi-tool, a box-cutter utility knife, and the small pen light from the armory along with several other items. Outside the window, billowing swirls of snow continued to fall.

"For what it's worth," she started, breaking the silence. "And in spite of how much I want to see my sister and Ella again, I don't disagree with you, Peter."

At the first sound of her voice, his hands froze on a pouch's zipper. Then, after a moment, his clenched jaw relaxed, and he gave her widening smile as their eyes met. "Hey, if the man thinks he can make it, who am I to stop him?" he said with a shrug. "It's only his life on the line. I don't suppose the FBI has a stash of crutches anywhere, do they? Might come in handy."

Olivia grunted and crossed over to the window. "Not that I'm aware of," she murmured, peering out into the snow. A thin sheen of white covered the streets and sidewalks below, the mounds of rubble and debris, and the mangled vehicles left behind. And the infected. Pockets of slow-moving bodies dotted the roadways, here and there, twenty or more in some, well over a hundred in others. They appeared unconcerned by the snow. She turned back to Peter. "After you left, I had a talk with Charlie."

Peter straightened, pausing in the act of folding a pair of socks. "What about?" he asked cautiously.

"He lied to me, Peter. Lied to my face, about how he was feeling, about these headaches he's been having. It was all over his face, as clear as day. He's never lied to me before. Not once since I've known him. Why would he do that?"

With a sigh, Peter fingered his jawline, twisting the stubble absently. "He seemed okay last night. Maybe he's in denial. Maybe he's paranoid. He probably doesn't even know himself. It might be a good thing we're leaving. I know Walter's got a stash of anti-depressants and anti-psychotics somewhere in the lab. We might need them."

Olivia shook her head. "Charlie would never go for that, not in a million years. He doesn't trust your father, not like that."

"Maybe it's not him we need to convince."

"You're talking about Sonia."

"Bingo."

Olivia fell silent, studying the teeth-shaped tear on Peter's left coat sleeve. It was all conjecture. They didn't know anything, not for sure. Maybe Charlie's headaches were just that — headaches. There was no proof he was delusional, or that he was seeing things that weren't there, or hearing voices in his head. There was no proof that he was slipping into madness. But if he were? Would he admit to it? No more than she had when she'd questioned her own sanity after stepping into that other Boston.

"We have to have something more...concrete, before we can say something like that to Sonia," she decided, shaking her head. "It's the only way. Right now all we have is speculation."

"I get what you're saying, Olivia," Peter said. "I do. But if it is some kind of paranoia, or whatever, stress obviously exacerbates the condition. I'd rather not wait until we're in the middle of a scrum to find out we were right. Would you?"

"We can't, Peter," she insisted. "What if we're wrong? He was fine on the way here, and it can't get much more stressful than that. He needs our confidence, our trust. Promise me you won't say anything to Sonia, not unless there's more proof."

"All right, I won't," he said without hesitation, laying a hand over his heart. "That ball is in your court if it ever comes to that, which hopefully, it never will. And besides, it would be better coming from you anyway."

Olivia exhaled a long sigh, then reached for her own backpack. They had wasted enough time. Her internal clock suggested it was nearing mid-morning already. If they hurried, they could be back in time for dinner. She started to unzip the front pocket of her pack, then stopped and caught Peter's eye. "There's one more thing," she said, allowing a faint smile to cross her lips. "Before we split up, Charlie asked about you. About us."

Peter's eyebrows shot upward. "Really. What did he say?"

"He asked if I was happy."

"Did he, now. That seems fairly normal...for him," he grumbled, then went on cautiously, as if he were treading through a minefield. "And...what did you say to that?"

Olivia lifted her shoulders with an air of indifference. "Well, you know...," she said, adopting a nonchalant tone. "I guess I am. Happy, that is. With you. I guess." She held her face still, watching with amusement as he blinked and processed her reply.

"Wait. You guess? That's it?"

At his affronted scowl, she chuckled, then had to duck under the pair of socks zooming past her head. She laughed as the socks rebounded off the window, and danced out of Peter's reach as he leapt over the exercise mats wearing a look of egregious outrage. She made sure he caught her, eventually. Happiness was captured in moments, to be soaked up and absorbed whenever possible. She savored it, and tried to forget her uneasy feeling from earlier. For happiness was also fickle, disappearing without warning as quickly as it came. Like quicksilver. And one thing was certain:

There was still a long road ahead of them.

#

The snow had not yet tapered off when they finished loading the black SUV with all their gear and weapons, and showed no signs of letting up. The tiny flakes from earlier were now huge, feathery wisps tumbling lazily in the slight breeze. And they were sticking. The thin sheen of snow on the ramp out of the parking garage had become a smooth, unbroken layer of unflappable white.

Olivia waited, leaning against the concrete wall at the foot of the ramp and watching the snow fall. Her most formative years had been spent in the south. And as such, snowfall had been something mystical, to be dreamt about and yearned for. She had never felt the joy of being the first to make tracks through the snow, or felt the prickle of ice inside her coat while making snow-angels, or any of the winter activities a child growing up in the north would have taken for granted. She had seen them only through lenses of movies and books and television, and through the windows of her imagination. But imagination was a hollow thing, without substance or texture. Only later, after childhood had already lost its luster — to time, and to events no child should endure — would she finally experience it herself. A trip to Washington D.C. when she was thirteen, when she had seen the J. Edgar Hoover Building for the first time. Cold, wet, and dirty, were her most prominent memories of the plowed streets and trampled footprints in the National Mall.

But occasionally, she still caught something of that mystical quality of yore, when the snow was still fresh, still falling, swirling, like being a spec on a street inside a snow-globe. She recalled strolling through the Shakespeare Garden at Northwestern for the first time, alone and free, and staring up at the sky as the snow fell. She remembered the tickle of its cool caress on her cheeks. It had felt like peace, like serenity somehow made physical. She could feel it even now, even with everything tottering on the brink.

Then a lone infected strolling into view at the top of the ramp obliterated the sensation, and the memories with it.

Olivia watched the creature stagger past, one hand dropped to the pistol on her hip. It moved slowly from right to left across the ramp exit, then disappeared from sight without a look or glance in her direction. Stepping carefully in the snow, she moved out from under the overhang and up the ramp, hugging the concrete until she reached the top of the rise. When she peered around the corner, a blast of frigid wind further dispelled the illusion. She winced and adjusted the scarf around her neck, and watched the departing infected move southward down the alley until a dumpster lying on its side obscured her view.

Turning to the north, she glanced at the alley's other exit. Her gaze fell on a snow-covered clump lying half-way down the block in the middle of the street. There was no mistaking its shape, and it had not been there on their way in. Her memory of those hectic moments was unblurred and concise.

She took another look to the south, then back down the ramp into the yawning blackness of the parking garage. They would be back with Broyles soon, but she thought there was still time. She trotted over to the clump. And as she'd surmised, it was a body, splayed out on its back. A woman. Or it had been, before she had joined the ranks of infected. When she dusted the snow off the body, Olivia's breath caught in her throat.

The infected's chest was shredded. Ribbons of decaying flesh showed through the torn remnants of its shirt. Snow was collecting in the cavities left behind. But that was all secondary. What held her gaze was its misshapen head, and the lines of massive puncture wounds, bone-deep lacerations criss-crossing what was left of its face. She was no medical examiner, but they appeared to be bite-marks. Bite-marks made by something extremely large.

The creature.

_Oh shit._  Her skin began to crawl, the hair on the back of her neck stood at attention.

Backing away from the body, Olivia yanked her pistol free. Her gaze darted around the alley to the north and south, and above on the walls of the adjacent office buildings. Who knew where the thing could hide? Instead of tranquility, the snowfall was an unwanted mist obstructing her view.

How long ago? Days? Hours? Had it ventured into the garage itself, right outside their door? The thought was unnerving. She retreated slowly back down the ramp. Being out in the open left her exposed and vulnerable, with the limited sight distance in the haze. It wasn't a feeling she cared for, not at all.

When she reached the bottom of the ramp, Peter and Charlie were maneuvering Broyles into the cocoon of blankets and towel Sonia had arranged in the back seat. Sonia was already inside the idling truck, directing them from the next seat over. Olivia hurried to them through the wash of blinding headlights.

"How did it go?" she asked when they were finished getting him situated. "Any problems getting him down here?"

Charlie grunted at the question and paused, one foot inside the truck. He tossed a nod at Peter. "Other than your boyfriend here nearly dropping him down the steps, no problems at all," he said, then climbed into the back seat next to his wife and shut the door.

Olivia turned to Peter. "You dropped him?"

"No. I didn't drop him," he replied, throwing a disgruntled look toward the back of the truck. "He just...slipped, just for a second. It wasn't even close to a drop."

"Uh huh..." she grinned. "I'm sure it wasn't."

"So...who's driving?" Peter was eyeing the steering wheel with an obvious eagerness.

"After what happened the last time I let you behind the wheel of a truck, that would be me," she told him, and before he could argue, quickly moved around the driver's door and slipped inside.

Being behind the wheel again after so long was strange, yet also wonderful at the same time. The cabin was toasty. Jets of air hot enough for a sauna blew across her face and hands. And that felt wonderful also. Beneath the steering column was a mass of tangled wires, evidence of Peter's rewiring job. She adjusted the seat and glanced up into the rear-view mirror as Peter slid in beside her in the passenger seat.

"How are you doing back there, sir?" Olivia inquired, seeing Broyles's ashen face in the glow of the interior cabin light. His eyes were tired but steady when he met her gaze in the mirror.  _He looks exhausted already_ , she thought, and wondered again if they weren't making some mistake. But then she thought of the mauled body at the top of the ramp and changed her mind. Putting some distance between themselves and  _it_ , seemed like a great idea.

"I've been better," he replied weakly. His voice was hoarse, barely audible over the quiet hum of the engine. "What's it like out there? How bad is it? I couldn't see much from inside that damn cafeteria."

"Um...not good," she said. "It's better in Cambridge — we think most of the infected wandered or migrated west. But Downtown? There are infected everywhere, tens of thousands of them. With the ocean and the river on three sides, there was nowhere for them to go. It wasn't easy to get here."

"You ain't kidding," Charlie muttered.

Broyles was silent for a heartbeat. "Is there anything left? Any people...? Military? Any civilization at all?"

"Well...I hate to be the bearer of bad news, Phillip," Sonia spoke up, "but it's all gone. As for people, Olivia and Peter ran into some other survivors a while back, but they weren't friendly, were they Peter? And if there is civilization somewhere, we haven't seen it."

At Sonia's mention of civilization, Olivia shot Peter a covert glance over the center console. The older woman's statement wasn't precisely true, and they both knew it. She thought of the strange light they'd seen from her apartment. A beacon, a neon light in the sky screaming against the dark. To the west. From the slight widening of Peter's eyes, he was thinking the same thing. They hadn't mentioned it to anyone. Yet. The why of it had never been explicitly stated, only that at the time, their focus had been on other problems.

She shook her head slightly and he nodded in return. Now wasn't the time. But soon. Now that they had something, some sliver of information, slight as it was. They would make plans. As a group. She wasn't sure how what Broyles had told her would be of use, but she felt a distinct certainty that nothing at the lab would help them, or Walter would have thought of it already. The lack of power had hindered any real research.

Broyles's face was bleak in the mirror. His eyes were far away, trapped in some memory; of the past, of before, of his family, most likely. The boy and the girl. The ex-wife. Unless a miracle took place, he would never see any of them again. And there were no miracles, not these days. If there ever had been. A stirring of guilt surfaced at her own single-mindedness to find her family, but she squashed it flat. There was nothing she wouldn't do for her family, no price she wouldn't pay.

Peter's voice broke through her reverie. "You ready, Agent Dunham?"

At hearing her old moniker, Olivia blinked and came back to the present, giving Peter and apologetic smile. "Sorry. Let's get out of here." She eased the truck forward out of its parking spot, angling toward the rectangle of daylight at the bottom of the ramp. "You lock the door on your way out, Charlie?" she asked as they passed by the basement entrance.

"I did...," he replied, settling back in his seat with a sigh. "Not sure why though, considering the front door is wide open and we're never coming back here."

"You never know, Agent Francis," Broyles whispered as the truck passed out of the garage's darkness and into the light. "Things always change."

#

The truck climbed up the ramp without effort. Huge, puffy snowflakes spattered silently against the windshield and melted in the same moment. Olivia flipped on the wipers and their gentle  _thwomp thwomp_  filled the interior. At the top, she braked and peered northward at the body lying in the street. Snow covered it almost completely now, with only a bent knee pointed toward the sky giving away its true grisly form. If anything, the snow was coming down even thicker than it had before.

"What is that?" Peter said, following her gaze. "A body? Was that you?"

She shook her head. "Infected. And no, something else killed it."

"Something?" Charlie's voice floated up from the back seat. "What something?"

Olivia tilted her head to find him in the mirror. "Well, I don't know for sure, but from the way its chest was torn open and giant tooth-marks where its skull was crushed, I'd say it was that...thing, that was following us."

"Shit...," Charlie hissed. "You mean it was right here? Right outside the garage? Fuck me. We were out there last night. I never saw a thing."

"What thing?" Broyles said in a crumbly voice. "Some kind of animal?"

"We don't know what it is," Peter explained. "Not exactly. But I can tell you this: whatever it is, it's not natural."

In the mirror, Broyles coughed and tried to sit up, then fell back into his cocoon. "Explain that...Bishop," he croaked, then coughed again. "Not natural how? Like one of the dead?"

Olivia spun the wheel and accelerated south through the alley, toward what had once been Pemberton Square. She only half-listened as Peter told Broyles of their frantic race to the Federal Building and the impossible creature that had followed them. Leaning forward over the wheel, she kept her eyes peeled on the road through the curtain of snowfall and the sashaying wiperblades. Of the infected she had seen earlier there was no sign. Where had it gone? She glanced into the shadows of ruined doorways as they slid past, among the piles of rubble and abandoned vehicles but it was nowhere to be seen. She wondered with dark amusement if it had some important meeting to attend.

The alley came to an abrupt end and the snow-muffled rumble of the tires changed tenor as she turned onto the bricks of the square. Braking, she squinted ahead into the white fog. Shapes rose in the background, shapes that didn't belong. She rolled the truck forward slowly and after a few moments, they resolved into view.

Pemberton Square was a sea of olive-drab tents and swirling snow. Crumbled sandbag walls and barbed-wire encircled gun emplacements made a perimeter, all nestled between the remains of once proud skyscrapers, now scarred and blackened with ash. Oddly-uniform mounds lay beneath the deepening snow where some last stand had taken place, some final battle. It was a graveyard. She let the truck idle past the hanging tent flaps, the darkened interiors, swerving a path around a tent larger than the others. A command center? The languid stillness of the square was surreal, despite several dozen uniformed infected frolicking in the snow. Those closest pawed ineffectually at the truck as it rolled past. She thought again of a snow-globe — albeit one with a macabre theme of destruction, of death and horror.  _SAVE US_  was graffitied in large, drunken lettering across the foundation of the federal courthouse building.

"Dear God," Broyles uttered in disbelief. "How could this have happened? How could they have let this happen?"

"They didn't believe it was the end, at first," Olivia guessed, eying the slanted letters. Who had written them? Civilian or soldier? Was there a difference at the end? "They didn't believe, not really, not all the way. And by then it was too late." She hadn't believed either, not in the beginning.

"You can't blame them," Peter added. "There was no stopping it." He let out a humorless chuckle. "The game was rigged, from the very beginning. We were lucky at the lab, forewarned, thanks to you, Mr. Broyles, and to Walter, of all people. He understood at once what it meant. Who would have thought the world even  _could_  end?"

No one answered as they left Pemberton Square behind. She gave Peter a subtle, sideways glance. He was fingering his shoulder absently, eyes narrowed in thought. Had there been a trace of pride in his voice when he'd spoken of his father?

"So we're going south?" he said, turning toward her.

She nodded and turned them west onto a cross street littered with more rubble and charred husks of wreckage. "South until we're out of Downtown, then west through Brookline or Jamaica Plain. We'll find a way through somehow, Peter. I intend to drive all the way back to Cambridge, even if we have to go all the way out to Newton, or even farther, to find an open bridge over the Charles. We'll find a way."

#

Olivia took her time in the ever-deepening snow, taking a slow and meandering path past fire-bombed skyscrapers, then through the historic districts of Beacon Hill and Back Bay. Agent Broyles remained silent in the backseat as the full extent of the city's desolation was revealed, building by building, body by body. The neighborhoods lay in ruin, victims of carpet-bombing or firestorms, she wasn't sure which. Entire city blocks were razed to the ground. The structures that remained seemed haunted and alone, not unlike the single structures remaining in the aftermath of a tornado. Where an idyllic park had once stood, Boston Commons had become a forest of scorched tree trunks, of giant spikes rising from the snow.

At each such scene, there was a sharp intake of breath from the backseat. She'd forgotten; such sights had long ago become background noise — part of the scenery. But to Broyles it was all new. She watched his face turn grayer with each glance in the mirror. She wondered where his family had lived, and thinking of Charlie, how he would weather the inevitable truth. After a while, his eyes glazed over with shell-shock. And the hits only kept coming as they zigzagged further and further west, through Fenway and into Mission Hill.

Pockets of infected roamed the streets, with numbers ranging from the singular to hordes in the thousands. They wore the snow like a second skin, and were to be avoided, especially the larger herds. The streets were growing increasingly slick, and she had little doubt a large enough group would halt them in their tracks. And then where would they be?

So Olivia drove carefully, avoiding obstacles and taking little risks, but inevitably leaving scores of alert undead in their wake. Which made backtracking a particularly treacherous endeavor. The infected would follow, of course — they'd be helpless not to — until whatever spark of awareness burning inside their gray matter went out. She didn't know how long that would take though, and watched them fade into the haze of falling snow with a feeling of unease, until their numbers began to thin out as they crossed into Brookline.

At some point, Broyles had fallen asleep, she noticed in the mirror. His head lolled on Sonia's shoulder, and she was giving the sick man a motherly look. Olivia's lips curled at the sight and she shifted her gaze to Charlie, staring out the window. His face was tight and his eyes seemed far away, locked in some internal struggle.  _Hold on, Charlie_ , she thought. J _ust keep it together a little longer._

And the snow continued to fall, growing deeper by the minute.

After what might have been an hour of silence, Peter leaned forward suddenly and turned on the truck's radio. He hit the scan button and waited as the tuner searched for a station, emitting a slight hiss through the speakers.

"We haven't tried finding a broadcast for a while," he said at her inquiring look. "And that little radio of Walter's doesn't have the range to pick up anything." He pressed the button for the AM stations and the hiss changed to the frantic shrieks and whistles of static. With a sigh, he hit the off button and fell back in his seat. "Well, it was worth a shot. What we really need is a CB radio. If you think about it, that would be the only reliable way to communicate these days. If there's any sort of organized communities out there, I would think they'd have them. As long as they have power, at least."

Olivia grunted and eyed him askance. "They stopped putting CB radios in FBI vehicles before I even joined the Bureau, Peter," she said, and glanced up at Charlie in the mirror with a grin. "Charlie can probably remember those days. Can't you, Charlie?"

"Hey, I'm not that much older than you, Liv," he retorted in his gruff voice, and for a moment, sounded like his old self again. He nodded toward the sleeping man next to Sonia. "Now take Agent Broyles here, he's been around long enough for...wait! What the hell is that? You guys see that?"

"See what?" Peter said, pivoting his head.

Charlie pointed out his tinted window to the southern side of the street. "Look. Above those houses."

Olivia craned her head, looking south. Rising above the snow-wreathed trees and roof lines was a cloud of grayish smoke, just visible through a slight slackening in the snowfall. "I see it," she confirmed as Peter ducked closer over the center console to peer out her window. "It looks like it's only a few blocks away."

She let the truck idle to a stop in the middle of the street, where they could get a better view in the gap between two houses. The smoke rose in a thin column, then widened into a billowing cloud. Harsh silence filled the truck's interior, broken only by Broyles's troubled breathing and the recurring thwack of the wipers sliding back and forth. The cloud felt ominous, and out of place. A remnant of the past, of days gone by. And yet, at the same time, it called to her. It meant people. Civilization.

_Only what kind of people?_  she wondered. The only other survivors they had encountered had been bent on murder. She felt Peter's eyes and turned to him.

"What are you thinking?" he asked in a neutral tone.

"I think we should check it out. Carefully. From a distance." She twisted around in her seat. "What do you think, Charlie?"

Charlie didn't answer right away. He chewed on the corner of his lip and glanced over at his wife. "What do you think, babe?" he said shortly. "Should we take a look or keep going? At this rate, we might make it back to the lab before dark, but I doubt it."

"Didn't you say the men who attacked you came from around here, Olivia?" Sonia asked, leaning forward in her seat. "That could be them."

"We don't know where they came from," she said with a shrug, painfully aware of Peter's sharp gaze. "After they shot Peter, they headed south into Allston. There's no telling how far they went, or which direction. They could have gone anywhere from there..."

Even as she spoke the words, they sounded false in her ears. It was too much of a coincidence. The men in the Humvee had been the only people they'd come across in months, and Allston lay directly to the north. In addition, she and Peter had come fairly close to the same area on their way back from Brighton. He'd been driving like a maniac, gunning the engine the whole way. It would have been audible for miles in the city's empty silence. She snuck a glance at Peter. From the cold fury in his eyes, he had come to the same conclusion.

"I'm going, Olivia," he stated in a flat tone before she could open her mouth to suggest otherwise.

Olivia met his gaze without blinking. "No. You're not," she told him firmly. "Charlie and I will go scout it out. You and Sonia can find a house nearby we can take cover in for the night, if need be."

"No fucking way," he insisted, shaking his head. "They can find the house. I'm going with you. Those people tried to kill me, Olivia. They almost did."

"And that's precisely why you're going to stay here, Peter," she countered. "I need someone with me that has a clear head."

Peter's eyes blazed. "A clear head?" he spat, and jabbed himself in the chest with two fingers. "Excuse me, but _I'm_ the one that doesn't have a clear head?"

"She's right, Bishop," Charlie added from the back seat. "How many raids have you been on? Liv and I have been on dozens together. I'll watch her back. We should be back inside an hour."

"Peter..." Olivia reached across the console and took his hand. She held his gaze, imploring, and winced internally at the confused hurt blooming in his eyes. He wasn't getting it, and she couldn't explain it to him now, with Charlie listening. It wasn't personal, or had anything to do with him — apart from a strong desire to keep him safe and away from danger, like all the people she cared about. It was about Charlie. He needed this, needed to know that she still trusted him with her back, that she still had confidence in him. "Please."

Peter's lips thinned and the hard panes of his jawline grew taut. But then he relaxed, letting his chin drop. He pulled free of her grip and rubbed his eyes, then exhaled loudly before looking up again. "Fine. Whatever...," he muttered, avoiding her gaze. "Sonia and I and Agent Broyles will just do our own thing, won't we?"

"Sure, it'll be an adventure, Peter," Sonia replied with her easy smile. "Like house hunting all over again. I haven't done that for years. You remember those days, don't you, honey? I was a little crazy back then."

Charlie chuckled and nodded his agreement. "Our real estate agent certainly thought so."

Olivia reached for the truck's ignition key out of habit, and upon finding none, stared down at the mass of tangled and spliced wires dangling between her legs. There were many more than had been on the older model Oldsmobile Peter had used to teach her the art of hot-wiring. She reached for them, then hesitated, uncertain which were the correct pair. Pursing her lips, she turned to Peter and gave him a hopeful look. "Umm...a little help here?"

He looked over at her, finally, and sighed. Anger still burned on his face, less than before, but still present. "The red and the yellow," he instructed, then vanished out into the cold.

#

* * *

#

The wind and snow licking his cheeks had cooled his anger at once, at least in part. Peter glared at Olivia's retreating form through the snow, at her golden hair peeking out from beneath her beanie, fanning over the shoulders of her matching black coat. Beside her slim outline, the gray of Charlie's parka made him nearly invisible. The two of them were hurrying south between two bungalows, toward where they had seen the column of smoke last. The snowfall had picked up again, blurring it from view.

She didn't trust him to keep his cool. The thought stoked the fires anew. He couldn't believe it. The sting of her rejection lingered, refusing to dissipate altogether. He ground his teeth, shuffling his feet in the ankle-deep snow.

"Cheer up, Peter," Sonia said beside him as Olivia and Charlie were swallowed up by the white mist. "Charlie and Olivia have been working together for a long time. They'll be fine." She shivered and glanced at the row of houses on either side of the street. "C'mon, let's find a house and get Phillip inside. I don't want him to get cold. It can't be good for him."

With nothing else to do but agree, Peter nodded glumly, turning away from the spot where they'd vanished. He looked around. The homes were all nice, all well maintained. Or they had been. If they had been looted already, their outward appearance gave no sign of it. Several reminded him of his old family home in Cambridge, a melancholic pang went through him at the sight. He offered no input on which house to approach. It was all the same to him. He had Olivia on the brain, and the affliction wasn't going to pass anytime soon.

"What about that one?" she proposed, shielding her eyes. She pointed toward a two-and-a-half story Tudor with light blue paint and black trim a little way down the street. An iron fence encircled the property, including gates at the front walk and across a narrow driveway back to a separate garage of the same light blue color. "I like the idea of having a fence around us, don't you?"

"Can't argue with that," he agreed with a forced smile. There were no infected in the immediate vicinity, but that could always change. "I'll pull the truck into the driveway. They'll see it when they get back."

Peter moved the truck, leaving it close to the street, and Sonia shut the gate behind him. The smoke cloud to the south was still shrouded by snowflakes, but he looked for it anyway, looked for her. Snow was already filling the pair of footprints heading south and the truck's tracks on the street. He wondered how deep it would get, and pictured a disconcerting image of waking up in the morning to find themselves buried under several feet of snowfall. They would be hard-pressed to leave, even with the truck's four-wheel-drive. It was only December, but it could happen. It had before. The only bright side was that the infected would have an even rougher time of it. Watching them trundle through waist-high snowbanks would be comical, if nothing else. And humor was hard to come by.

"You ready?" Sonia asked, looking up at him with a curious expression. "The day's not getting any longer." Wisps of ginger hair peeked out from beneath her pristine pink stocking hat. He didn't know where she'd found the hat, but it was at jarring odds with her blood-spattered coat and the pistol on her hip.

"You bet," he said, and grabbed the crowbar from the back of the truck.

On their way to the front porch, he gave it a little swing, testing his left shoulder. After over a week of inactivity, it was doing better. There were still the occasional pins and needles, but mostly he was pain free. Unless he lifted his arm above his head, which still hurt like hell. He had the feeling it was now a permanent condition. The thought made him think of Olivia, and what she was doing.

After stomping up the steps to the front porch, Peter levered open the front door with an angry grunt. The crack of splintering wood and metal bending under protest echoed dully in the frigid weather.

"Anybody home?" he called out. There was no answer, and he dropped the crowbar and drew the suppressed pistol before heading inside with Sonia just behind.

Moving from room to room, it quickly became apparent that the house was empty, and had been for some time — probably since before the outbreak began. They were lucky. The owners had fled, taking only a few pictures off the walls and the clothes on their back. The pantry was stuffed to the brim, and the refrigerator also, though it reeked of a foulness so pure neither of them were willing to do more than glance inside. A large master bedroom was situated at the rear of the house on the first floor, along with a massive family room that led into a kitchen that looked like it had been well used, from the amount of fine cutlery hanging from a magnet strip next to the stove. Four other bedrooms resided on the floors above, along with a small office and an exercise room. All in all it was a nice house, and he found himself wondering why they were still holed up in uncomfortable confines of the lab when there were plenty of places like this in Cambridge.

They carried Broyles inside and made a place for him on the family room couch in a mound of thick quilts and blankets from the hallway linen closet. The sick man woke for a short while, asking for food and water, then fell back into a troubled sleep.

Peter left him with Sonia and walked out onto the front porch, nibbling on raisins from an unopened — and more importantly—vacuum-sealed container he'd found in the pantry. They were moist and delicious, and he had an entire fistful in his coat pocket. He popped several more in his mouth and gazed out of the porch.

The sky was a plush carpet of gray, featureless clouds that shimmered faintly in the oncoming twilight, still an hour or so away. The snow continued unabated, collecting on barren tree branches that drooped toward the ground; on top of the truck, sliding down its windshield, melting at the heat still trapped inside; on the masonry piers between spans of iron fencing, and on the steeples themselves, like the tips of tiny mountain peaks. Wind gusted over the solid porch railing, spraying his cheeks with a freezing mist. He sucked in a gasp at the icy chill and angled his face to the side. Drifts were already forming, up against the house, against abandoned cars in the street. The sight of them unsettled his stomach. He hoped it dwindled off soon. If there was one thing he hated more than cold weather, it was shoveling snow in cold weather.

The door opened behind him and Sonia stepped outside. She hesitated on the doormat, meeting his gaze briefly, then joined him at the railing.

"Holy crap, it's cold out here," she said, shivering, and hugging her chest against the wind. "Are we sure the date is right? It feels more like late January than December."

"Pretty sure," he stated. He crossed his arms, squinting at all the white. Even in the waning hours of daylight, it was still bright enough for sunglasses. He wished he had a pair.

Olivia kept track of the date, and he was sure she had the right of it. He had stopped keeping track after Thanksgiving had passed them by. What was the point? They were arbitrary dates, and utterly meaningless without the civilization that created them. The cycles of the moon were enough. Thinking of Olivia made his jaw clench, made his teeth grind.

What did she think he would have done? Walked into their camp and demanded for justice like a damn fool? Or go in shooting like some psychopath on a rampage. Hadn't he already proved himself to her? What would it take for her to trust him? The wind died down and he kept his gaze fixed on the spot where she'd disappeared. He listened to the almost-silent tinkle of snowfall. How long had they been gone anyway? Why weren't they back yet? Surely an hour had already passed.

"Look, Peter," Sonia said at length. Her voice was gentle, as always. "I'm not entirely sure what that was about back there in the truck, and it's probably not my business, but I don't think it's what you're thinking."

"And what do you know about what I'm thinking?"

Instead of answering, she dusted the snow off the brick banister and sat down. She stared up at him silently, and looked more serious than he'd ever seen her. He was about to apologize for being a prick, when she began to speak.

"Let me tell you a story," she started. It felt more like a question than a statement, and he nodded for her to continue.

"Years ago, back before Charlie joined the FBI, back when he was still on the force in Brooklyn, I got a knock on my door one night. I answered it, and it was his captain standing there, looking as grim as the harbinger of death. He was in full dress — the hat, the suit, even the white gloves. It was Charlie's second year on the force, and by then, I knew that if you ever got a visit like that..." She paused, clearing her throat. "Well, you see they come home in your loved one's place. Either because they're unable, or...because they never will again. Charlie and I were just kids, still newlyweds, just getting our lives together. Needless to say, I freaked out. Screaming, crying, the whole nine yards. I was a mess. And you know what's funny? Somehow, in the midst of all that, I still remember staring at that fucker's white gloves, and wondering why the hell he had stopped to put those on, how exactly were they supposed to help me...?"

The tremor in her voice made Peter swallow. "What happened to him?" he asked. "To Charlie?"

"Some woman on a routine domestic disturbance shot him twice in the chest, right after she shot and killed his partner. They were only there to help her — she was the one who had called 911. Her husband had been beating the shit out of her. Charlie was in the ICU for what seemed like weeks, though I guess it was only a few days. When he finally woke up, when they moved him out of intensive care, he kept telling me 'I'm okay, baby...I'm okay...' in that gruff voice of his — all manly protective-like." She smiled and rolled her eyes. "You know how he is. But the truth, was that he wasn't okay.

Sonia held up two fingers with a hairsbreadth gap between them. "You don't come  _this_  close to dying, of being murdered, and come out if okay. And I wasn't okay, either. When he came home from the hospital a few weeks later, he had trouble sleeping, and I found a loaded gun under his pillow and freaked out all over again. He said it made him feel safe. I didn't want him to go back to work, and when he finally did, I was so worried about him that  _I_  couldn't work. I broke down in front of my class, had almost daily panic attacks. They were just kindergartners. I almost lost my job. We almost lost our marriage."

She inhaled a ragged breath and lowered her head, fiddling idly with the zipper on her coat. After a moment, she gave him a sad smile. "But we got through it, eventually. I stopped dreading answering the front door, and he stopped sleeping with a gun under his pillow. Life went on. It's just something to think about."

Peter nodded slowly. He didn't know what to say. They had been through a lot, and it certainly explained a few things, about them, about the depths of their marriage. The situation between him and Olivia was not at all the same. He felt a surge of guilt for his suggestion that they coerce this woman into drugging her husband. Thankfully, Olivia had known better than he did.

"Do you love her?" Sonia asked quietly, and bluntly.

The question came out of the blue, and for a moment he floundered, mouth agape too shocked to say anything. Speaking about such things, to anyone, had always been anathema — always. And yet for some reason, he found himself wanting to. Did he love her? It was a question he had already asked himself countless times. Sonia's breath rose in small puffs as she waited for an answer.

"I... I don't know," he admitted finally, massaging the back of his neck. "Maybe...? Is it bad that I'm not sure?"

"Of course not," she replied with a chuckle. "I'm getting the sense that you're surprisingly new at this. Love is hard, Peter, one of the hardest things there is. My mother told me that once, back before I married Charlie. I didn't really understand what she meant at the time, but I do now."

The wind chose that moment to kick up again, sending a spray across the front porch. It whistled and hissed in wintery fury. Tiny whips of burning ice bit at Peter's exposed cheeks.

Sonia jumped up with a gasp, ducking inside the tall collar of her coat. "Jesus...," she uttered through clenched teeth. "Where the hell are they?"

Peter wished he knew. He turned away from the blast of freezing air and snow. As if in defiance, the wind roared even louder, and was layered with an odd complexity, a strange tenor. Or was it the wind? "What was that?" he said, tensing as the strangeness vanished. Its lack was glaring, like an entire section had gone quiet in an orchestra.

"What was what?" Sonia asked with a frown.

"You didn't hear anything just now?"

"No... Just the wind." She peered out into the snow, searching up and down the street before turning back to him with an alarmed expression. "Why? What did you hear?"

He cocked his head, waiting to see if the sound — if he had indeed heard something — would repeat itself, but there was only the normal howl of wind whistling through tight spaces. "Not sure...," he replied after an interval. "I thought I heard something. Maybe it was nothing." Only it hadn't seemed like nothing — not at all. It definitely seemed like a something. He fingered the ridges of his pistol's grip and scanned for movement against the white.

"Peter! There they are." Sonia motioned down the street to their left, then leapt off the porch, kicking a path to the sidewalk.

Two figures were jogging toward them, stirring up chunks of wet snow with each stride. One was dressed mostly in black, the other in gray. It was them. Peter felt something unclench inside him, something he hadn't even been consciously aware of until that moment, like a fist uncurling from around his heart. Breathing easier, he hurried out to meet them.

Sonia ran into Charlie's arms, pulling him into a savage embrace before anyone could speak. Olivia eyed the husband and wife with a small smile, then met his gaze cautiously from a safe distance. Peter drank in the sight of her. She was flushed from the cold, from exertion. He felt his own cheeks grow hot as his earlier anger seemed utterly foolish in hindsight. What did it matter who had gone with her? With a slight shrug, he gave her an apologetic smile, at which she arched a cool eyebrow.

"So what did you find?" Sonia asked, pulling away from her husband. "Was it them? The men who attacked you, Olivia?"

Charlie glanced at Olivia and nodded. "Liv thinks so. They have a compound a few blocks to the south, on Beacon Street. An apartment building, with wings out to either side and a barricade of heavy equipment across the front. Looks pretty secure."

"It's about a mile from where we abandoned that Humvee, Peter," Olivia specified. She moved a step closer. "It's gotta be them. I saw motorcycles inside their perimeter, men wearing colors on their jackets — like that guy we saw. They were burning what looked like furniture in a big dumpster, hence all the smoke."

"How many are there?" Peter asked evenly. He intended to keep his emotions on a short leash. "And how close did you get?"

"Close enough," Charlie replied. "We watched them from the Holiday Inn across the street. I counted eleven inside the barricade, and there could be more inside the apartments that we didn't see."

"That many? Why haven't we run into them before?"

"You mean other than when they shot you?" Olivia snorted. "Who knows? Maybe they haven't had a good reason to go north yet. Maybe they don't want to walk and haven't found a place to cross over the Charles. They seem to like their vehicles."

"She's right about that," Charlie agreed, grimacing at a sharp bite of wind. "I feel a hell of a lot better about our haul from the Federal Building. They've got enough military hardware in there for a small army. Humvees with machine guns, some with grenade launchers. I think they even had an armored personnel carrier under a tarp. They must be hoarding everything they come across."

"This is great and all, but it's freezing out here," Sonia broke in. She tugged at her husband's arm, pulling back toward the house. "Can't we talk about this inside, out of this wind? We left Phillip sleeping on the couch. And the house we found had plenty of food. I know you're hungry, Charlie. You haven't eaten anything all day."

Charlie nodded and threw an arm over his wife's shoulder. "Sounds like heaven," he said, and glanced over his shoulder at Olivia when she made no move to follow. "You two coming?"

"We'll be there in minute, Charlie," Olivia said with a tiny nod.

Her eyes were distant as she waited for them to leave, lips thin and pulled back to one side. Peter held his breath. He would have given anything to know what she was thinking. Though from the stony, unreadable look she was sporting, he wasn't sure he wanted to find out. Finally, when the Francises were out of earshot, she looked his way. Snow fell silently in the space between them.

"Do you trust me at all, Peter?" she asked in a soft voice. "Because if we're gonna do this — you and me...you're gonna have to trust me. That's the only way this will ever work."

"I do trust you. Probably more than I've trusted anyone in my life..." As the words spilled from his mouth, he realized that they were the simple truth. He had never trusted anyone like he did her. Not even his mother, who had always been holding something back, some secret she refused to tell or even acknowledge, yet wore plainly on her face. What did that mean? He thought of Sonia and her question. Were they one and the same? "But...what was that about back there? What did you think I was going to do? Don't you trust me?"

"Of course I do," she said, and clapped a hand to her forehead. "Why would you think otherwise? Because I took Charlie over you?"

"Well—" he started, but she kept going as if hadn't spoken.

"That had nothing to do with you. I took Charlie because I wanted him to know that  _I_  still trusted  _him_  after what happened in the Federal Building. He needed to know that I wasn't wondering in the back of my mind if he was losing his. Now do you understand?"

Peter winced and lowered his gaze under the force of her onslaught. He understood he'd been a much bigger fool than previously thought. Sonia had been right all along. Perhaps leaving him behind was the right choice no matter her reason; he clearly hadn't been thinking straight.

Scrubbing a hand through his wet hair, he met her cold gaze. "Shit... This is all my fault, Olivia," he admitted. "Obviously, you were right. And if I'd been thinking at all, I would have seen it from the get go. Will you let me make it up to you?"

"I don't know. Can you?" Her tone sounded imperious, but there was a slight quaver at the corner of her lips that he took as a good sign.

"I've got some raisins," he offered with a crooked smile, and dipped is hand into his pocket. "You want some? They're still fresh."

"Raisins...?" Olivia spluttered with indignation. "You've got raisins? Wait. Did you say they were still fresh?"

Peter nodded, and her eyes filled with lust.

#

The snow had tapered off with the setting sun, trickling to a stop as if they were running on the same timer. The cloud-layer had moved on also, leaving behind an ethereal darkness. Overhead the third quarter moon and stars numbering in the billions provided pale luminescence, and the blanket of white that covered the outside world glistened with prismatic light. Gentle gusts of wind rocked low-hanging tree branches capped with snow to and fro, and the restless shadows mimicked them inversely, creak for creak.

Peter brooded in the darkness of an upstairs bedroom, peering out the window at the night sky in all its spangled glory. He found the stillness soothing in a sad sort of way. And also otherworldly, almost magical, though a dark magic it was, fit only for the cold and pain and death, and for the wilting of souls. For extinction. He shifted his gaze downward. Other than their muted footprints leading up to the front porch, the snow was smooth and unblemished. And so it would remain. The giant snow-plows that had once prowled at night would remain quiet in their pens. When morning came round, not a single shovel's scrape would be heard; echoing from here or there, down the street or the next one over; nor the joyous cries of children, waking up to a fresh blanket of white and with a little luck, a day's reprieve from the monotony of schoolwork. Snowmen were things of the past, as were forts, and sledding, and snowball fights. And people. The long goodnight was just over the horizon, growing ever closer. Such were the nature of his thoughts when he was alone. Dark and gloomy. Waiting for the inevitable. Brooding.

Floorboards creaked in the hallway. His mood improved at once as the door behind him snicked softly shut, and the quiet whisk of cloth announced Olivia's presence in the room. He listened to her slight huffs of breath as she moved about the room, going about her nightly routine with her usual efficiency, even by moonlight. Neither of them spoke, but that was okay; the silence was comfortable, even easy. He felt her gaze on him occasionally, lingering as she pulled off her boots or ran her little folding brush through her lengthy hair. She told him she was thinking of cutting it short. Part of him hoped she didn't, but either way it was her choice. As it should be.

He did love her.

It had hit him as he'd watched her savor a mouthful of raisins, at the light dancing in her eyes, her eager smile with snow dusting her cheeks. That smile. He wanted to always make her smile, to make her happy, no matter the cost to himself. Did she feel the same? He didn't know and it didn't matter. Whatever piece of herself she chose to share with him was enough, for now. The mattress squeaked, and the quiet patter of her footsteps approached from behind.

"What is it, Peter?" Olivia asked in hushed tone. She dragged a hand across his back as she moved to stand beside him in an anemic shaft of light. "What's out there? No strange lights in the sky, I hope?"

With a smile, Peter turned from the window. "No, not this time. Not unless you're counting the constellation Perseus as strange."

"Perseus? As in beheaded Medusa, Perseus?"

"The very one. I've never seen it so bright from inside the city before. Look." He pointed out the most luminous star in the constellation, Alpha Persei, and then its slightly less bright counterpart, Algol. Afterward, he noticed Olivia eyeing him askance. "What?" he asked, dropping his hand.

"Stargazing...?"

With a chuckle, Peter swiped his fingers through his hair. "In truth, I was just...thinking," he said, stretching out a sudden kink in his neck. Olivia's eyebrows lifted and he waited for the inevitable inquiry on the nature of his thoughts, but she merely nodded and turned back to the window. Glancing down at her profile, he found himself wanting desperately to tell her. He opened his mouth, but the words stuck in his throat. The realization was too new, too uncertain still. He would tell her someday, when the timing was better, or more likely, when he could be more certain of her reaction. Instead, he opted for the other truth.

"I was thinking about all this snow," he elaborated, nodding out the window. "You ever have snow days when you were a kid?"

"You mean from school?" Olivia shrugged and shook her head. "I grew up in the south mostly, near Jacksonville, Florida. We didn't get much snow there, and if we did, it was a statewide emergency."

"Well, we definitely had them here, but not so many as you might think, considering how much snow falls annually. The city had a lot of practice at clearing up the mess. They were efficient. But every once in a while, we'd get dumped on, a foot or two overnight. In the morning, everyone would be glued to the TV, watching tickers for school closings. And if yours was there..." He paused, smiling at the memory — one of the few clear ones he had of his early childhood — before continuing. "Well, it was a good times to be had by all. I remember standing on my front porch once, up to my knees in snow, and just listening. You could hear all the kids in the neighborhood, their excitement, like Christmas morning. And all the while, the adults were just trying to dig themselves out and make it to work before noon, be it by snowblower, or shovel. You could hear them all over."

"And it's going to be silent tomorrow," Olivia said quietly, and snaked an arm around his waist. "Isn't it?"

"Yeah. Something like that."

She nodded against his shoulder. "Well, I'm sure Ella's happy about it. She's gotta be getting bored by now."

Peter hadn't considered her niece. "True enough," he said, and then grinned at a sudden image. "Hey, maybe she and Walter made Frosty the Snowman this afternoon. He's kind of like a child. I'm sure he likes playing in the snow."

Olivia smiled at his quip, but made no comment. "I saw him, Peter...," she murmured after a while. Her gaze remained fixedly out the window.

"Who?"

"The man who shot you."

Peter jerked from the window and reached for her hand. "Wait. You  _saw_  him? The guy in the Humvee?"

"He was right there," she affirmed, and returned his tight grip. "Standing next to the fire. I'm pretty sure he was drinking a beer."

"You sure it was him? Why didn't you say something earlier?"

"I never forget a face — it's a...thing I can do," she said, sounding oddly self-conscious. "I got a good look at him through the binoculars when we were running for the bridge, and then again, afterward." Her face grew hard in the moonlight. "It was him. I didn't mention it earlier because...what happened was between us — you and me — and him, alone."

Heat suffused Peter's face. He held himself still as a series of emotions washed through him in quick succession; red rage that made him want to reach for his pistol, then outrage that the fellow could be doing something so normal a drinking a beer, and finally a trickle of fear as the memory of the river came back to him, of the pain, of struggling to keep his head above water. The bastard had shot him, had tried to kill him, for no other reason than for sport. For fun. She'd been right not to bring him, even it had been for a different reason. Before, when there had still been some chance that it wasn't them, he was certain that he could have controlled himself. Now, with confirmation that it was, he wasn't at all sure he would have remained rational if he'd been confronted with the man's face. Taking a deep breath, he forced his jaw to relax and found Olivia watching him.

"What do we do?" he asked in an even tone.

"What do we do?" Olivia shrugged. "Short of attacking them from cover, there's nothing we can do. I'm not a murderer, Peter, and neither are you. And besides, there are too many of them. I think it would be best if we just avoided them altogether, like we have been."

"And if they come north into Cambridge?"

"There's no reason to think they will," she said, "as long as we don't draw attention to ourselves. It's been almost two months now and they haven't yet. Maybe they think they killed us all at the bridge, or that the infected did. If that ever changes, well, that's why we loaded up the truck." She stepped away from the window as if the matter were settled and pulled him toward the queen-sized bed in the center of the room. "The others are already asleep. We should be too."

#

Much later, Peter's eyes snapped open to shadows and pale darkness. There had been something; a noise somewhere, a sensation, perhaps. It had tickled at his awareness, chipped away until he'd been pulled from a dreamless sleep.

Still foggy, he threw darting glances around the unfamiliar bedroom, attempting to regain his bearings. Olivia was still asleep on the mattress beside him, lying on her side and breathing softly, arms tucked beneath her pillow. He watched her for a moment, as she was the only thing in the room that seemed real. But she wasn't the source. It had been something else, something faint, and not part of the natural rhythm of night. Had it come from inside or outside the house?

His breath was visible in a long shaft of moonlight that fell across the hardwood floor, and stretching most of the way across the bed. It was sublimely warm beneath the thick layer of blankets and quilts, warm enough that most of their clothes lay on the floor in a heap beside the bed. The mattress squeaked as he reached for his belt and holstered pistol on the nightstand. Olivia stirred at the sound. Her skin was silken heat burning against his thigh. They'd left the blinds open for light and the night sky was brighter than it had been, the stars winking out one by one. Sunrise was close, no more than an hour or two away.

Yet the night remained silent. Had he been dreaming then? The dregs of sleep began sinking their barbed claws in again, dragging him back down into the comfortable heat.

And then he heard it.

A faint tapping that kept repeating, like a woodpecker or drum solo playing in the distance. The staccato percussion stood out against the abandoned house's silent backdrop. The beat stopped suddenly, falling silent for several seconds, then started up again.

It was not a natural sound.

Fully awake now, Peter sat up slowly, so as not to disturb Olivia. He yawned silently, rubbing the crumbs of sleep from his eyes, then swung his legs out of bed. The hardwood squeaked and felt like ice, and he bit off a gasp as he stood upright, swaying on bare feet. He tilted his head and listened, but the noise had stopped again. Steady breathing could be heard from the bed, and his own heartbeat, and silence.

_What was that?_  he thought, holding himself still. There had been something familiar about it, about its cadence, about its muted resonance through the walls. He'd heard something like it before, somewhere, somewhen. Before. But when? Before Boston? It came to him as the sound started up again. He'd been in a posh hotel room. In Iraq. The noise had woken him in the night.

Not drums.  _Gunfire_. Had he not been half-asleep, he would have recognized it at once.

Peter rushed to the window. The lower pane was locked and he fumbled for the latches before sliding it up and letting in a blast of frigid air. Accompanying the cold was the unmistakable rattled of automatic weapons firing in the night. The concussions sent chills down his spine.

"'Livia!" he hissed, throwing a glance over his shoulder at her sinuous form beneath the covers. "Olivia. Wake up!"

Olivia groaned and rolled toward his vacated pillow. She lifted her head, peering about until she spotted him by the window. "Peter...?" she said in a groggy voice. "What the hell are you doing? And why is the window open? What's going on?"

He shook his head, holding his hand up, palm outward. "There's something happening outside. Listen."

Something in his tone must have grabbed her attention and she sat up, hugging the blankets to her chest. Her hair spilled forward, covering her face like a shroud as she fell silent. "Is that what I think it is?" she asked, then tossed the covers aside and vaulted out of bed. If the floor was cold on her bare feet she showed no sign of it as she hurried to his side. "Oh my god...," she breathed as the gunfire continued in uneven stops and starts. "It sounds like some kind of pitched battle. Where's it coming from? What direction?"

Peter shoved his head out of the window and listened. "Can't tell," he reported after a moment. The single window in the room faced northward.

"The window in the other room, Peter. Quick!" Olivia said, turning from the open window.

She was gone in a blink, vanishing out of the room in a flash of fluttering white t-shirt and pale skin. Peter was right behind her, following her outline across the hall. In the next room, she slammed up the southward facing window and let in the night. The difference in volume was at once apparent. Some kind of firefight was happening, mere blocks away. To the south. Beneath the layers of gunfire, faint shouts could be heard — orders, and desperate from the sound of them.

"It's them, Olivia," he said as they leaned over the window sill and stared out into the glimmering snow, more silver than white beneath the setting moon. "It's gotta be them. There's no one else out there, not this close, not to the south."

As he finished, the gunfire stopped, leaving behind a gulf of silence, a dead calm, that was shattered a moment later by a single, echoing gunshot that startled them both. The gunshot was followed by something else. Something chilling. Peter felt his hair stand on end as the noise was cut abruptly short.

Olivia stiffened against his side. "Was that a scream?" she whispered in the aftermath.

"I don't know what else it could be," he said. He wondered who it had been, and if, by some stroke of fortune, the man who'd shot him had just met an untimely end. "They didn't sound like they were having much fun."

When no further commotion ensued outside, she lowered the window and peered up at him in the darkness. "Let's wake the others. They'll want to know about this."

"You want to go check it out, don't you?" he asked, reaching for her hand as she started for the door. "I'm not staying behind this time, Olivia."

She gave his hand an insistent tug. He couldn't quite make out her face in the dimness, but from the tilt of her head, he thought that she might be smiling faintly.

"I know you aren't. C'mon."

#

The snow was much deeper than Peter had thought it would be, nearly halfway up his shins in some places. He plodded along beside Olivia, with Charlie and Sonia just ahead, cutting a trail down the buried sidewalk. Grudgingly, he could admit that Charlie may have been right about leaving the Federal Building sooner than later — not that it made any difference now. The point had become moot when they'd decided to stay in the house for the night instead of pushing on to Cambridge.

If they were following the same path Olivia and Charlie had taken the day before, he couldn't tell; the way ahead was smooth and windblown, unmarred by man or animal. Despite the sun having not yet risen, there was no need for flashlights, as the snow glowed with a light all on its own. He imagined it soaking up the daylight like a dry sponge.

And as he'd expected, the stillness was disquieting.

They would pass by a pristine driveway or a front yard, and his mind's eye would summon the image of how things should be; of some parent late for work, struggling to make lines with their snow-shovel; or a pack of children making crisscrossing paths through the snow, yelling, screaming, snowballs flying in all directions. There was nothing — no wind, no sound at all other than their muffled footfalls. No birds calling, no dogs barking, nothing to say that there was anything at all still alive in the world, other than themselves.

He glanced to his right at Olivia walking stolidly beside him. "You sure it was a good idea to leave Broyles alone?" he said. "The man could barely lift the gun we left him. Or stay awake to use it."

"Sonia wasn't staying behind anymore than you were, Peter," she replied under her breath. "Broyles will be fine. The house is closed up, and it's not like there's anyone around. And we shouldn't be gone long, I hope."

Peter hoped so too. His toes were already feeling the chill, and his fingers also through the thin leather of his gloves. They didn't have far to go, however, as he could already make out a wide silhouette rising above the trees no more than a block or two away.

"That the Holiday Inn?" he asked, nodding toward the structure.

"Yeah. Their compound is across from it, on the other side of Beacon Street. We watched them from a...fourth floor window," Olivia said with an odd grimace. "They never even glanced in our direction."

Peter wondered at her look of distaste, but she didn't elaborate. "Well...they probably weren't expecting any visitors," he said. "Though maybe they should have been."

"What kind of visitors though?" Her hand strayed to the pistol on her hip. "Were they attacked? Or was it just infected?"

"I guess we'll find out shortly," he replied, and thought of the scream they'd heard at the very end.

It had not been a shout of victory, that much was certain. More like of agony, or a death-throe. He wondered what they were walking into, and scanned the empty homes and apartments on either side of the street. They had yet to see even a single infected since leaving the house, nor had there been any tracks in the snow. He thought it was a safe assumption that whoever had attacked them, they'd come from some other direction. South, maybe, or from the west. There's been no sign of anyone to the east, and the only people to the north was their own group in Cambridge.

Beacon Street drew closer, and the larger structures located there obscured most of the horizon. A tall office building covered in evergreen ivy stood on the corner. They moved into its shadow, hopping over a low fence, then crossed over an empty parking lot to reach a narrow alley that ran behind the hotel and bisected the block. The snow-layer was thinner there, and Peter saw the first signs of Olivia's and Charlie's passage the previous day, in a line of vague footprints that led straight to the hotel's rear entrance. A low canopy shrouded the entrance in shadow. Greater blackness seeped out below the canopy, through a gaping metal-framed door, bare of glass or any other adornments. Charlie ducked beneath the door's crossbar first, followed by Sonia, each accompanied by the crunch of broken glass underfoot on the concrete threshold.

"Were there any infected in here yesterday?" Peter whispered to Olivia as he ducked inside. Just visible in the gloom, a body lay crumbled against the corridor wall. A faint cloud of decay surrounded it.

Olivia followed after him, shaking her head. "No. The hotel was already cleared. All we found were old bodies and...well, you'll see."

"See what?"

She didn't answer, and instead brushed past him, following after Sonia's fading shadow.

_Already cleared_. The realization struck home. They were in someone else's territory. Peter eyed the body on the floor, then hurried after them.

#

Charlie led them straight to an open door not from the rear entrance. Inside was an abyssal stairwell. Using a cupped headlamp as their only source of light, they worked their way up through the darkness to the fourth floor, where the stairwell exited into the middle of a corridor that appeared to go one forever, instead of just the length of the building. Windows at either end provided a subtle and gray illumination. Broken bodies lay here and there — someone else's handiwork.

"This way," Charlie's silhouette said softly, nodding to the right, where an open doorway far down the hall cast a slanted square of silver light. "We found the room open, and there's a body in it. The only reason I didn't mention it before is 'cause it's...messed up, and I thought we were never coming back here. But, it's bad. Real bad."

"Bad how?" Sonia hissed, grabbing her husband's arm.

"You'll see," Olivia murmured, repeating her cryptic words from below. "Just...don't let it startle you. As bad as it is, it's not what we're here for."

Peter snorted. "Whatever it is you're gonna show us, you two aren't helping at all."

"Hey, no kidding," Sonia agreed. "I'm not sure it could be worse than what I'm imagining in my head."

"I doubt you've ever imagined this," Olivia said quietly.

The utter revulsion in her tone sent a trickle of unease through him, collecting in the pit of his stomach like he'd swallowed lead weights. For her to sound so disturbed — after everything she had seen and experienced, before the outbreak and after — it must be bad indeed. Why hadn't she mentioned it to him when they were alone? He couldn't fathom that she'd somehow forgotten. She didn't forget, not anything, as far as he could tell.

"You coming, Peter?" she said, turning back as the others moved off down the corridor without them.

"Oh, I'm right behind you," he muttered, hurrying to her side. "Can't wait to see what's next."

They wove a path through a trail of bodies, past closed door after closed door. He checked one at random and found it locked, secured by the now-defunct electronic deadbolt. Were there any former people in any of them? Something, some feeling told him otherwise. After all the abandoned buildings he'd visited since the start of the outbreak, those that were empty had a way about them, a quality in the air that he'd come to trust, though not completely. It never hurt to be careful, after all.

When they reached the open room, he found Sonia standing paralyzed just inside the doorway. He squeezed by her, then saw the source of her shock.

The room reeked of death. On the bed lay a body, naked and spread-eagle, highlighted by light from the window facing the street. A woman. Golden haired and young, and from the smoothness of her skin, he thought she would have been in her twenties when she'd turned, maybe even younger. The body had no discernible injuries — other than the bloody gash across her throat that had ended her first life, and a gaping wound in her temple that had ended her second. Thick leather belts secured her wrists to the headboard, and another was clamped tight between her teeth, giving her a feral likeness. On the floor beside the bed was a pile of neatly folded clothes sitting atop a pair of boots that were small, sized for a woman. And then he noticed a small paper box lying on the dresser, the sort one could buy at pharmacies everywhere, and bits of trash littering the carpet at the foot of the bed. Trash, Peter took one look at, then backed away as the true horror of what had taken place became clear.

His back struck the wall beside a small desk. "What the fuck...?" he said through a gasp. The lead in his gut rolled violently, accompanied by the sour taste of bile. "They were...they..." He found he couldn't say it. It was too awful. Too vile be spoken aloud.

"Yes...," Olivia said from the doorway. Her voice was forced and wooden, either without emotion, or so full of it, it was all she could do to contain them. "She...it was still animated when we found it. I think... I think they kept coming back. Even afterward."

"Sick fucks," Charlie muttered from off to one side. His eyes were anywhere but on the body. "I hope they got some kind of disease."

Sonia turned away from the bed and rushed into the room's bathroom, where she vomited noisily into the sink. Peter ignored her, dazed by the blatant sense of wrongness emanating from the bed. It was almost tangible, like some kind of dark star. How long had they kept her there before killing her? His eyes strayed to the woman's golden hair and his mouth went dry.

All of a sudden he was back in the lifeguard's office on the day he'd been shot. He'd woken with a terrible fear; that the men who'd shot him had gone after Olivia, after Rachel and little Ella. He was looking at their fate, or something like it. His stomach heaved again, and for several precarious seconds, he thought he might be joining Sonia in the bathroom.

"This is just wrong," Peter said, and scraped a gloved hand across his mouth. "Wrong on so many fucking levels."

Glancing around the room, he snatched up a comforter lying in the corner and draped it over the woman's body on his way to the window. He had to see them. See the human trash responsible for such evil. And it was evil. True evil. He had never considered himself a particularly moral person. Religion had no place in his world view; one couldn't be moral or religious, and do some of the things he had done. But the woman on the bed was beyond the pale. And rabid dogs had to be put down.

"I probably should have said something earlier," Olivia said, stepping up beside him at the window. "But it was just... I really didn't want to talk about it."

"I get it," he said with a shrug. "And I don't blame you. I wouldn't have wanted to talk about it either."

Talking about it was like seeing it all over again. And for her, he suspected it was more than that. They had never discussed it, but from his observations of her in the field, she had an ability to recall the tiniest details of a crime scene with perfect precision. He figured her memory was borderline eidetic — maybe even the real deal — and wondered how much horror she had packed away in the back of her mind. Details from the old world, and from the new. Was she re-living them constantly, memories triggered by a splatter of blood, by the arrangement of a body? It was no wonder she seemed distant at times.

Peter turned his attention to the view outside the window, to the wide expanse of Beacon Street below. The Green Line ran down its center, lined a by a row of trees running parallel on either side of the tracks. Straight across from the window was the apartment building in question; four stories tall, with brownish-red masonry. He thought it looked vaguely familiar, but then again most of the apartment buildings in the area were of a similar appearance, so he didn't put much stock in his memory. The main wing was set back from the street, creating an inner courtyard flanked by additional wings to the east and west. The courtyard had been open to the street, before, but was now barricaded off by a pair of black dump trucks and a rusted yellow crane. The crane's boom rose toward the sky, with the hook dangling below.

Was the crane still in use? And where had they found it and the trucks? Such vehicles were not sitting around Boston for anyone to grab. He supposed it made no difference. Behind the trucks was a row of Humvees parked to one side, and a formless black shape far back in the shadows. The personnel carrier? A thin wisp of smoke still rose from a dumpster in the center of the yard. The snow surrounding it was pocked with irregular dark patches that could have been anything. Someone's poor attempt at clearing away the snow? The light inside the courtyard was spotty at best, though he could make out what looked like a ring of camp chairs sitting around the fire.

"Where the hell is everyone?" he said, glancing at Olivia. "From the amount of gunfire we heard, I was kind of expecting there to be an army walking around in there. Or something." The courtyard was still and silent — as if it had always been that way, and not a single source of light or life stirred in any of the apartment building windows.

"I don't know," Olivia murmured, sounding troubled.

Charlie stepped between them and peered outside. "Huh. There was a guy on watch in the back of one of the trucks when we were here yesterday. That one on the end facing east."

"And another in the west wing, top floor window," Olivia added, then crossed her arms and stepped back, giving Sonia room to look also. "I don't like this. You're right, Peter. With what we heard, there should be someone up and about. Something feels off, about all of this."

Sonia took one look out the window and shook her head. "What, do they cook marshmallows around the fire when they're not raping corpses—" She inhaled sharply and pressed her face to the glass. "Wait. I think I see someone. I see someone!"

"What? Where?" Peter said, turning back to the window. "I don't see anything."

"Me neither, hon," Charlie added.

"Right there, Charlie," she insisted, tapping on the glass. "On the ground in the snow, to the left of that dumpster. Something's moving, or was. It's stopped now."

Peter looked again and felt a light touch as Olivia peered over his shoulder. The dumpster continued to trickle out smoke. To its left, there were only more of the dark patches in the snow he'd noticed before. One of them? He wiped the fog from the window and looked closer, holding his breath. For innumerable heartbeats everything was still, but then he saw it. Movement. An arm? A leg kicking in the snow? Or was it an illusion?

"I see them," Olivia hissed. Her grip on his shoulder tightened. "I think they're crawling."

Charlie nodded also. "I see it too. But what do we do about it? Looks like they're injured, and I don't know about you, but I'm getting the feeling that no one's coming to help them."

A long silence passed before anyone replied, the only sounds that of their combined breathing. Finally, Olivia pulled back from the window.

"We could help them," she said stoically. "Or not. What do you want to do, Peter?"

She was asking him? Peter met her gaze. Her eyes betrayed nothing, not a hint of what she was thinking. Was it a test? Or was she offering a chance for some kind of closure. Was there even a difference? He looked down at the body struggling in the snow. The obscenity on the bed alone was enough to justify a bullet in the brain, in his opinion. But what if it wasn't one of the men from the truck? Or if they had nothing to do with the dead woman? The body's separation from the compound suggested someone had been trying to hide it. Either that, or they just didn't want to shit where they ate. But there was no proof, short of questioning them.  _I'm not a murderer, Peter, and neither are you._ She was too good for the likes of him, and likely always would be.

He turned to her, ignoring the others in the room. The soft lines of her face were cast in shadow, unreadable in the dimness of the hotel room. "You know, despite almost every part of me wanting nothing more than to leave whoever that is for the infected, you were right before," he told her. "We're not killers, and if we just leave them for dead, then we're no different than they are."

From the way Olivia's eyebrows shot upward, she'd been expecting him to say something different. He was happy to surprise her, for once. Maybe he was becoming too predictable in his old age.

"I agree," she said. "We can at least see if they can be saved, and if not, maybe they can at least tell us what happened."

"You two aren't suggesting we go  _in_  there, are you? Charlie scoffed, glancing between them both. "'Cause that's nuts. Whoever did that could still be there. And from what I've seen in this room, I'm not sure they deserve to be saved. Tell them, babe."

"I have to agree with my husband on this one, Olivia," Sonia said, shaking her head. "I don't care who that is. If they were keeping company with someone that would do this..." She paused, and threw an angry finger at the bed behind them. "Then they're not worth the risk. I say we leave them."

"Fine. We don't all have to go," Olivia suggested, raising her hands. "I want to know what happened here, Charlie. You two can keep watch from up here. Signal us if anything moves or approaches from the street. Infected, people. Anything at all."

Charlie's eyebrows knitted together. "Signal you? And how do you propose we do that?"

Peter searched the window frame for a latch of some kind, and finding none, grabbed a pillow off the floor. He held it up to the window pane with one hand, and then, with the others looking on, drove his elbow through the glass. The pillow dulled the crash and jagged shards fell silently to the sidewalk below.

"There. That wasn't so hard was it?" he said with a smirk, tossing the pillow aside. "Use the red light if you need to get our attention. And if that doesn't work, just shout."

#

* * *

#

The barricade across the street stood silent, draped in layers of snow. Crumbling curtains fell over hoods, tires, atop pairs of wiperblades lying flat against windshields. To the east, the first bars of sunlight were just beginning to peek through the gaps between structures, vanguards of the coming day.

Normally Olivia would have savored the moment, that singular instant in time when darkness was laid to rest for another day. When anything seemed possible. It was her favorite time of day. And on a normal day, she would have noticed it. But not on that morning. The barricade held her attention, and she was hardly aware of the dawn.

She glanced at Peter crouched against the opposite wall of the entrance vestibule, at his breath rising in wisps of condensation. His left hand rested on the grip of his pistol, squeezing and relaxing in turn. His shoulder was feeling better. Almost as good as new, or so he claimed. She had yet to see any proof otherwise.

"What do you think?" Peter's low voice pulled her back to the present. "It's now or never, Olivia. That guy didn't look like he had much time left."

Olivia checked the apartment building's blackened windows one more time. There were no obvious signs of life, but someone could be watching the street at that moment. Or not. It was impossible to know, short of stepping out of the shadows. Was it worth it? She harbored no delusions regarding their chances of saving anyone who was seriously injured — not with their lack of expertise or equipment. But she had to know.

"Let's go," she decided with a nod. "Stay close and don't stop until we reach the trucks." Taking in a deep breath, she gathered herself, forcing all her stray thoughts, her worries, her fears — all of it, far back into the distant recesses of her mind, until all that was left was a flat line of determination. She met Peter's and found a similar resolve!. "Follow me."

She ducked out of the entrance. The hotel's front entrance doors were missing, yanked from their hinges, and she leapt over their twisted metal frames poking out of a drift on the sidewalk. The snow was shin-deep and crunched with every step as she angled toward the center of the barricade, where an overturned vehicle — a pickup truck, she thought, as its rusted underside drew near — bridged the gap between the second dump truck and the crane, which was massive up close, the sort she imagined being used in constructing bridges or building skyscrapers. She dashed between the trees running down the center of the street and nearly fell on her face, courtesy of the hidden subway track. She stumbled along for several steps, then Peter's hand closed about her arm, holding her steady. Some part of her waited for the cry of alarm, or of warning, or even worse, the crack of gunshots, but none came. Nor did any warnings come from Charlie or Sonia, who were surely watching from their vantage point above.

They came to a stop in the shadow of the second dump truck. Olivia crouched, catching her breath beside a waist-high tire ripped with bullet holes. She looked up and noticed the dump truck's cab was in similar shape and that the windshield was missing altogether. Peter's brow furrowed and he took a closer look at the truck's fender.

"What is it?" she whispered.

He rubbed his fingertip over several of the bullet holes. "It's all old rust," he mouthed in her ear. "Either they've been using their wall for target practice, or they've been attacked before. But these didn't happen tonight. I don't think any of them did."

Olivia glanced up at the pitted metal, then out into the street. His reasoning made sense, but then who, or what, had they been attacking? She gathered a stray bang behind her ear, then pulled Peter by his sleeve toward the truck lying on its side. From its mangled undercarriage, it too had been used for target practice. Oddly, a pair of thin cables were attached to each of the truck's exposed wheels.  _Is this supposed to be some kind of gate?_  she wondered with a frown, and followed the cables upward, until they came together at the crane's hook suspended high so, it all seemed needlessly complicated. Not like their van.

She climbed up the underside of the truck, using its myriad of mechanical parts like a ladder, then reached down for Peter's hand and pulled him up beside her, onto a battered and rusted passenger door. When they turned around, the view inside set her heart pounding, turned her blood into ice. Details that had been a blur from high up across the street came into sharp focus.

"Oh my god...," she said in a whisper, unable to pull her gaze from the scene. "What the hell happened here, Peter?"

What lay inside could only be described as a massacre. Bodies lay at all angles, legs and arms askew amid mounds of snow turned crimson. She counted eight bodies before even being dully cognizant of doing so, and found ninth directly beneath them. The body — a man, she guessed from his attire — lay face in the snow as if he'd been trying to make it to the wall when he'd been struck down. Dark hair matted with blood fell over a leather coat torn to shreds.

"Don't say I never take you anywhere," Peter said hoarsely, then thrust a finger toward the dumpster smoking in the center of the yard. "Look! He's still alive."

A body she'd taken for one of the dead was moving, pulling himself through the snow toward the wall. Toward them. Did he see them? A bearded, bloody face, twisted in a grimace of pain lifted in their direction. Behind him was a trail of red snow. As they watched, the man raised one hand in a plea, grasping at the air, then collapsed face down into the snow. It was not the man who'd shot Peter, of that she was certain.

"We have to help him," Olivia said, keeping her voice low, eyes peeled on the man's still form. "Or at least question him before he dies."

When she went to drop down inside the perimeter, Peter's hand closed around her arm, holding her back. "Woah, woah. Olivia, stop. What do you think you're doing?"

Olivia gave him a sharp glare and jerked free of his grip. "What am  _I_  doing...? What are  _you_  doing? We came down her to help him, remember?"

"And we will help him, if we can, but first..." He glanced around as if searching for something, then shrugged and pulled his pistol free of its holster.

"What...?"

Instead of answering, he reversed his grip on the pistol and smashed it down on the truck's rusted fender. The metal rang like a gong, and the vibration shot up through her legs. And then he did it again, and then a third time, a fourth. Understanding came a moment later, when several of the bodies in the courtyard began to stir. Five of them sat up as one, revealing eyes of gold and skin pale with death. All were men, or had been, with hair and beards that could have been any color, all wreathed in snow speckled red.

Olivia's cheeks burned at the mild look Peter gave her. "It stands to reason that with all the fighting we heard, somebody might have died, right?" he commented dryly as the infected men staggered upright. He straightened, keeping his gun drawn. "And I don't know about you, but I like our chances a whole lot better up here, don't you think?"

Of course there would be undead. In her haste, she had somehow forgotten them. The freshes tottered toward the barricade — toward themselves — slowly at first, and comically uncoordinated, as if it required several steps to become acquainted with their bodies, and then with gathering speed as they finally did so, kicking up sprays of snow before them. They displayed horrific injuries; a missing arm, a hand, chests ripped open, guts spilling out and dragging in the snow like the foulest of afterbirths. One in particular caught her eye. But before she could mention it to Peter, the infected ran full tilt into the truck without slowing.

The infected had not been small men in life, but the thudding impacts rocked the truck far more than she expected — far more than they should have. The fender swayed beneath her, throwing Olivia's balance off at the unexpected lurch. She grabbed for a nonexistent handhold, and had time to utter a single, " _Peter!_ " and then she was tipping forward, falling forward into the snapping teeth and mustard eyes glazed over with hunger.

"Olivia!"

A hand grabbed her from behind and hauled her backwards, away from the reaching hands. "I got you," Peter said, holding her against his chest. His free arm was hooked around one of the thin cables, pistol still in hand. "You know, something tells me this truck isn't entirely on the ground."

"You don't say..." She gave a nervous laugh, eyes frozen on the freshes' teeth as they growled and spit, frenzied, overcome with bloodlust. They looked and sounded as if they might start foaming at the mouth at any moment. When she found her footing, Peter released her and she stepped away from him, grabbing hold of the other cable for support. Grasping fingers clawed for their feet, but did little more than paw at their shoelaces. She had never seen so many freshes up close before, not at least without a wall or fence separating them. They truly were different than their older, more decayed counterparts. More than mere vestiges of their former humanity remained, and likewise, the change was all the more ghastly, almost warped somehow, like she were looking into a fun-house mirror. Her gaze fell on one in particular, on its black beard and wide nose. She eased her pistol free and gestured at the infected. "That's him, Peter," she said softly. "Right there."

"Who?"

"The man who shot you," she replied, glancing over at him. "That's him — the one with dark beard and flat nose."

"Are you sure?" Peter's voice was deadly quiet, and Olivia detected a sudden stillness about him, a tension, like a coiled spring about to release.

She thought back to that day on the bridge, to her exquisite, white-hot rage. On that day, at least, and in that moment, murder had been a distinct possibility. "I'm positive," she told him. "After you fell off the bridge, I got a good look at him. I was...so angry, Peter. I promised myself I was going to kill him if I ever saw him again, murder or not."

He stared down at the infected, jaw flexing beneath his beard. "Looks like somebody beat you to it," he commented in in a dry tone laced with steel undercurrents. "...May I?"

"Be my guest," she said with a shrug, then pointed her gun at the next fresh in line and squeezed the trigger.

The combined echoes of their gunshots ricocheted around the courtyard, and the bodies dropped one by one into snow decorated with gore. Peter's attacker was the last to go down. He squatted down in front of its frothing face, and taking careful aim inches from its head, fired a single shot between its eyes. The infected's head snapped back and it toppled sideways over the others and lay still.

"Feel better?" Olivia asked as he straightened slowly, knees popping in the cold.

He met her gaze for a moment, then fired another round into the dead man's skull for good measure. Afterward, he exhaled a long, slow breath, and dropped his gun back into its holster. "Now I do."

#

The man was barely alive when they reached his side. His dilated pupils drifted in and out of focus when they rolled him over on his back, gazing sightlessly on the sky above. If he was aware of them, or of anything else for that matter, he gave no sign of it when Olivia tried to get his attention. His front side was drenched in blood, the source of which was not immediately apparent as he gasped weakly, bubbling up froths of blood with every exhale.

"Can we help him?" Olivia inquired. "Can he even see us?"

Peter slid the fellow's eyelid back with his thumb, then felt his forehead. "I'm fairly certain he's deep in shock," he said, glancing up with a slight shake of his head. "I don't know. I think he's lost too much blood." He peeled back the man's coat with two fingers, exposing a gaping wound covering most of the man's right side and gasped. "Woah... This wasn't done by a gun, Olivia. He should be dead already."

A deep sense of foreboding settled over Olivia as she inspected the man's wounds. His shirt was torn to shreds, the flesh underneath ground and torn like raw beef. Blood welled up from sharp petals of bone pressing up through the skin. Her stomach roiled at the sight, and she straightened, glancing around the compound, at the row of Humvees, the line of motorcycles protruding from beneath the snow. The apartment building's entrance stood wide open. Inside was an impenetrable blackness that was unnerving. It came to her that anything could be in there, sitting back in the shadows, watching.

_It's where the monsters live_ , a voice that sounded like Ella's whispered in her mind. "Then...then what was it?" she asked, despite being certain she already knew the answer.

"His ribs are snapped, and it looks like something was chewing on him," Peter said, letting the man's coat fall back in place. "I've never seen anything like it, but I guess it could be—" He stopped short, and his hand darted for the man's throat.

"What's the matter?" she said, reaching for her pistol. "Is he turning?"

"No, not yet, at least," he said, and held up something small and thin between two gloved fingers. One end was needle-sharp, and stained red with blood. "Huh. This was stuck in his neck."

"Looks almost like a toothpick," she offered with a frown. "What do you suppose it is?"

"No idea, but it was really dug in there. It kind of reminds me of...something...but I can't picture it." With a shrug, he let the tiny stick fall to the snow. "In any case, there's nothing we could have done for this guy. He's either gonna bleed out and then turn, and probably sooner than later."

Olivia turned away from the dying man with a reluctant nod. Even she, with only a modicum of medical training, knew a hopeless cause when she saw one. It was a miracle the man had lasted as long as he had. She ran her fingers through her ponytail and glanced up at the hotel across the street, at the pair of pale faces in the fourth floor window. Raising her hand, she waved for them to come down, and they disappeared from the window an instant later.

While they waited for Charlie and Sonia to arrive, she walked among the other bodies in the snow, those that had stayed down instead of rising. Why hadn't they? She crouched next to one lying on its side in a bloody snow bank. Another man. He wore a camouflaged hunting jacket and faded blue jeans worn through in the knees. The fellow's head masked in blood, and partially torn free of his shoulders. She swallowed and bent for a closer look. The head was crushed, and resembled nothing more than a malformed potato. Her mouth went dry at a series of finger-sized puncture wounds, running in a line across the man's face. She'd seen such wounds before, and recently. Vacant eyes stared up at her, blue like Peter's. Not yellow.

"He's stopped breathing." Peter's voice was distant, a buzz in the back of her mind.

She tore her gaze from the dead man. "Take care of him," she replied without looking, and hurried to another body.

It too, bore massive trauma to the head, with minimal injuries elsewhere. The next was more of the same, and the next. All had still been people, unturned, eyes brown, hazel, or blue. The muffled crack of a gunshot rang out, but it hardly registered. Her thoughts raced, making the necessary connections, fitting the puzzle pieces into place. And the picture that formed was one of intelligence, of cunning.

A hunter.

One that knew its prey, knew how to kill it — had possibly  _learned_  how to kill it. A wolf among sheep. Had it followed them all the way from the Federal Building? It didn't seem possible. She wasn't sure what would be worse: that it had followed them, or that there was more than one of them. Another thought struck her. Would such a creature stray far from its kills? Would it?

_Oh no_ , she thought as her heart began to thump in her chest.  _It could still be here._

The realization left her breathless, filled with paralyzing dread. Olivia turned in a slow circle, eyes wide, trying to pierce the shadows in the courtyard, the looming darkness inside the yawning apartment building entrance. Suddenly she saw it for what it was — a wild animal's den. A place of bones. She looked down and found her gun in her hand, but had no memory of drawing it. She wasn't even sure what good it would do. Ten men armed with assault rifles had been torn to pieces. Where was it? Was it stalking them right now? Waiting for the right moment to pounce. On the heel of those thoughts was another realization.

_We should have never come here._

"Olivia...?" Peter's voice called out. He was coming toward her through the snow, concern etched plainly on his face. If he'd said something else, she hadn't heard it.

She forced her legs to move and rushed to meet him half way. "We have to get out here, Peter," she said, taking him by the arm. "Right now."

Peter's brow furrowed. She watched his mouth open in slow-motion, saw the question forming on his lips. But he never spoke it. Instead, the patter of gunfire exploded in the silent interval. And then came the screaming. Not in the compound or the apartment building, but outside, across the street. In the hotel.

_Charlie. Sonia._

Olivia ran for the barricade. "That thing is here. C'mon, Peter!" she shouted over her shoulder.

She scrambled over the dead bodies and pulled herself atop the truck as intermittent flurries of gunfire continued, along with screams and shouts — whether in pain or note, she couldn't tell — both male and female. Were they growing louder? More desperate? She threw herself off the truck and raced across the street, retracing their path through the snow.

"Olivia!"

Glancing back as she reached the hotel entrance, she saw Peter dropping to the street behind her and decided that he would just have to catch up. Turning back, she plunged through the hotel entrance and into the lobby. After the intense whiteness outside, the hotel was filled with a thick, textured gloom she could have touched. She skidded to a stop in front of the customer service desk and peered about.

Where were they?

The gunfire had stopped and the hotel was ominously quiet. Peter's footsteps clattered on the tiled floor behind her and she threw a hand back, motioning for him to remain quiet with an upraised finger. For a wonder, he actually listened, though she could still hear his hurried breathing, as well as her own, rasping in her ears.  _Where are they?_  she wondered again. Were they too late? Coils of dread, spiraled in her stomach, twisting with sickening force.

Then, a long, wailing scream echoed to her right, issuing from the same corridor she and Peter had taken on the way down. The scream stopped short, punctuated by a heavy crash and an animal squeal of rage that sent jitters of panic racing through her chest. There had been words in the scream. A name. The twisting coils in her gut turned ice cold with premonition.

"Charlie!" she cried, sprinting toward the side corridor. "Sonia!"

"Olivia, wait!" Peter hissed behind her. "Olivia. You don't know what you're walking into!"

Olivia ignored him and kept going. There was no time, could he not see that? She dashed into the hotel proper, into hallways shrouded in darkness. Leading with her pistol, she turned a corner into a small alcove with a pair of gleaming elevator doors. Opposite the elevators, the door to the emergency stairwell stood open, just as they had left it. Emanating from inside was a faint, erubescent glow. She hesitated for an instant at the light's stillness, then pounded up the stairs to the second floor, where she found one of their red headlamps lying on the top step amid a number of spent shell castings. She picked it up and found the headband wet and sticky.

Feeling sick to her stomach, she rubbed the wetness between her fingers, then sniffed. Her heart sank at the metallic tang that filled her nose.

"What is it?" Peter whispered, joining her on the landing.

She passed him the headlamp wordlessly and heard a soft curse muttered under his breath as she moved out of the stairwell to the second floor. The long hallway was dotted with open doors throwing bars of grayish light across the carpet. Trash and bath towels lay in heaps, strewn from an upset housekeeping cart half way down the corridor to the right. To the left was more of the same. There was no movement or sounds, nothing to indicate which way they might have gone, or if they were even on the right floor. Peter stepped up beside her without a word. In one hand was his pistol, in the other the small pen light. He flicked it on and she squinted at its brightness as he swept it around the corridor.

"Olivia. Look."

The white cone of light revealed a patch of discoloration diagonally across from them on the wall to their right. Olivia moved closer, until she stood in front of it. She couldn't breathe. Her throat was filled solid with the bitterest of ashes. She had been at enough crime scenes to know a blood splatter at a glance — and what the size of this one meant. Reaching out with a quivering fingertip, she touched it.

The blood was still wet, still slightly warm.  _Oh god..._

She scrubbed the blood off on her jeans, then pinched her nose when her eyes began to sting. One of her friend's blood. Whose it was didn't matter. One of them, or both, was hurt. Badly.

"C'mon," she managed to utter. "They must have gone this way."

Peter followed her down the hall toward the overturned housekeeping cart, shining the light out ahead of them, exposing golden, diamond-shaped patters on the burgundy carpet. A pair of boots came into view. Olivia knew them at once, and rushed forward, holding in a scream, and there he was, on his back behind the cart.

She threw herself down beside him. His chest was torn open, a single, deep gash running from his left shoulder down across his abdomen. His gun lay next to one outstretched hand, the other was clutching his stomach, holding in his insides, much to her horror. Blood pooled beneath him, saturating the carpet. Her mind shrieked at the warmth of it soaking through the knees of her jeans. "Charlie!" she gasped hoarsely. "Oh god... Charlie..."

Charlie's eyes rolled toward her. His mouth opened, showing rows of red teeth. Blood trickled over his lips, ran down his chin in bright red streams. "Liv... Sonia...hiding," he choked out in a wet rasp.

"Don't try to talk, Charlie," she said, touching his face. "We have to get you out of here." Her vision was a blur of tears and pain. He was dying. The analytical part of her self knew it, but the rest refused to accept it. She looked up at Peter and saw the grim confirmation in his eyes.

Charlie coughed, spitting up a mouthful of blood, and turned his head weakly. "That thing...fucking gutted me...," he whispered. His face twisted into a grimace of agony. "I'm...not...walking out of here...kiddo. Not alive, at least."

Olivia shook her head. "No, you're gonna be okay, Charlie. We'll get you to Walter, and he'll...he'll—"

"No. You know...I'm not," he said, and reached for her hand. His blood was tacky against her palm. She felt herself dying inside, right along with him. "Help...help Sonia," he gasped out, and for an instant, his grip was like iron, full of his old strength. "I'm gonna turn, Livvie. Don't...don't let me...please. Don't let Sonia...see me like that."

Tears were rushing down Olivia's cheeks, falling onto his chest, mixed with his blood. Her throat was on fire, rubbed raw. What was he saying? "No...I can't. No. I can't do it, Charlie. We...we can still save you."

"You have to, kiddo." He looked past her, up at Peter. "You...do it then, Bishop, if she...won't."

"Charlie—" Peter started.

"Do it!" he said, and then coughed again, spitting up another froth of blood. When he recovered his, voice was weak, hardly audible. Crying, Olivia bent closer. "Take...care of her, Peter." His eyes slid shut. When he opened them again, his gaze was distant, unfocused. "Help...Sonia...ahh...fuck...," he sighed.

"Charlie...," she choked, unable to breathe. Her throat was closing up, constricting into a tight knot of pain.

"You're gonna be fine, kiddo." Charlie's voice was a whisper, a dying breeze. "You're gonna..."

A dull numbness stole over her as he fell silent. Olivia straightened, and felt Peter's hand on her shoulder. It had been there for some time, she realized. Below her, Charlie Francis's chest rose one final time and then went still. She stared down at him, unbelieving. Charlie was dead.

"Olivia," Peter said after a moment, "we can't leave him like—"

"I'll do it," she cut in, not caring if she sounded harsh. Charlie's eyes were already glazed over, sightless. It would be only moments, minutes at best, before the change occurred, before he became something other than human. She reached up and put her hand over the one on her shoulder. "Find Sonia, Peter. And watch yourself. I'll be there in a minute."

The hand on her shoulder squeezed slightly, then released her, and Peter's footsteps receded down the corridor. Olivia was left with silence. She'd been wrong. It wasn't a hotel, but a mausoleum.

Charlie was dead.

She touched his face, rubbed her thumb across his smooth cheek. He had shaved that morning. Why? Had he suspected it would be his last? She slid his eyelids shut with her thumb and forefinger, and felt his skin begin to grow hot instead of cold. Like John's before him. Her pistol sat on the carpet beside her. She picked it up, flinching at the blood already congealing on the grip. His blood.

"I'm sorry, Charlie," she whispered, letting her tears flow freely as she pressed the barrel against her old friend's forehead. She could obey his last wish, at least, and let him remain human.  _I can still do that much for him._  He would have done the same for her. "I'm so sorry," she whispered again, and squeezed the trigger.

The report was deafening in the narrow space. And as the echo died out, she felt something inside her die right along with it. Hope, maybe, or possibly her soul — if she believed in such things. She collected Charlie's pistol and straightened slowly, never moving her gaze from the small, but perfectly round hole in the center of his forehead. Such a small thing. Just a tiny, dark hole to end a life forever. She saw him again, in the parking garage on the day they'd met, heard his gruff voice again, and remembered how oddly reassuring it was. He'd always been there for her, from the very beginning. Her friend was gone, and was never coming back. She'd failed him, just like all the others. She wondered who would be next. If she had learned anything since the world had ended, it was that sooner or later, everyone died. It was just a matter of when.

A shout in the background brought her back to the present. She took in a long, shuddering breath. Had it been Peter?  _Pull yourself together, Olivia_ , she told herself, and wiped her face on her coat sleeve. _You can cry later, after the others are safe._

Olivia turned away from the body of her friend, then loped through the dim light toward a bend in the corridor. Before she'd gone far, gunfire erupted ahead, flashes from around the bend, and she increased her speed to a flat-out sprint. The hallway was a patchwork pattern of light and darkness. She leapt over formless mounds, old bodies crisscrossing her path. A shaft of light revealed dark gouges on the wall ahead, chunks of white plaster on the carpet below. The gunfire paused, then started up again as a furious roar split the air.

The sound was like nothing she'd ever heard before. Part of her could feel it, as well as hear it, like a vibration in her chest, or like touching a live wire. She wondered what sort of monstrosity could make such a sound, and had the uncomfortable feeling that she was about to find out. Another shout rang out — Peter's voice, and she noted with numb curiosity that he sounded panicked — telling Sonia to stay inside. Sonia.  _What am I going to tell her?_  Her husband, the man she loves, is dead. She shoved the thought aside; it will be a moot point if none of them make it out alive.

Upon reaching the bend in the corridor, she slowed, pressing herself up against the wall. Bullets whizzed past, thudding into the wall opposite. Each impact stirred up tiny clouds of dust. The shots suddenly grew louder. A different weapon was firing. Unsuppressed. There came heavy thuds, the sound of wood splintering. A door slammed, cutting off the gunfire. She heard a heavy snort that was unmistakably not human and shivered. Holding her breath, she peered around the corner and felt her hair trying to stand up straight.

The creature was there. Perhaps twenty or thirty feet away. The light was dim, but its outline, its silhouette, was distinctly unnatural. It was tall for one thing, almost up to her chest, with a grayish-green hide. Muscles rippled along its back as it moved through a patch of morning light. A long, sinuous tail curved up over its back. The tail ended with a knob that brought to mind a rattlesnake. For a heartbeat, it was difficult to imagine that what she was seeing was even real, and not a prop from some B-grade horror flick. But then she thought of Charlie, lying dead in a pool of his own blood, of the men across the street, all equally as dead. No, it was real, all right. As real as real could be.

It paced a few steps, and then pawed at the door with claws larger than her head. The wood peeled back, curling into thin spirals. The tail blurred forward smashing at the wood, rattling the door in its frame. A thin scream echoed from inside — a woman's voice — and then more gunshots rang out, blind shots that exploded outward through the door itself in a shower of splinters. The creature bellowed in frustration, and threw itself at the wood, again swiping at the wood and leaving deep tracks behind.

_Jesus..._  Olivia thought, pulling back from the corner.  _What the hell is that? A fucking dinosaur? How can it be so single-minded?_  she wondered faintly. It was a question for Walter. No normal animal would act in such a way. Her heart was jackhammering in her chest, blaring in her ears. She looked down at her pistol, at Charlie's, and again wondered what good they were. The creature's hide looked tough; thick and knobby like that of a crocodile.  _What if I can't hurt it?_ she thought as more blows shook the wall beside her. The screaming around the corner continued, but now with a growing hysterical edge.

_Do something!_  a voice shouted inside her head.  _That's Peter and Sonia in there!_

Swallowing down the fear oozing along her spine, she forced herself back around the corner, raising a pistol in each hand. The creature was in a frenzy — standing on its hind legs and shredding the hotel room door. Upright, it towered over her, with its pointy head reaching the top of the door frame.

Olivia fired without thinking, pulling both triggers as fast as their firing mechanisms would allow. There was no need for precise aiming — the creature seemed to fill the hallway. Her shot struck true, ripping into its exposed underside. Savage joy filled her as little spots of blood erupted in its hide, at its screams of pain. She had never been one for hunting, for finding pleasure in killing anything, but she felt it now. The creature was no simple animal, but a pure killing machine. And it had just killed her friend.

Her joy, however, was short-lived.

Before she managed to get off more than a handful of shots, the creature spun to face her, landing on all fours and baring a mouthful of spine-like teeth, including a pair of fangs longer than her hand. Her mind rebelled at the sight. It was a child's nightmare come to life. And then it got worse. Quicker than she could comprehend, the creature blurred into motion. It leapt into the air, not directly at her as she expected, but diagonally, at the wall opposite. Razor-sharp claws bit deep into the plaster, and then, inconceivably, it raced toward her, not across the floor, but sideways across the wall. It was as if gravity itself had gone mad.

She gaped, numb with shock, then backpedaled in surprise when it suddenly launched off the wall in her direction. In an amazing display of agility, it twisted around mid-leap, stretching out with claws, with jaws that were all fangs and teeth.

_How can it move so fast?_  was all she had time to think.

And then, as if she were drowning, time slowed down, came to a halt. Memories flooded past; her mother first, then Rachel on her fifth birthday — her first birthday without  _him_ — of her first day at Northwestern and her newfound freedom, of a newborn Ella crying in her mother's arms. Of Charlie — poor Charlie. Of stolen moments with John, and more recently, with Peter. She remembered everything. All the while, the creature grew larger in her vision, until all she could see were inhuman eyes — featureless and as big as her fist — and rows of teeth spreading wide for the kill, the black pit of its throat.

But then, incredibly, it was soaring past her, flying over her. Or was she falling? Somehow she was on her back, staring up at its pale underbelly as it flew past. She felt the wind of its passage, breathed in the rancid stench of its breath as its teeth snapped, closing on air. The length of its ribbed tail seemed endless. Her gaze followed it across the hall, where time abruptly lurched back into full motion as it slammed through a partially open door and into the side a black soda machine — a Pepsi machine, she noticed vaguely — that stood upright and immutable against the creature's weight. It stumbled against the wall, seemingly dazed by the impact.

Olivia gasped. It had missed her. Somehow. She scrambled to her feet, amazed to still be alive. A dark shape was on the floor at her feet. A body. She must have tripped over it. Her relief turned to horror a moment later as the creature's tail whipped about. It staggered upright, and shook itself like a wet dog, then raised its vulpine head and roared. The sound was terrifying, like a trumpet gone insane — no, the entire orchestra — and curdled the blood in her veins. She realized that her hands were empty, that she'd dropped her guns and was utterly defenseless. There was no time to retrieve them, even if she knew where they were.

The creature growled and took a threatening step closer. She shrank back until her shoulders hit the wall. Its mouth opened, baring its teeth, and bathing her in its foul breath as it let out another chilling roar. There was nowhere else to go. There was something else beneath the monster's outrage. A voice shouted her name.  _Peter._  Had he left the room where they had taken cover. She hoped to god he had not. Maybe one of them could make it out alive. He had to make it out. Maybe if it took her, it would leave them alone. It was a faint hope, but all she had.

A strange feeling rolled over her then. She felt something, a tension, or a pressure, building inside her head, in the base of her neck. The creature took a step closer and the tension increased, changed somehow. _Is it getting hotter in here?_ she wondered, sliding to her right, away from the others. All at once she felt hot, burning up despite the cold. She drew in short, bursts of panicked air.  _I'm so hot._  Yet puffs of her breath rose in front of her. She could see the creature through them. It moved closer, until it was only a handful of steps away. Something was wrong, and getting wronger.

_What's happening to me?_  She gasped and raised her hands in front of her face. Her was skin was like fire. Rivers of sweat poured down her cheeks. Her fingers clenched and unclenched, straining against the invisible heat scalding every inch of her skin. The air grew hotter — or was it she growing hotter? She couldn't tell. There was only heat. Terrible heat building on heat, upon even more heat. She imagined her skin blackening, peeling back, her bones, her flesh, incinerating, turning to ash.

_I can't take it._  She was on fire, yet not. She fell to her knees. Her mouth stretched open, prelude to the scream expanding in her throat. Agony surged through every particle of her being.  _I...can't...take...it..._ She cared not for the monster approaching. Death would be a blessed release. Then movement caught her eye through the red haze of pain.

Peter was standing in the hall to her left. With a snarl, he raised his pistol. The creature peered in his direction.

_No!_ the part of her mind still capable of thinking shrieked. What was he doing? He had to get away. It would kill him.  _Go back, Peter!_  Olivia shouted silently — speaking was impossible. The fire was in her throat, in her lungs. She was the fire.  _GO BACK!_

And then the scream exploded out through her chest.


	18. Inside a Cardboard Box

**December 2008**

Peter stomped on the gas pedal, spinning the steering wheel and sliding the truck in a wide turn through the intersection. The image in the rear-view mirror swung opposite, bringing the turbid column of smoke back into view. The black column seethed and billowed, blotting out the sun. The truck's rear-end swung from side-to-side and he let off the gas until it straightened out, then pressed the accelerator to the floor again. The muted roar of the engine filled the cabin as the truck surged through the snow. It was deeper in Newton—four wheel drive was now a requirement to make any progress—but the streets were wider, less crowded with debris and abandoned vehicles, and not a roadblock in sight. It was a trade-off, and one he would take any day if it led to a clear path over the river.

 _There has to be a path_ , he thought, teeth clenched in concentration.  _Or we're fucked_.

His cheek began to throb again, and he resisted the urge to touch it. The last time he had—without thought—the sharp jolt of agony had nearly sent them careening into a parked car. He glanced at the silent woman in the passenger seat, then over his shoulder into the back of the truck.

"How's she doing?" he asked, catching the other man's gaze for an instant.

"Same as before." The man formerly known as Special Agent Broyles's voice was neutral, as if he were just stating the facts, or reading from a technical manual. What was he supposed to call the man now, anyway? Phillip seemed abnormal for some reason, but so did calling him by his last name all the time; they weren't what Peter would call close. He saw Broyles glance down at the unmoving body on the seat beside him. "Still unresponsive."

"Fuck!" Peter hissed.  _C'mon, Olivia, wake up._  He slapped the steering wheel, then winced at the sting that shot through his palms. The burns were only minor, of the first degree sort. His exposed face hadn't been so lucky.

Ahead, a pair of snow-covered cars came into view, a diagonal obstruction of twisted metal half-way down the block. One of the cars had struck a telephone pole, snapping it off at bumper-height. The pole leaned slovenly over the car's hood, and some other fool had clipped the first car's bumper, spinning themselves into a car parked on the curb. Without slowing Peter drove up onto the sidewalk and around the wreckage and then back out into the middle of Jewett Street on the other side.

He had taken them west after the disaster in Brookline, through Olivia's old neighborhood of Brighton, and then northwest into Newton, where they had lucked onto a mostly clear overpass over I-90. He could only hope that their luck was still in place. Wet slices of the Charles began to appear through the gaps and alleys between houses, and down side streets to the north. The river had not frozen over—yet. It would at some point during the winter, he had no doubts about that. It always did.

A thought struck him then, worrying in its implications. Tens of thousands of infected resided on the far bank, in Downtown and the surrounding areas. Would they cross over, led by a stray noise? A random gunshot, perhaps? A fucking songbird?  _That's all we need_ , he thought darkly, sliding the government-issued SUV through another turn. He narrowly avoided side-swiping a mound of snow that might have been a minivan parked on the corner.

"Slow down, Bishop," Broyles said suddenly from the back seat. "If you wreck us, we're not going to get there any faster."

 _Slow down?_  Peter shot daggers at his former boss in the mirror. Olivia was unconscious in the back seat—possibly dying for all he knew—and the man wanted him to slow down? He mashed the accelerator harder and the truck leapt forward, engine racing, spitting rooster tails of snow up behind them. Hadn't there been enough death for one day? He had to get her to Walter; as much as it pained him to admit, if anyone could figure out what was wrong with her, it was his father.

He glanced at Sonia and saw that she was crying, face buried in her hands. Her hitches of breath and faint whispers of her dead husband's name renewed his guilt. She had yet to acknowledge him since they'd left the hotel—since he forced her to leave the hotel. And he couldn't blame her, not one iota. In the end, he'd been harsh with her; it was the only thing that had broken through the barrier of her grief and horror. Her husband was dead, and his body left where it lay for incineration; no goodbyes, no final words or parting declarations of love. Just smoke and fire and screaming. And tears, he mustn't forget those. They still rung in his ears.

 _Fuck._ Peter squeezed the leather-wrapped steering wheel until his forearms ached. _Goddamnit_. It was all his fault. He should have never gotten out of bed, should have never told Olivia what he'd heard. Of course she would want to investigate. Why couldn't he have left it alone? Charlie's death was on him. And if she didn't wake up, that would be on him, too.  _She has to wake up_ , he thought, struggling with a rising lump in this throat.

He spun the wheel, making the turn onto Galen Street. Other than a single vehicle in the distance off to one side, the street was a smooth slate of white. The bridge was close now, just a few blocks away to the north. It had to be open. The next crossing point was at least a mile to the west and would only take them further from Cambridge. They were miles out of the way already, and there was no time.

"What exactly happened in that hotel, Peter?" Broyles asked sharply out of the blue, meeting his gaze in the mirror. From his tone, he might be administering an interrogation. "What haven't you told me? I'm not at all clear on how you managed to escape this creature."

Peter shook his head. Of course he hadn't told the truth, to him or to Sonia. What happened? Only the impossible. Inside his head, Olivia's screams echoed still, and he felt sick in the pit of his stomach. Such pain she'd endured, such agony. And then came the fire. It had come out of nowhere, engulfing the corridor from wall to wall, from floor to ceiling, and oddly enough, for a heartbeat only before vanishing. Olivia had been at the center—he'd seen her through the flames for an instant before a blast of intense heat had knocked him on his ass, while at the same time sucking the oxygen from his lungs as if he were in a vacuum. Stop, drop, and fucking roll. And then he had smelled it; the horrific stench of burnt flesh, of charred meat—and not the sort you ate for dinner. Panic had taken over then, and he'd made a mad scramble through the choke of smoke and flames, with the acute certainty that all he was going to find was her smoking corpse. The creature, the beast, the monster—whatever the fuck it was—had burned to a crisp all right, and yet he'd found Olivia unconscious, jerking in the throes of a fit of some kind, but unharmed otherwise. She'd been surrounded by a pristine bubble of unblemished carpet, a circle of unburned paint on the wall beside her. Not that that had stopped the rest of the fire from spreading throughout the entire building. He looked for the column of smoke, but it was out of sight.

"I don't know, Mr. Broyles," he said finally. "Didn't see what happened. I can't explain it."  _And I won't explain it, not to you, at least. Not now._  He squinted at the road ahead, thinking of his father. Walter might be a different story, however, if he wanted an accurate assessment of Olivia's condition. But beyond him, it was her story to tell, if she wanted it told. If she woke up.  _She has to wake up._

"You sure about that?"

From the skeptical look he received in the mirror, the former head of Fringe Division didn't believe a word of it. Peter shrugged and kept his eyes on the road. Too bad for him.

The street angled to the right in a wide, sweeping curve that led straight to the river. They passed by a gas station burned to the ground and a used car dealership blown sky-high, walls flattened outward, as if the building had been struck by an errant missile. And maybe it had. At the very end, civilization's entropic fall had been of mistake compounded upon mistake, errors of judgment, of ignorance, abound. Pure chaos. At least, that was what it had felt like from their bunker as they'd ridden it out. Across from the gas station and the flattened car dealership stood a row of connected apartment buildings, untouched by destruction of any sort. Chaos. Disorder. Entropy.

After straightening out, the road widening into an intersection. He guided the truck to a stop and surveyed the scene. Beyond the cross-street stood the Galen Street Bridge over the Charles. Here there was a smattering of stopped cars and trucks, and a tractor-trailer that appeared to have forced its way through them before succumbing to sheer inertia. Several gaunt infected wandered about, jerking a path through the vehicles toward them, but not nearly enough to pose any sort of threat. Their luck had held; there was a way across—a zigzagging path of destruction created by one persistent truck driver.

Peter's relief was a palpable. He sighed, taking in a deep breath as the tension drained from his shoulders. Beside him, Sonia sniffled and straightened in her seat, and then, to his surprise, a hand closed about his forearm, over the folds of his singed coat.

"It's clear, Peter," Sonia said. Her voice was quiet, containing entire worlds of sadness, but still firm. "Take us home."

#

* * *

#

The fort was coming together faster than she had thought it would. The snow was better today, wet and sticky, and perfect for making snowballs and snowmen, for sledding—though to her sadness there were no hills nearby—and for construction.

Ella packed another overflowing handful into the plastic tub, pressing down with all her weight. Walter was right, the tub was perfect for making bricks. Already one wall was complete, standing shoulder high, which was as high as she could lift it. The snow-bricks were staggered, as Walter had shown her, so they wouldn't tip over so easy like her first attempt had. With a grunt, she heaved the tub into place, simultaneously flipping it over with practiced ease. After giving the outside of the tub a slight tap, she lifted it carefully, exposing a perfectly formed brick, slightly rounded on the top edge. Perfect. She bent for another tubful and wondered what was taking Walter so long.

Sitting on the steps leading down to the sidewalk were her mother and Astrid. Their voices carried over to the patch of snow she'd chosen for her fort, and she listened as she worked with no one the wiser. Aunt Astrid hadn't seen her father since before the infected came. He was probably dead, or one of the undead, Ella secretly thought, but didn't dare add her opinion. Sometimes it seemed like everyone in the entire world was dead besides them. She felt bad for thinking such thoughts, but they were the truth—she knew that, now. The world had gone wrong, turned bad on itself, like a dog that had rabies. You had to kill dogs that had rabies, that's what her Daddy had told her once. Kill them. He had never told her how. With a gun?

She lifted another brick into place, then cast a sideways glance at the two women on the steps. Her mother carried a gun now—after the trouble in the library—a little black one that hung from a belt at her waist. Ella was not allowed to touch it, not ever, just like one of Aunt Liv's guns when they used to visit her apartment. Not that she wanted to. But she had the feeling that she might one day, when she was old. Maybe when she was six or seven. Those lofty ages seemed impossibly far away, whole years from now. Almost forever.

Turning back to the partially finished wall, she dropped down on her knees and started shoveling handfuls of snow into the plastic tub. She paused after a little while, flexing her fingers and toes. The cold was creeping in again, in through the shell of her mittens, through the foamy softness inside her new snow boots. She shivered and made a fist inside her gloves, but it didn't help much. The chill remained, stinging her fingertips, singing her ears underneath the cap she wore, and her knees through the wet fabric of her jeans. Again she wondered what Walter was doing. He had promised to help, after all. How long did it take to find another tub? There were tons of them all over the lab, filled with all his stuff—or junk, as she had heard Aunt Astrid call it all more than once.

Bored, cold, and tired of waiting, she rose to her feet and dusted off her jeans and coat, then trudged through the trampled snow back to the building where her mother and Astrid were still talking; about it being close to Christmas from the sound of it, though Ella couldn't understand why. Christmas was canceled, and probably forever. Even if there was a Santa Claus—something she was not all sure of—he would never find them anyway, not down in the basement of a school building. There weren't even any chimneys!

"How are you doing, Ella?" her mother asked as she drew near. She was wrapped in a colorful quilt, made up of different sized patches sewn together. "You look like a woman with a problem."

Ella clumped up the steps until she stood just below them. "I'm cold, Mommy. Really cold," she announced, hugging herself, then added, "and I don't think Walter is coming back."

"You don't say," Astrid said with a chuckle. "He's just easily distracted, sweetheart. He probably forgot what he was supposed to be doing before he even made it down to the basement. Happens all the time."

"So I've noticed," Mommy said, then opened up the blanket draped over her shoulders and held out her hands. "Come here, honey. Sit. Let me warm you up."

Ella climbed onto her mother's lap, relaxing back in the circle of her arms as she tugged the blanket tight around them both. She felt better almost at once. Leaning her head back against her mother's chest, she gazed out over the yard, squinting at the blinding glare of white. The lumpy remains of her and Walter's snowman lay off to one side near her fort. It had fallen over sometime during the night—from a faulty bottom, so Walter had claimed when they'd discovered its demise earlier that day. She wasn't so sure, but had been unable to find any evidence otherwise, and she had looked hard, secretly imagining what Aunt Liv would have done. Perhaps the wind was to blame. As if in agreement, the wind chose that moment to come roaring over the wall of cars, spraying up a mist of snow that sparkled in the sunlight and nipped at her cheeks. She shivered at the freezing bite and felt her mother shiver also.

Beside them, Astrid let out a hiss through clenched teeth. "Ugh...I think my tush is frozen solid. I should have taken your advice, Rachel, and brought a blanket to sit on. Want to head inside? Maybe Walter can make us some hot chocolate. I think there are a few packets left."

At the mention of hot chocolate, Ella perked up. She twisted around to gauge her mother's reaction. Hot chocolate was always a treat, but there were rules for when you could drink it. Rules she hadn't figured out yet. She thought maybe it had to do with the time of day, but not always. But maybe since Astrid had said it, maybe Mommy would agree. She held her breath, silently hoping so.

"Hot chocolate sounds like a great idea," Mommy agreed, stirring beneath the blanket. "What do you think, Ell? We can come back out later, if you want."

Ella started to nod but then a sound intruded, a low noise heard beneath the gusting wind. She tilted her head, eyes growing wide. "I hear something," she said slowly, glancing between her mother and Astrid, neither of whom seemed to have noticed yet. She struggled free of the blanket and her mother's lap, then pointed out over the wall of cars, far down the street, which disappeared behind walls of brick buildings. A thrill of excitement sent thoughts of hot chocolate far away. "I think someone's coming!"

"What?" Astrid gasped, leaping to her feet, along with Ella's mother, who threw the blanket back over her shoulder. "I hear it. I think...I think it's coming from the north, and maybe west. Sounds like a truck."

"But isn't Downtown to the south?" Mommy said, using her worried voice.

"Yeah, it is," Astrid replied, keeping her eyes peeled on the street outside the fence. After a moment, she yanked the black handgun from her belt, holding the bullet end pointed at the sky. "Take her inside, Rachel. Now."

"Right." Her mother nodded, and Astrid leapt down the steps, then dashed across the snow-covered sidewalk toward the van-gate. "Ella, inside."

"But, Mom! Maybe it's Aunt Liv. Maybe they're ba—"

Before Ella could utter another word of protest, her mother grabbed her up and flew up the few remaining steps to the pair of closed doors. She threw the one on the right open and plunged into the darkness of the lobby. "Stay right there, Ella," Mommy said, setting her down and letting the door close. "And don't make a sound."

Ella's mother opened the door a tiny crack and she pressed her face against the bottom half. Snow slid down the van's windows as the side door slammed shut and Astrid's shadow moved about inside. The engine grew louder, going up and down like the race cars her Daddy had used to watch on TV. Was it the bad men, she wondered, the ones who had chased them to the bridge? They had been driving a truck. Sometimes in her dreams, she could still hear it, getting ever closer. Had they come, finally? The thought made her feel sick, and she grabbed the tiny cross on the chain about her neck.

"C'mon...," her mother muttered, and Ella noticed that she had drawn her gun, too.

She started to shake, and couldn't stop. "What if it's the bad men?" she asked in whisper, and hugged her mom's leg. "What'll we do, Mommy? What'll we do?"

"Hush, Ella," she said without looking down. "We don't know who it is yet. But if I tell you, you run to one of your hiding spots and stay there, no matter what. Can you do that? No matter what."

Ella swallowed, then nodded. Her mother's free hand fell on her shoulder and squeezed softly. The screaming engine was almost on top of them, louder, and louder, until finally, a black truck burst into view, far to the right, skidding sideways around a corner. Twin arcs of snow shot high in the air as the truck straightened out, then barreled toward them, swerving in and out and around the cars and trucks buried beneath the snow, even lurching upon the sidewalk when necessary.

The truck's windows were shaded black, and a dark figure sat behind the steering wheel. The hand on her shoulder slowly tightened as the truck flew alongside the fence along the street. As it drew near the van-gate, the truck skidded, then slid into the back of a parked car with an echoing crunch that made both Ella and her mother jump. Snow sprayed in all directions at the impact, revealing bent and crushed red-painted metal beneath.

"Oh my god..." Ella heard her mother whisper. "Are they drunk?"

An instant later, Astrid was in the street beside the black truck, pointing her gun with both hands and screaming for the driver to get out. Her voice was sort of like Aunt Liv's when she meant business; mad and scary at the same time. Ella waited to see what would happen next. So tense was the moment that she forgot to breathe, and had to suck in a deep breath as Astrid shouted another warning and took a step closer to the truck.

Then the door swung open and a man stumbled out into the street. He was tall and slender with dark, wavy hair. It took a second, but then Ella blinked and recognized him. He looked different than he had when they'd left, but it was him! "Mom, it's Peter!" she cried even as her mother gasped. "They're back!"

Her mother threw open the door. "Liv!" she shouted, and raced the down the steps. "Peter!"

Ella followed close behind. The truck's passenger door opened, but instead of Aunt Liv, Miss Sonia stepped out, wearing a pink stocking hat. She waited, but none of the other doors opened. Where was her aunt? A terrible fear went through her then, a pain that went straight to her heart. She cupped her hand over her mouth, biting back a sudden flood of tears. Where was she? As she watched, stunned and unable to take a step closer, Peter scrambled through the snow and flung open the door to the back seat. Inside was a shape in the back seat. Relief coursed through her at a flash of golden hair, and she was able to make her legs move again.

"Somebody get Walter!" Peter shouted to no one in particular. "She needs help!"

Ella froze and peered through the iron fence beside the van-gate. For a heartbeat, she saw her aunt's face through a narrow gap. And then Astrid moved in front of her out in the street, cutting off the view. The fear came back at once, only worse than ever.

Aunt Liv's eyes were closed, her face limp and still. Like she was dead.

"Where the hell is Walter!" Peter shouted again. "Somebody get him!"

Ella turned and ran inside.  _She can't be dead._ The thought turned over and over inside her head. _She can't be._ She raced up the steps and hauled open the door, then ran into the dimness toward the stairs down to the basement. It was dark, almost black inside the stairwell, but she paid the darkness no mind, having long memorized the way, down to the last step. When she finally reached the lab, her legs were on fire but she pushed open the door hurried inside without slowing.

"Walter?" she called out to an empty lab.

There was no answer and she ran down the steps to the main floor, following a winding path through the maze of tables and counters. His bedroom was dark and she passed it by without a second glance, heading straight for the stairs down into his storage room, where he spent almost all of his time when he wasn't eating or sleeping. A faint light glowed from the open stairwell.

_She can't be dead._

"Walter!" Ella plunged down the steps, letting the metal railing slide through her left hand. On the work table in the center of the room a single candle burned, casting flickering shadows. She looked around. Movement in a darkened corner caught her eye. "Walter...?"

Walter jerked and jumped backward at her voice, spinning around into the light. He wet his lips and smeared his hands on the front of his white lab coat. "Um...uh... Yes?" he said, shooting darting glances around the storage room. "Is...uh, is there a problem, child?"

Part of her noted that he was acting weird but she pushed it to the back of her mind. "They're back!" she told him in a rush, and motioned for him to follow her. "Aunt Liv and Peter are back."

#

Peter was coming toward them through the snow when Ella and Walter crashed through the doors to the outside. He was cradling Aunt Liv in his arms, like her Daddy had used to hold her sometimes when he would carry her to bed. Walking beside him, her mother's face was white, eyes wide with worry.

"Peter!" Walter cried, and rushed toward them.

His voice was happy, happier than she had ever heard him before. They met in the snow, halfway between the van and the stairs. She ran at his side, unable to look away from her aunt's arm, which hung down, swinging slightly at each step Peter took.

 _She can't be dead_ , Ella thought _._ Her aunt's eyes were still closed, and her cheeks were covered in black smears and smudges.  _But what if she is?_ another voice spoke up in her head. _No, she can't be. It's Aunt Liv._

"You made it son!" Walter exclaimed as they met, throwing his arms about Peter, despite Aunt Liv between them. He pulled away, giving Peter a hard stare. "Why, Peter, whatever happened to your face? Have you forgotten how to shave? And why do you smell like a chimney?"

"I got burned, Walter," Peter said, leaning his face away from his father's reaching hands. On one side, his beard was mostly gone, the skin of his cheek was a bright red and covered with lumps that looked like they probably hurt.

Walter's face crumpled into a frown. "Burned? How?"

"We'll get to that. Look, Olivia's—"

"And what's this?" Walter said, looking past him and cracking a wide smile. "Is that Agent Broyles I see? Where did he come from?"

Ella saw Miss Sonia and Astrid then, coming toward them with a man held between them, a black man she'd never seen before. His feet fumbled and dragged behind him, making tracks through the snow. When she got a look at his face, she gasped. The man looked like he was dead! Like he was nothing but bones and skin! He was breathing hard and their eyes seemed to meet across the distance separating them, as if he knew she was watching him, and what she was thinking. She looked away from the stranger's gaze quickly, and saw Miss Sonia's eyes, and how red and puffed up they appeared. Ella knew what that meant; her mother's eyes had looked the same way, usually when she and Daddy had one of their fights. Miss Sonia had been crying.

"Agent Broyles!" Walter said as Sonia and Astrid approached with the black man. "How nice to see you again. How have you been getting on? Well, I hope. You look different. Have you lost weight?"

"Is he for real?" the man named Agent Broyles said, glancing at Astrid.

Ella noticed how tall he was standing on one foot—taller even than Peter, and how the sunlight reflected off his bald head. Who was he? And where had he come from? Everyone else seemed to know him already. She wasn't sure if she liked him or not. His face was kind of scary.

"Walter, can we have a reunion later?" Astrid said. "Olivia needs your help."

"Oh..." Walter blinked, and seemed to notice Aunt Liv for the first time, he leaned in for a closer look at her. "Oh, I see. What's happened?"

"She collapsed," Peter told them. "And she won't wake up. You got any benzos, lorazepam, anything like that?"

"She collapsed?" Ella's mother choked. "What happened to her, Peter?"

"Lorazepam?" Walter said at the same moment. "I'm afraid not. Why would you want that? Did Agent Dunham have a seizure? How long has she been like this?"

"A seizure?" Mommy asked. "Oh my god."

"Not sure. Maybe two hours?" Peter guessed, glancing down at Aunt Liv's face. He swallowed, then looked up at his father. "She's breathing, but unresponsive. When I found her, she was convulsing. It didn't last very long, but, she won't wake up. You have to help her, Walter. Please!"

"I see...," Walter said. He rubbed his chin softly, then nodded. "I believe I may have some valium left down in the lab. While not as effective as other benzos, it should work in a pinch. If Agent Dunham did suffer a grand mal seizure, then it may relieve some of her affliction. Though I shall need to examine her first. Let's get her inside."

Ella followed the grownups into the building, trailing a few steps behind her mother and Peter.  _What's wrong with Aunt Liv?_  she wondered. She collapsed? Did that mean that she fell down? Maybe she'd hit her head. Her mother had always wanted to look at her head when she bumped it hard. And what was a  _seezyer_? She had never heard the word before. It sounded bad, really bad. The kind of bad you died from, like  _cancer_ , which was the worst of them all. Cancer had made her grandma die when her mom and Aunt Liv were kids. She was secretly terrified of the word, and anything like it.

At the stairwell down to the basement, she glanced back at Astrid and Sonia, and at the man everyone had called Agent Broyles. And then she realized that someone was missing, that there had been no sign of Charlie outside, or back by the truck. Where was he?

Troubled, she hurried down to the lab and found Peter laying Aunt Liv out on one of the padded tables with wheels as Walter rummaged through one his cabinets. Her mother stood across from him, looking down silently, fingers pressed together, covering her nose and mouth. It was a look Ella recognized; when her mom was trying hard not to cry. She went to her side and hugged her around the waist, pressing her cheek into her mother's side. On the table, Aunt Liv's chest rose up and down, but her eyelids remained shut.

 _Like Princess Auror_ a, she thought,  _and just as pretty._ But who would wake her up?

Walter turned away from the cabinet holding a large needle in one hand and a tiny glass jar in the other. "Roll her over here, Peter, into the light," he said, pointing with the needle's tip to a square of sunlight on the floor.

Ella eyed the needle with suspicion. "Are you giving Aunt Liv a shot, Walter?" she asked as Peter pushed the table into the light.

"I'm afraid so, my dear," he said, setting the needle on a small metal stand. "But first..."

Walter placed a pair of black tubes in his ears, then unzipped her aunt's coat and listened to her heartbeat, just like her doctor had used to do for her. She remembered how cold the little round piece of metal had felt on her skin, and how her doctor had always given her a warning first. Did it feel cold to Aunt Liv? Could she feel anything at all? Creeping close to the table, Ella took her aunt's hand and squeezed it softly, hoping for some kind of response, but there was none. Her aunt's hand felt warm, the palm rough.

After a moment, he looked up. "Heartbeat is regular, with no palpitations that I can detect." He pulled the little plugs from his hears and hung them around his neck, then felt along Aunt Liv's arms and legs, her feet, and even pinched her ear, which made the hand Ella held jerk slightly. Using his thumb, Walter peeled back one of her eyelids and frowned, muttering about the lack of light.

"Here," Peter offered, and passed him a thin metal tube that looked like a pen. "I found it in the Federal Building."

"Ahh...excellent, son," Walter said, examining the tube. "This should work nicely." He pressed one end and a light bright enough to make Ella squint shot out. A flashlight. He peeled back her aunt's eyelid again, shining the light in her face, first one eye then the other, before looking up at Peter with a frown. "She has subconjunctival hemorrhages—in both eyes. What was she doing when this happened?"

"She has a...a what?" Mommy asked with a gulp. "A hemorrhage? In her eye? What does that mean? Will she be okay?"

Walter jerked, turning away from Peter. "Oh. Miss Dunham," he said, shaking his head. "I'd forgotten you were here. It sounds worse than it is, I assure you. Merely a burst blood vessel in her iris. I only mentioned it because it's rare for both eyes to develop the condition simultaneously. As for her prognosis, there is no sign of brain trauma, her pupil and motor responses are both acceptable, which should rule out neurological damage. I believe you were right, son, and she is merely suffering from exhaustion, albeit from the extreme sort. What did you say she was doing just prior to her collapse, Peter?"

Ella looked at Peter, who wet his lips. "Well, that's kind of a—"

Before he could say anything more, the door banged open, admitting Miss Sonia and Astrid with the stranger named Broyles. They helped him down to the lab floor, and into one of the big chairs that looked part robot, with attached metal arms and lights that reminded her of eyeballs on stalks. Then she noticed that there was still no sign of Charlie. Ella looked again at Miss Sonia, at her red eyes, her sad face, and it came to her.

 _He isn't coming back, is he_? she said silently to herself. Something had happened to him. No one had said anything yet, but they didn't need to. Somehow, she just knew. Charlie wasn't coming back.

He was dead.

"Ahh! Agent Broyles," Walter said with a smile. "How nice of you to join us!" He glanced at Astrid and then Sonia before peering around the lab with a deep frown. "Are we missing someone? Where is your husband, my dear," he asked Sonia. "I'm sure he will want to know that Agent Dunham is...is..." He paused, taking a step toward her. "What ever is the matter? Have you been crying?"

"Walter..." Peter sighed, rubbing his eyes.

"What? What's the matter?"

"Charlie, he...he... didn't make it," Miss Sonia whispered. "That thing, it...it killed him."

Ella's mother let out a sharp gasp and pressed her finger to her lips. Walter had gone still, eyes wide, mouth hanging open. "Oh. Oh, I see," he said softly. For an instant, Ella saw a tremor run through him. His hands began to shake and he clamped them together. "I'm so sorry, my dear. So very sorry for your loss."

Miss Sonia nodded, then her face became pinched, and she buried her face in her hands.

"Come here, honey," Astrid said, and lead the other woman over to the old couch beneath Walter's bedroom window. They sat down and Miss Sonia began to cry softly.

A silence filled the lab. It was a sad silence, like being at the place where dead people used to go before they were buried, before they stopped staying dead. Her mother had taken her to a funeral once, back in Chicago, for some person she hadn't known or ever met. The room where everyone had looked at the dead person had been filled with the same quiet. The same stillness. And the same sad faces.

Mister Charlie was dead. Yet her aunt was still alive, so was Peter and so were the others. And so was she. Was it wrong that she wasn't crying like Miss Sonia? Did it mean she was bad? She didn't know who to ask, or even what to ask them.

"Walter, is my sister going to be okay?" Mommy asked after a time had passed. She ran her hands through Aunt Liv's hair, brushing it away from her closed eyes.

Walter turned his gaze from Miss Sonia. His lips quivered. "Um...yes, well," he started. "Of course, it's difficult to say anything for sure, given our lack of diagnostic equipment, but I truly believe all that Agent Dunham needs is some rest. However, I can give her a dose of valium, just to be safe. If nothing else, it will certainly help her to relax. She might even enjoy it, I know I would," he finished with an strange grin.

"Do whatever you think is best, Walter," her mother said. She glanced back at Sonia and Astrid on the couch. "What happened, Peter?" she whispered. "And why were you all gone so long?"

Peter shook his head, blowing out a loud breath, then glanced over the stranger who was watching them all silently from his chair. "A whole lot happened. But we only just left the Federal Building yesterday afternoon, after the snow started. This morning we stopped to check out a place where some survivors had been, and something...attacked us. Some kind of creature." He paused then, and almost touched the burned side of his face. "This, thing, it...it got Charlie."

"A creature, you say?" Walter said, looking from Aunt Liv with eyebrows pressed together. The needle was in his left hand, frozen over the wide part of her leg below her waist. "What sort of creature? One of the dead?"

"No. The kind of creature that shouldn't exist," Peter replied.

And then he told them a story. Before he'd reached the sad ending, Ella found herself shaking, numb with terror, her heart pounding inside her head. She'd had a sudden realization.

Monsters  _were_  real, after all.

#

Later, Ella ran for her coloring book and crayons from upstairs where she'd left them, before the snow had come. It was brighter upstairs and she liked to color by the sunlight shining in through the windows. The coloring books were gifts from Astrid—early Christmas presents, she had called them when she'd brought them in from the outside a few days ago.

She snatched them up from her spot on the floor and dashed back down to the basement. She peeked into the lab on her way past and saw Astrid still sitting with Miss Sonia, whose face was still red with tears. With Aunt Liv resting in her room, her mother was there also, along with the stranger, who was speaking to them all in his deep voice. She wondered again who he was, and where they'd found him. She listened to him talk for a moment; about Charlie, telling some story from the time before the undead. Sonia laughed a little at the end, wiping her eyes and wearing a sad smile.

Before her Daddy had died, it had been hard for her to imagine someone she knew dying, someone she loved dying. It wasn't hard now. Part of her was missing, like a puzzle with one of its pieces lost forever. She could still feel the shape of it though, the shape of him, and the place in her heart where he'd lived. And the feeling never went away, not all the way; she only forgot about it sometimes.

Ella closed the lab door quietly, then crossed the hall to Aunt Liv's room. The door was open, held in place by a wedge Peter kicked beneath it when they'd carried her aunt in. She was about to enter, but stopped at hearing voices inside.

"...have been happening to her, Walter," she heard Peter say in a low voice. "Things I can't explain. This isn't the first time Olivia collapsed. It happened the first time on the day we left, but she woke up after less than an hour. I thought it was just exhaustion."

"What...what sort of things?" Walter's voice replied.

"Impossible things."

"More impossible than the creature you described? Tell me. Quickly."

Ella frowned. Walter didn't sound anything like his normal, silly self. She pressed herself against the wall outside the room and listened. They were talking about Aunt Liv. Things had been happening to her? What was wrong with her? Maybe she was dying.  _Aunt Liv can't die_ , she thought, all of sudden finding it impossible to breathe.

"Okay. This is gonna sound crazy, Walter," Peter's voice continued. "But then again it's you I'm talking to, and there are dead people walking around, so maybe not. Olivia...well, you see there was this infected that was about to take a chunk out of my leg, but she stopped it, knocked it away from me. Only she never touched it. She wasn't even near me."

She heard Walter's sharp intake of breath. "You're saying that she never touched it, physically?" he whispered, sounding excited. "Are you claiming she pushed it away from you using telekinesis, with her mind alone?"

There was a silent gap before Peter responded. "Well...yeah. I guess. Maybe. I'm not really sure. All I know is that it was there, and then it wasn't. And then she collapsed, just like today. And when she woke up, she told me that it was her, that she'd done it, somehow."

"How exciting," Walter said. "This is simply extraordinary, Peter! Think of it. Telekinesis!"

"I don't think Olivia thinks it's too exciting, Walter, or extraordinary. I think she's scared, and wants it to stop."

"To stop...? Huh," Walter grunted. "Well. That's certainly understandable, I suppose. But what led to her collapse today?"

"You asked before how I got burned? That's how. She just...exploded, for lack of a better word."

Ella's mouth went dry, her eyes widening as far as they could go. There was another short silence from inside the room. Then Walter spoke. His voice was different yet again, almost sad sounding, or maybe tired. "Exploded? As in...as in with fire? Spontaneous combustion?"

"Sure, if that's what you want to call it. Only the fire didn't touch her, just everything else, including the creature and Brookline Holiday Inn, which is burning to the ground as we speak."

"Oh dear..." Ella heard Walter say softly.

"What? Walter, do you know something about this?"

The box of crayons chose that moment to slip from Ella's numb fingers. She felt them start to fall, but couldn't move to stop them. Crayons jumped from the box's open lid, clattering across the floor tile, rolling in all directions. With a gasp, she dropped to her knees, hands and fingers shaking, fumbling for the scattered crayons. Her mind raced. The things they were saying about Aunt Liv—could they be true? It sounded like magic, like something out of a story! But magic wasn't real, everybody knew that. But then she considered. Monsters weren't real either, or dead people coming back to life, except they were, now. And if the creature that had killed Charlie wasn't a monster, she didn't know what was.

She froze as footsteps approached from inside the room. "You okay, Ella?" Peter's voice said from above her.

Ella flinched, looked up to find him standing over her in the doorway. Peter looked strange now, with half his beard missing. The skin of his cheek was an angry red, like a bad sunburn, the kind Mommy always warned her about. But he wasn't mad; he didn't know. She shoved a handful of crayons back into the box.

"I'm okay, Peter," she said. "They just slipped out of my hand. Can I sit with Aunt Liv? I'll be quiet, I promise."

"Sure thing, kiddo," he said, stooping to help her. "I know she'll want to see you first thing when she wakes up."

"Is she going to wake up, Peter?" she whispered as they finished, putting voice to the fear in the back of her mind.

"Hey, of course she's going to wake up," he said, putting a hand on her shoulder. "Your aunt is strong, stronger than anyone I know. She's going to be fine, Ella, you'll see."

With a nod, Ella rose to her feet, hugging the crayons and coloring book to her chest. Peter followed her into the room. Aunt Liv was lying on her mattress, covered in blankets from head to toe. Walter stood at her feet, staring down at her, arms crossed and rubbing his chin. He turned at their entrance and rushed for the door.

"I... I must think on...on what you said, Peter," he said on his way past without stopping. "I'll be down in the subbasement."

"Walter, what..." Peter started, but his father was already out the door. Out in the hall, the lab door opened and closed. He shook his head and sighed, then muttered something under his breath.

Ella set her crayons and book down in the light from the window, then moved to her aunt's side and dropped down beside her. With a trembling hand, she touched her forehead. Her eyes were closed, her skin warm to the touch, chest rising and falling beneath covers. Like she was only asleep. Leaning in close, she listened to the hiss of her breath. The odor of smoke drifted across her nose, the smell of fire. She thought of what Peter had told his father and shivered. Magic.

 _You have to wake up, Aunt Liv_ , she wished desperately, and wiped at her stinging eyes with her coat sleeve.  _Please wake up. I miss you._

Peter dragged a chair over from the corner of the room and sat down across from her on the other side of the bed. He leaned forward on his elbows, gazing down at her aunt. "She missed you, you know," he said shortly. "You and your mom both. She told me so while we were gone. She couldn't wait to get back to you."

Ella smiled and rubbed her nose.  _She exploded..._ "Is the monster that...that got Mister Charlie gone, Peter? Is it really dead?"

"Oh it's dead, all right," he confirmed softly, fingering his bare cheek and then hissing in pain. "Definitely a crispy critter."

"But what if there's more of them?" she asked, picturing a flood of giant monstrosities creeping and crawling over the wall of cars, over the fence. Monsters with giant teeth and spikes for claws; red eyes and long tongues that dripped slime-poison; long, curved tails that whipped and stung like a scorpion. Words spilled out in a torrent. "But what if they come here? What will we do? What if we can't stop them?"

"Woah, woah, Ella," Peter said, and held out his arms. "Come here, munchkin. Come here." Ella moved around the bed obediently and he lifted her into his lap. "Nothing's going to happen to you, I promise you that. Your aunt is gonna wake up, and she's not going to let anything happen to you, or your mom. You know that, right? She's gonna be okay."

 _You keep saying that_ , she thought, _but how do you know? How do you know for sure?_ She wanted to ask him, but couldn't summon the courage. She used to believe grownups when they said everything would be okay. She used to, but not anymore. Not since the dead came. Not since her Daddy had become one of them. Not since almost all of the grownups had died, along with everyone else. Instead, she nodded her head, then gazed down at her aunt's still form. The black smudges were still on her cheeks. She started to squirm and Peter let her down from his lap.

Why had no one cleaned off her face? Using her thumb, Ella tried to wipe the black smudges away, but only smeared them more.

"Let me help," Peter offered, and grabbed a bottle of water off the floor. He wetted the corner of her blanket, then dabbed at her face, gently wiping the black smears away. "C'mon, Olivia," he whispered as a door opened and closed out in the hall. "Wake up."

"Peter? How is she doing?"

At the sound of Mommy's voice, Peter jerked his hand away from her aunt's face. Ella turned and found her standing in the doorway, watching them both.

"Hi, Mommy," she said, and recognized the look on her mother's face. It was the look that meant there might trouble. Maybe time-out, or even worse, grounding. But strangely, the look was pointed at Peter, not at herself. She glanced between them and wondered what was happening. Was Peter in trouble? She saw her coloring book on the floor and scooted over to it, some part of her aware of the tension rising in the room.

"Hey Rach," Peter said, settling back in his chair. "She's still out, but I think she's resting easier. How is Sonia holding up?"

"Well, she watched her husband get mauled by some kind of...lizard monster, so not well," Mommy replied, and walked into the room. She pulled another chair over to the bed and sat down. "Astrid's sitting with her still." Ella pretended to look through her coloring book while watching and listening. Her mother was staring at Peter's face, shaking her head. "Look, Peter, I can take it from here if you want to go have your father take a look at your face. I imagine it hurts like hell. How did you get burned, anyway? Was there some kind of explosion?"

"Something like that," Peter said, clearing his throat. He shook his head. "It's kind of a long story, but, your sister's something else. And I think I'll stay, if it's all the same to you. I... I wanted to be here when she woke up."

"You sure?" Mommy asked. "Peter, I can come get you if anything changes. Or Ella can."

"I'll be fine for a while," he said, and leaned forward on one elbow, staring down at Aunt Liv.

"Suit yourself."

Ella opened the coloring book to the page she'd been working on, a lone ship out at sea, surrounded by tall waves with dark clouds and lightning overhead. If she stayed quiet, they would forget she was there. Grownups were like that, or at least her mother was. She picked out a bluish-green crayon and started to draw an outline around a particularly tall wave. She imagined what it would be like to be the captain on the little ship, all alone, fighting to stay on top of the waves. After a little while, she glanced up and saw her mother still watching Peter, but now her lips curled into a tiny smile.

#

* * *

#

The dreams continued, flowing from one into another, the deluge never-ending.

She found Charlie lying on the floor, on reddish carpet interwoven with golden diamonds. His face was peaceful, his eyes closed. Then she was kneeling beside him. She touched his face. His skin was colder than ice. She tried to wake him, reached for a hand that felt wooden and stiff, skin clammy, textureless, like a mannequin's. "Charlie!" Her voice sounded warbled and tinny. "Charlie...?" His skin was cold, so incredibly cold. How could it be so cold? "Charlie! Wake up, please!"

His face remained blank, eyes closed.

She glanced around, wondered where they were and how she'd come to be there.

A narrow corridor, lined with closed doors. The hallway went on forever, it seemed, both ends receding, disappearing into a gray, featureless fog. Or was it smoke? She smelled nothing, not even herself.

When she returned her gaze to Charlie, his face was crusted with streaks of blood. Instead of carpet, he was lying in a red river that flowed in a torrent down the hallway. The heat of it soaked into her jeans. "Charlie! NO!" A gaping bullet hole shattered his forehead, with sharp edges that fractured like glass. Inside the hole was an abyss, blacker than black. She glanced down and found a gun in her hand. Acrid smoke issued from the barrel. Wet blood covered her hands, her clothes. She felt it dripping into her eyes, tasted the copper tang on her tongue. She shook her head, denying her eyes and holding in a scream.

The hand she held suddenly clamped down. Charlie's eyelids swiveled open, revealing smooth, golden orbs devoid of any semblance of humanity. She went to scream but the air turned solid in her lungs. She choked on her breath as the grip on her left hand increased, pulling her downward toward blackened teeth. She fell back, pulling away with all her strength...

...and found herself under a night sky. A field of white flowers lay before her, spreading out in all directions. The field was endless, a flat sheet of white that glowed under the moonlight. Stars twinkled overhead, speckling innumerable. The tulips swayed to and fro, moving in a slight breeze of warm air that blew from a direction she couldn't quite pinpoint. Heady clouds of sweet, flowery fragrances filled her nose. The knees of her jeans soaked through with cool moisture.

 _Why am I here?_  she wondered, staring down at her dirt-stained fingertips. Thinking was difficult, as if her mind were blanketed in smog. She had been somewhere else, before. Hadn't she? She touched her face, then inspected her fingertips and found them clean, free of blemishes of any kind. What had made her do so, she knew not, only that some compulsion had demanded it. She scooped up a handful of dirt, then crumbled it between her fingers, suddenly uneasy.

Movement caught her eye. A single, luminous cloud streaked toward her across the backdrop of stars. The cloud moved at odds with a persistent breeze blowing her hair forward, across one side of her face. She craned her neck as the cloud passed overhead, following its movement, until she fell back on her rear into a cushion of flowers, crushing stalks and petals beneath palms outstretched. Her fingers sank deep into moist earth that oozed up between fingers spread wide. The breeze became a gust, at the same time turning hot and fetid. The uneasy feeling intensified. Spinning on her knees, she turned in a circle and bit back a horrified scream.

A circle of death surrounded her. The white flowers were simmering, turning black before her bulging eyes. Waves of heat, tendrils of smoke curled upward all around her. The circle expanded with each passing moment, with every beat of her heart, growing wider and wider, radiating outward. From her. She was the center-point, the axis. She could feel it—the heat building inside her, burning inside her. The fire.  _What is wrong with me?_  a voice in her head shrieked.

"You've gotta try something, right?" a voice said behind her.

The voice sent a spark of electricity down her spine. There was a boy standing next to her. He was young, perhaps seven or eight years old, maybe even nine. Clear blue eyes regarded her from beneath a mop of dark hair that hung over his ears. Where had he come from? His face struck a chord somewhere, an echo deep inside.

"What?" she said. "Who are you?"

"My name's Peter," the boy replied, and knelt down beside her. He appeared unaffected by the wilting flowers, or the heat she could still feel emanating from her.

"Mine's Olivia." Her mouth said the words automatically, as if from memory, as if she'd spoken them before. _Peter._  "But...how did you get here?"

"This was the only place that looked happy," the boy named Peter said with a shrug. "So... everyone's waiting for you," he went on after an interval.

Everyone? Her throat tightened in a knot. "Not everyone," she said. "Charlie's gone." Her eyes began to sting. There had been a gun. She could see the hole in his forehead, gaping wide. Her gun. "I messed up. I... I got him killed. It was my fault." The boy reached out for her hand but she pulled away. "Don't…! Be careful. There's something wrong with me."

"I'm not scared," he said, and reached for her again.

When he took her hand, a jagged bolt sawed through her forehead, centered between her eyes. She gasped, but the pain was gone in an instant. A tumult of cool air blew across her face. She sighed at the wind's caress, shutting her eyes in grateful relief. Something wet landed on her cheek, then another. She opened her eyes and everything changed. Snow fell from a clear night sky. Gone were her black peacoat and jeans, replaced by a loose flannel shirt and corduroys. The familiar knots and tangles of her childhood fell forward over her shoulders. And there was something else, a familiar throbbing around her left eye.

The snow continued to fall and she eyed it with growing wonder. "I think I cooled off now," she said for no particular reason.

Still griping her hand, the boy looked up at the sky and grinned. "Did you imagine that?"

"I don't know, did I?" She held out her free hand and watched a snowflake settle onto her palm. Instead of melting, the snowflake glistened in the moonlight.

"We should go back. They're waiting for you."

She looked around. Every direction was the same, a flat featureless sea of white, all the way to the horizon. "Where are we? I don't think this is real...am I dead?"

"Where do you want to be?" the boy asked. "My... my mom says you have to imagine how you want the world to be, and then you can make it happen."

She considered his words. Wherever she was, the people she cared about were waiting for her. Rachel and Ella. Peter, and the others. She glanced at the boy, who was still smiling up at the sky. They were of an age, she thought. He seemed familiar.  _Peter._  Was he okay? There had been something—a monster. Charlie was dead. She knew that. But the others were still alive. Weren't they? She didn't know. The memory wasn't there. It was her job, her duty to take care of them, to protect them all. How long had she been gone?

"I want to go back," she said, rising to her feet. The boy stood also, still holding her hand. "I have to go back. I have to help them."

The boy nodded as if that made sense. "You've got to try something, right?" he said again. "You should tell him."

"Tell who?" she asked, glancing around. They were alone in a field of white flowers. She started to walk, making a path through the tulips toward an embankment not far away.

The boy gave her a crooked, toothy smile. "You know, Walter," he said. "He brought me here from somewhere else. Another place. They told me I was sick and confused, that I don't remember it right. But I do. It's all different here. Everything. My dad doesn't work at a day care center. He works in a lab. He's a real scientist."

"A day care center? What kind of place did you come from? Another town, outside the base?"

The boy shook his head. "No. The world at the bottom of the lake. That's how I got here. He came and took me out of my bed, and my mom let him. Why would she do that? He isn't my real dad, and neither is my mom."

"My real dad died," she said, and fingered the puffy swelling around her eye. "And now my mom lets my stepfather hit me. Sometimes, I pretend I'm somewhere else, somewhere he doesn't exist."

"Does that work?" the boy asked as they climbed up the embankment to a paved street.

"Sometimes," she admitted, looking both ways down the street. "For a little while. But he's always waiting when I come back."

The road was perfectly straight, vanishing to a fine point to either side. The two directions would have been mirrors of each other, if not for a slight glow of yellow lights coming from one side. A green road sign stood nearby.  _Jacksonville - 2_  was painted in white letters.

"Maybe I will tell him," she heard a voice that sounded like hers say. She felt strange, as if she were watching herself, or reliving a moment. "Doctor Walter will help," her voice continued. There was no reply from the boy named Peter. She looked around and found herself alone in the street, straddling the dashed yellow line.

"Peter?" she called out, turning in a circle. "Peter?"

Her voice echoed oddly in the silence. The street was barren, in front of her and behind, and the snow had stopped, turned off like a switch. She wondered if she'd imagined it. The world around her took on a misty, almost translucent quality. She felt herself drifting, as if the universe were passing through her. Suddenly, the horizon seemed closer than it had. It grew closer as she watched, a wall of grayness, of void of nothing rushing toward her, converging from all sides. She started to run, heading for the lights far in the distance. Her black Converses pounded silently on the pavement. The distant lights grew brighter, larger, then separated into two distinct circles.

She slowed then came to a stop in the center of the street, still straddling the yellow line. A noise cut through the silence; a deep, blaring roar that rose and fell, growing ever louder. The lights became what they were—headlights of a speeding car. She spun around to go the other way and found the headlights still in front of her, still bearing down. The racing engine screamed in her ears, blocking out everything. She turned away again found the lights rushing toward her, closer than before. The headlights filled her vision, bringing with them a certain kind of horror.

It was  _him_.

She knew the sound of his car, could recognize its tonal, throaty roar from miles off. She'd had to. _He_  was coming for her. It would be bad this time, she knew.  _He_  hated being embarrassed, especially by her, and in public.

 _I have to get back_ , she thought, searching around for somewhere to hide. Not that hiding had ever done her much good.  _I have to get back to Doctor Walter before he finds me._

With a cry, she jumped down the embankment, but instead of tall grass and white tulips, her feet landed on hard asphalt, straddling the yellow line. The headlights were close, close enough for her to see a black silhouette sitting hunched over the steering wheel. In her mind's eye, she could see the rage burning in his gaze, smell the stink of his breath. Desperate, she lunged for the embankment again, and again landed in the street, directly in the oncoming vehicle's path. The lights blazed like the sun, twin infernos, yet she could see the car's shiny grill clearly, opening up like teeth, like fangs, and feel the rumble through her feet. It was almost on top of her, engine screaming, an extension of its driver's mad rage. She screamed also, holding out her hands, bracing herself. As she waited for the terrible impact, the world grew less substantial, flattening out, until all that remained were the lights, radiating their madness and rage. And fear.

She drowned in it.

#

Olivia jerked wide awake with a dry, airless gasp. Her eyes snapped open, and for an instant, she fought for breath, fought to remember how to breathe. Her mouth worked, open and closing, until nature reasserted itself and she took in a lungful of air. Above her was a grid of rectangular ceiling tiles, speckled with rust-colored stains. One in particular caught her eye; an explosion of shapes in the corner tile that reminded her of a mushroom cloud. She was back, back in her room at the lab.

But how? What had happened?

Remnants of the strange dreams that had held her in stasis lingered in the back of her mind. Whether a bizarre coincidence or not, they seemed important somehow and she committed what she could to memory, the last in particular. But that was for later, when her mind was clear. She sat up slowly and the mound of blankets up to her chin fell in her lap. It was her room all right. And she wasn't alone.

_Ella._

Olivia's eyes watered at the sight of her niece. Her small frame was bent over a coloring book, with an impressive array of crayons spread out on the floor beside her. She hummed as she colored, a sweet tune that sounded familiar, but Olivia couldn't place it. Golden rays of sunlight streaked her tawny hair, cut shorter than it had been. She was beautiful and healthy and alive.

She wiped her face. From the angle of the sunlight, it was late afternoon, possibly early evening. How much time had passed? What had she missed? A pair of empty chairs sat beside her mattress. Beneath the nearest was a pair of black gloves that she recognized as Peter's.  _Peter._ He, at least, had made it out. Her throat tightened inexorably as she thought of who hadn't.  _Charlie. Oh god, I'm so sorry_. Gingerly, she reached for the pair of gloves, biting off a gasp at their condition. The leather was hard and crusted over, as if the gloves had been exposed to some great heat. And they reeked of smoke. As did she herself, Olivia realized, fingering the strands falling forward over her eyes. Her hair, her clothes—they stank with a caustic ferocity.

 _What happened?_  she wondered again, and tried to piece together the blank span of lost time. Bits and pieces started to come back, what might be called memories, but seemed more like vague reflections in a mirror; of the creature attacking, its mouthful of teeth and indifferent gaze; of being paralyzed, overwhelmed with terror not felt since her childhood.

And then what?  _Did I black out_? A shuddering spasm went through her, a rolling wave of unease and confusion. The gloves fell into her lap. What happened to her? Something had happened. She could feel it.

There was a sharp gasp from the foot of the bed. "Aunt Liv!" Ella exclaimed, looking up from her book. Her eyes huge, opened wide. "You're awake!"

The five-year old sprang to her feet and rushed to the bed, leaping into Olivia's outstretched arms. "Hey, baby girl," she whispered, pulling her niece into a crushing embrace. Ella's breath quivered against her chest, opening the floodgate of tears she'd been holding back. "I missed you so much, so, so much."

"I missed you too, Aunt Liv," Ella said, and burrowed in against her neck. "Why were you gone so long? You said it would only be a few days. It's been like...ten. I think that's more than a few."

Smiling sadly at the accusation in her tone, Olivia shrugged and held her tighter. "I didn't want to be gone so long, honey, not at all. But that was just how it worked out. We had to wait for my friend to get better."

"For Mister Broyles?"

"Yeah, for Mister Broyles. Is he here then?"

"Uh huh," Ella nodded, pulling away from her. "He came back with Peter and Miss Sonia." At mention of Sonia, her voice turned quiet and she lowered her eyes to the bedding, wrinkling a handful between her tiny fists. "Mister Charlie didn't come back."

Olivia pulled Ella close again, pressing her nose into her hair. "I know, sweetie," she whispered. "I know."

She saw his face again, with her gun pressed against his forehead, and screwed her eyes shut, throat burning with the utter uselessness of it all. The worst part was that it could have all been avoided. She should have taken her own advice and left the other survivors alone. Her stupid pride had gotten her friend killed. How was she going to face Sonia, or any of them, after this? How could she look them in the eye?

_I led them to this._

"Aunt Liv?"

"Yeah, sweetheart?" she managed to choke out.

Ella was staring up at her with dark eyes full of emotion. "I'm sorry your friend died."

"Yeah, baby girl, me too," she said hoarsely. Hot tears slid down her cheeks and into Ella's hair. Raw agony bloomed anew in her constricting throat, moved into her chest, squeezing her heart with a ruthless iron fist.

Time passed, how much she wasn't sure. Eventually, she became aware of the little hand patting gently on her back. With an effort, she pushed it all away, back into the dark places in the back of her mind. Pulling away from her niece, she wiped her eyes with the corner of a blanket and glanced around her room again, this time noticing the details she'd missed before. The twin mattresses were pushed together again, and there was a great mound of clothes piled in one corner, some of which obviously belonged to a child. Rachel had taken her advice, it seemed, and had moved in while they were gone. With the changing weather, it had only made sense.

"Where is everyone, Ella?" she asked through the tightness in her throat. "Your mom? Peter?"

"Peter was here, but then he left to go do something," Ella replied. "I think Mommy went with him." Her eyes grew wide with barely-contained excitement. "Did you know that Peter crashed? Right outside. I saw it happen. It was _so_  loud." She held her hands up and smashed them together with an accompanying crunching noise.

"He crashed, did he?" Olivia snorted, and felt a grin attempting to form despite everything. She hoped neither Sonia nor Broyles were injured. "And how have you been, Ella? Did you stay out of trouble while I was gone?"

Her niece's lips formed a perfect circle, but before she could reply, there was a gasp from the doorway.

"Liv!" Rachel stepped into the room, letting the door swing shut behind her. Her hand flew to her mouth. "Oh thank god! I was starting to think you were never going to wake up, no matter what Walter and Peter said."

Rachel's hair was pulled back into a high ponytail, and she wore a wintergreen, high-necked sweater under a coat that Olivia had never seen before. And then she noticed something else, an image she'd never thought to see: a gun on her sister's hip. A gun! It was her own gun, she saw, the little nine millimeter she'd kept in her apartment.  _But Rachel hates guns_ , she thought as her sister hurried to her side. They hadn't been gone that long, had they? What had she missed? What had happened to bring about such a change of heart?

"Hey Rach," Olivia said, tearing up again as her sister flopped down beside her on the mattress, and engulfed both her and Ella in a wide hug. They were okay. Her family was okay.

Finally, Ella wiggled free of the moment, crawling to the foot of the bed. "See Mommy?" she said, looking back. "Aunt Liv is okay." From her voice, it was a foregone conclusion.

Rachel pulled away, regarding Olivia with demanding eyes. "Are you okay, Liv?" she asked. "It doesn't sound like it, not according to Peter."

 _No, I'm not okay, not at all_ , Olivia agrees silently.  _There is something very wrong with me._  But she can't tell her sister that, not ever. What had Peter told them? What had he seen? She had a vague memory of him, in the hotel corridor with the creature and holding a gun. It came to her that it was Peter was who she'd been thinking about when whatever happened, happened. Had he killed it—the creature? How had they escaped? She met her sister's insistent gaze.

"I feel fine, Rach," she said, lifting her shoulders and forcing a smile into place. "A little tired, maybe. I... I don't really remember what happened. What uh... what did Peter say?"

"He said that when he found you, that you might have been having a seizure!" Rachel explained in an urgent, but low tone. She glanced down at Ella, who was collecting her crayons. "He said he had to carry you out of...wherever you were. Some hotel? You've been unconscious for hours, Liv."

"What...?" Shock rolled through Olivia, followed by a large dose of confusion. "A seizure?" She'd never had a seizure in her life. "Are you sure? I feel fine. I... I don't know what happened."

"Well something sure happened," Rachel insisted, sitting back and arching an eyebrow. "And you know what I think it is? I think you're exhausted. I don't think I've seen you take a single day off since we got here, and that was months ago. You have to take a break."

Take a break? Olivia shook her head. "There are no days off, Rachel. Not anymore. Have you looked outside lately?"

"I'm going to have to insist, Olivia." Her sister's voice took a stubborn, motherly aspect, a tone Olivia recognized, though usually directed at Ella. "You know I've been busy while you were gone," Rachel continued. "Astrid taught me how to shoot, and I've been outside with her. I killed my first infected two days ago. You don't have to do everything yourself."

Olivia blinked. "You...killed one?"

Rachel nodded. "You see? I can help. Astrid can help. We don't have to be cooped up in the lab all day."

While she had always envisioned her sister toughening up, the reality of it happening brought on a bout of unexpected sadness, of inevitability. She can't protect her from this, not forever. She never could. Her gaze drifted to Ella, coloring peacefully in her book. Even she would eventually become hardened by their circumstance. Charlie's sightless eyes drifted across her vision.  _We're all going to die, eventually, one way or another._  But they could fight it still, fight as long as they had breath. Reluctantly, Olivia nodded her acceptance. Rachel relaxed, then moved into one of the seats beside the mattress.

They talked for a while, exchanging stories of their time apart, and laughed and cried where appropriate. Ella's little adventure in the library was a shock, and Walter's subsequent rescue of her even more so. It was difficult to imagine the old scientist fighting his way through infected, and in the dark no less. Peter would be stunned to hear of it, if he hadn't already. Of Peter and herself, she said very little. It would all come out eventually, she had no doubt of that.

"Where is Peter, anyway?" she asked at a lull in the conversation. "Is... is he okay?"

Rachel frowned, giving her a speculative look. "You mean those burns he got?" she said. "I think he'll live. I mean, they can't have been that bad, he wanted to stay with you instead of letting his father treat them." She shook her head, rolling her eyes with disdain. "Men. Why are they all such idiots? I finally convinced him that sitting here in pain wasn't going to wake you up any..."

Rachel's voice faded out.  _Burns?_ Olivia's mouth went dry.  _Oh god..._  The statement triggered a vivid string of images, of feelings, that flowed across the backs of her eyes in jerky stop motion. The images were static shocks, each jolting in succession. In one of them, her hands were raised, fingers stretched open wide, straining. She saw the creature's fangs, its mouth opening wide for the kill. There was heat, an incredible heat. It had been inside her, rising, building, like a star being born. Death had been preferable to that terrible heat. She glanced down at her hands and found them burn free. Yet there had been fire. She could still smell it on herself, in her hair, in her clothes. The room was suddenly smaller, the air lacking vital oxygen, and the walls closing in as she fought for breath. After some time, she became aware of a hand on her shoulder, squeezing softly.

"Liv?" Rachel was saying. "Liv! Peter's okay, really. I was just with him. We unloaded the truck. He said he needed to talk to his father, then he'd be back to check on you. What are you planning on doing with all those guns, anyway? You brought enough back for a small army."

With a gulp, Olivia let out a shuddering exhale. The walls receded back to their normal dimensions, and she found her sister regarding her with narrowed eyes laced with curiosity and suspicion. "How are Agent Broyles and... and Sonia doing?" she avoided, smoothing her hair back and tucking her bangs behind her ears.

Rachel sighed and shook her head. "According to Walter, your boss is more or less okay for someone recovering from starvation," she replied. "We gave him one of the rooms down the hall. Sonia...she's doing about as well as you'd expect. I sat with her for a while. I have at least some idea what she's going through." She shot a glance at Ella and lowered her voice. "I mean, Greg was a jerk sometimes," she said, then grunted out a sad laugh. "Actually, he was a jerk a lot of times, but he was Ella's father, and I still loved him, warts and all. I remember those first few days after he was gone, it was like part of me was missing. I kept expecting to turn and he would be there. At least, that's how it was for me."

Olivia nodded, then lowered her face to her hands. Had she expected something different? Sonia's husband was dead. They'd married young. How long had it been? Fifteen years or so? Fifteen years ago she had been a teenager still, furious at the world. Still a child. "He was like a brother to me," she whispered through her fingers. "Or a father, depending on the circumstance. But he was always there for me, from the first day I met him. And now he's gone."

Rachel reached out, and she let herself be pulled into another embrace. "I know, honey," she said. "I remember the first time you told me about him. I think I was disappointed he was already married."

Olivia snorted softly at the admittance, and couldn't help but let out an outraged chuckle. That, at least, had never been an issue. The idea was patently ridiculous and had never occurred to her, not for one second. Charlie and she had been friends first and foremost, partners, colleagues. There had never been a need or want for anything else.

At that moment, the door swung open, and she saw Peter's outline in the doorway. His silhouette went still, one hand on the door handle, the other frozen on his cheek.

"You're awake," he said, in a moment of stating the obvious.

Ella looked up from her coloring book. "You were right, Peter. Aunt Liv's okay. See?"

"I do see, kiddo," he confirmed, then paused in the doorway. "Do... do you mind if come in?"

Did she mind? Olivia frowned at his question, at his odd hesitance. "Of course," she replied, motioning him inside. "You don't need to ask permission, Peter. I think we're past that, don't you?"

"Just making sure." He stepped into the room and moved toward her bedding, stopping in a square of light above Ella. "What're you working on now?" he asked, letting the hand drop away from his cheek.

Olivia bit off a gasp as the extent of his injuries were revealed. She felt sick, and came close to vomiting in her lap. His face. The skin beneath his missing beard was an angry red and pocked with blisters. The blisters glistened, coated in some kind of vaseline or cream that reflected sunlight.  _Burn cream_ , she realized with growing horror. Her head swam as the room began closing in again. She heard Ella's reply and Rachel's words of greeting only distantly, as if they were at the other end of a long tunnel.

 _It was me_ , she thought with a sickening certainty. Her stomach heaved and roiled like a floundering ship.  _I hurt him. I_ burned _him_.

"It looks worse than it is," Peter said, noticing her distress. He held up a placating hand. "I swear. A few second degree burns, but mostly first. Walter thinks there won't be much in the way of scarring."

Olivia's mouth worked, eyes glued to the burns on Peter's face. Then she remembered the condition of his gloves and her gaze darted to his hands, where she found more burns coated in the shiny cream, on his fingers and palms. _It was me_. Her mind recoiled in horror—from herself.  _What kind of freak—what kind of monster am I?_

In the corner of her vision, Rachel frowned, glancing between them, and then rose smoothly to her feet. "Well, it looks like you two have some things to talk about," she said. "C'mon, Ella, I think it's time for dinner. What do you say to some macaroni and cheese? I found a few boxes yesterday."

"With milk and butter this time?" Ella asked, sounding hopeful.

"Sorry, sweetie." Rachel held out her hand. "Just water. I'm pretty sure you'll survive. You have so far." Ella grumbled something under her breath, but climbed to her feet and started for the door. "I'll be back later, Liv. See ya, Peter."

#

The door swung shut behind them, leaving a heavy tension pervading the room's atmosphere. Olivia held Peter's gaze and wondered what he was thinking, what he saw when he looked at her. Unease was pouring off of him in waves. From the way he kept his distance, the errant hand massaging his neck, was clearly uncomfortable—and with her. A pain-filled lump rose in the back of her throat. He had never been uncomfortable around her before, not ever, not since the day they'd met in Iraq. He knew something, or had seen what had happened in the hotel. And it had scared him, she guessed.

"Are you really okay?" he asked softly, finally breaking the silence.

Olivia shrugged, and suddenly wanted nothing more than for him to leave, to be alone. It was all too much; Charlie's death, and whatever was happening to her. How was she supposed to process either? "I don't know," she said in a hoarse voice, then bit hard on her lip, avoiding his gaze. She wasn't going to cry in front of him. Not over this. "I... I don't know. I don't know what's happening to me."

In two long strides, Peter was there, kneeling beside her, and taking her hand without hesitation. "Olivia, what do you remember?" he asked cautiously.

She stared down at their hands, at his thumb rubbing small circles on her palm. Her mind went back to the strange dream she'd woken up to, where a young boy named Peter had taken her hand. She had been young, too.  _I think I cooled off now._  A shudder went through her. What did it mean? Was it all a dream or partly a memory? It seemed impossible that it could have been the same Peter standing before her. Her Peter. She looked up and managed to meet his gaze without flinching. "I remember Charlie," she told him, and saw her sadness mirrored in his eyes. She pinched her noise, holding the tears inside. "After that...the creature. It was in the hallway. It was trying to get at you, and Sonia too, I guess," she added. "I...remember shooting it, but, I don't think I even fazed it. And then...then..." She shook her head, again seeing her raised hands, feeling the rising furnace inside. Her voice quavered. "I... I did something. And I hurt you."

Peter's eyes widened. "No. Olivia, no. You saved me. You saved us."

"You're telling me your face, those burns...I didn't do that?"

He wet his lips nervously. "Yes. No. I mean, you did," he stammered, "but it's not what you think. It wasn't on purpose. It was the creature. I just had the bad luck of being too close when it happened."

Olivia lowered her head. His explanation should have made her feel better, but it didn't. So she was a freak. A monster in her own right. He had witnessed it, firsthand.  _But what kind of monster?_  she wanted to know. "When what happened?" she whispered, glancing up at him. "What did I do?"

"You were on your knees when I came around the corner. The creature was there, almost on top of you. You looked over at me and...screamed, like you were in pain. And then, you just...exploded, or combusted, or something. I don't know what. Suddenly there was fire everywhere—from wall to wall. It just...appeared. But whatever you did, it was definitely directed at the creature, 'cause when I could see again, there was almost nothing left of it, like it burned from the inside out."

He paused then, swallowing and lowering his eyes as the grip on her hand tightened ever so slightly. He sounded hoarse when he continued. "I... I thought you were dead. I was sure you were dead." His voice cracked, and he cleared his throat. "Anyway, when I could finally get to you, you were just lying there, but the fire hadn't touched you, or the carpet you were lying on, or the wall behind you, like you had protected yourself, or something, as crazy as that sounds."

It did sound crazy, insane, yet he was telling the truth. She could hear it in his voice. "Rachel said you thought I had a seizure?"

"Maybe," he shrugged. "I don't know. It was dark. You were unresponsive though—like the time in the stairwell. You don't remember any of this?"

She shook her head slowly, trying to pierce the haze of lost time. "No. None of that. I can sort of remember the creature, and feeling hot, like I was burning up on the inside. And then nothing, and I woke up here. How did I get here, anyway?"

"The hotel was burning down around us," he said. "We found another stairwell around the corner, and I carried you out and back to the truck."

"And that's it?"

"More or less."

From the set of his jaw, Olivia suspected there might be more to the story, but she would get it out of him later. She tried to make sense of it all, but the effort was futile. There was no explaining insanity.

"What's wrong with me, Peter?" she murmured. "Why does this keep happening? When did I become a circus freak?"

"Is that what you think? That this makes you a freak?" Peter said, furrowing his brow. He let go of her hand and cupped her cheek tenderly. Despite everything, she leaned into him, soaking it in; it was preferable to thinking about what had happened—to Charlie and to herself. "You're not, Olivia. You're the farthest thing from that. We're gonna figure this out." He placed a soft kiss on her forehead, then pulled back, eyes intent. "I promise you we're gonna figure this out."

"How? How are we going to do that, Peter?" she asked. He looked away then, and she suddenly felt his unease again, rolling off him in waves. A spark of intuition ignited a thought, and she captured is gaze. "Wait a second. You told Walter. Didn't you?"

"I'm sorry, Olivia," he said, hanging his head. "But I didn't know what was wrong with you. You weren't waking up like you had before, and I figured, Walter was your best chance. I mean, that's what you wanted him for. Fringe science, you called it, and if anything qualifies, I'd say it's this."

Except she had never planned on herself being the subject of one of their investigations. Part of her couldn't fault him for telling her secret, and she could even see herself doing the same if the situation were reversed. In any case, what was done, was done. The truth was always going to come out, one way or another. She thought maybe some part of her had always known that.

"What did you tell him?" she wanted to know, running a hand through her hair. "All of it?"

Peter shook his head. "Just what happened today, and in the stairwell when you collapsed before. I didn't mention the other thing, or the guy wearing the suit, if he's even part of it."

"What did he say?" she asked, relived he'd left out what had happened on the bridge. It was all unbelievable, but stepping into another world was something else again. "Has he ever heard of this happening before?"

"He said had to think about it. Told me to get out," he said. "He did seem unusually disturbed though, even for Walter, particularly when I told him about the fire."

"That's it?" she said with a grunt. "Not exactly helpful."

"You know how he is. He's gotta work up to it." Peter took her hands again, pressing them between his own. "Look, I know you didn't want anyone else to know, but I didn't know what else to do. I'm sorry."

"Does everyone know?" It seemed unlikely, given her sister's lack of reaction, but she had to know.

"No, just Walter," Peter confirmed, much to her relief. "If you want to tell the others, that's up to you."

Olivia grunted uselessly. "What would I even tell them without sounding utterly insane? It's not like I can do it on command, or even control it when I do."

Peter was silent for a moment, wetting his lips before replying in a careful voice. "Have you ever tried though?"

"Tried what?"

"Tried to control it. Tried to make something happen, to...move something, or whatever it is that you do."

Olivia bristled and pulled away from him. "Have I ever tried to  _make_  it happen?" she growled. "Peter, I don't want whatever  _it_  is to happen ever again. Not ever. I nearly killed us all. Who knows what will happen next time. I just want it to stop."

"Fair enough," he said quickly, retreating under her glare. "It was stupid, forget about it. It was just an idea."

 _A bad idea_ , she thought, falling back on her pillow, and staring up at the stained ceiling tile. Her annoyance with him subsided, but the thought remained. Now that it had been openly stated, her mind lingered on the idea and she wondered if it had always been there, on the outskirts of her thoughts, just waiting to be ushered in. What if she could somehow learn to control whatever was happening to her? Would it not be useful? The thought made itself at home in the back of her mind, coalescing, pulsing with a life all of its own. What if it could make a difference? To protect her family, to protect those she loved, wouldn't it be worth it? There was nothing she wouldn't do for them. It was her job, her duty.

She started to wonder what Charlie would say, but then remembered that he was gone, that she could never ask him, could never go to him for advice, ever again. The reality of his absence struck like a blow. He was gone. Her throat began to seize up again, clenching tight and choking her airway. There was no stopping the tears, and she covered her face and let them come. After a moment, a hand came to rest on her thigh, applying gentle pressure through the blankets.

#

Eventually the tears dried up, withdrawing like the tide. And like the tide, she was sure they would rise again. But for the present, other matters took precedence; namely, her stomach, which ached for sustenance. In spite of Peter's insistence that she rest and let him bring her food, she wrapped a blanket around herself and followed him across the hall.

The others were already all there. Astrid sat alone, reading a book by candlelight. Broyles was looking over a sheaf of papers, reclined in one of the examination chairs. Rachel and Ella were enjoying what looked like a one-sided game of checkers on the floor in front of the old upright piano. Walter sat slouched over the piano's keys, head bobbing as he played quietly, as if under his breath. She didn't recognize the song, but it was simple and melodic, and achingly melancholy.

She closed the door softly behind her and hesitated on the threshold. The sun had gone down and a yellow glow filled the lab. Crisscrossing shadows danced, cast by a plethora of tall, white candles adorned with crucifixes, many of which rested on ornate stands of brass or gold. Others stood freely with falls of melted wax pooling on the tabletops or on the floor. The ornate stands were new additions, as were the candles themselves. The sight of them curled her lips. Candles had been in short supply when they'd left. Why had she never thought of scavenging the local churches for more?

 _New blood, new ideas_ , she thought, glancing at Astrid, whom she pegged as the one responsible. Her former assistant was ever the practical one. The time gone seemed like months instead of days, and she ran her gaze around the room searching for other changes made in their absence. There had to be something, because it all felt different, wrong in some indescribable way. And then it hit her; Charlie was what was different—a person, not a thing. His absence was glaring, casting a phantom light over the room's atmosphere. There was no sign of Sonia. Whatever pain and loss Olivia was feeling, it paled beside what Charlie's wife was surely going through.

"Olivia?" Peter called softly, glancing back with concern on his face. "You okay?"

With a wordless nod, she brushed past him and stepped into the glow of candles. Astrid noticed their arrival first, looking up with a start.

"Olivia! I didn't know you were awake," she said, putting her book aside and sliding off her stool. " How are you feeling? Do you need anything? You've got to be hungry."

Before Olivia could reply, the piano cut off abruptly as Walter spun around on the bench, eyes widening with child-like joy. "Agent Dunham!" he exclaimed, and sprung to his feet. "It's so good to see you awake, my dear."

"Hey everyone," she greeted, trying—and mostly failing—to put a smile on her face.

"Hi, Aunt Liv," Ella said, looking up from the checkerboard. "I wanted to tell everybody that you were awake, but Mommy told me not to."

"Ella!" Rachel hissed.

Olivia smiled a real smile at her niece. "It's okay, sweetie. I think I needed the rest."

Broyles met her gaze with a single nod. "Glad to see you're okay, Dunham," he said in a tone only slightly less stern than normal. "You had me worried."

He set the papers he'd been reading on his lap, and she noticed they were her own notes, taken for the case file she'd never written. They told of an infected girl she'd let escape, and her own part contributing to the spread of the outbreak. She wondered where he had found them. "Thank you, sir. I think I'll be fine, though."

Walter hurried to her side. She saw that he was sporting a limp in his left leg, and felt a surge of gratefulness toward the old scientist. Had he been injured while rescuing her niece? She owed him, more than she could ever repay. "How are you feeling, Olivia?" he asked, stepping in front of her. His white lab smock was stretched tight over a winter coat, and looked ridiculous. "Any headaches? Dizziness?" Without warning and before she could stop him, he was reaching for her face "Perhaps I should take a look, there might be signs of—"

Olivia jerked away from him reflexively as Peter slapped his father's hands aside with a glare. "Hands to yourself, Walter," he reminded him, putting himself between them. "She just wants something to eat."

"It's fine, Peter," Olivia said, putting a hand on his shoulder. "He just startled me, that's all. What do you need, Walter? Let's just get this over with."

Walter harrumphed, straightening his lab coat and giving his son a dignified look. "I was merely going to ascertain her mental state, Peter," he explained, then flashed her a smile. "A simple neurological assessment is in order. I must admit that I was rather worried, given your state upon your return." He pulled a small penlight from his pocket—the same penlight Peter had found in the Federal Building, she noticed—and shined it in her eyes. "Peter was worried too...," he continued in a slyly casual tone. "Weren't you, son?"

"Of course I was worried," Peter grumbled, rolling his eyes. "She knows I was worried. Anyone would be worried."

"Of course, son." Walter's smile was both unsubtle and obsequious. "Of course. Focus on something beyond the light, Agent Dunham," he instructed, squinting and leaning in close.

Olivia fixed her gaze on a candle burning on the far side of the room. "What exactly are you looking for, Walter?" she asked, aware of the silence, of the eyes focused on her. Astrid stood nearby with Rachel and Ella, who abandoned their game of checkers. She wondered what they were all thinking, Broyles in particular, who was watching with shrewd eyes. Did he know something? What had Peter told him when they'd returned without Charlie?

"Pupillary response—constriction, relaxation," Walter explained in a professor-like tone. "Signs of neurological damage." His mouth hung open as he shifted the intense light to her other eye, then had her track it from side to side. After a moment he nodded, apparently satisfied with the results. After finishing with her eyes, he ran her through a series of bizarre tests that seemed never-ending. Could she touch her nose with her eyes closed, her cheeks, her lips. Could she shrug her shoulders, and on and on.

"Is this really necessary, Walter?" she protested after a request to stick her tongue out and swirl it around, much to Ella's amusement.

"Given what Peter described...," he replied, giving her a meaningful glance, "we mustn't be too careful, my dear. The mind, the brain, they're delicate organs. But for now, I believe you're out of danger. There other tests I'd like to perform however, later, if you're up to it."

"Walter, she's not your lab rat," Peter said

"I am well aware of that, Peter." Walter's voice was stiff and offended, but his eyes remained hopeful.

"We'll see, Walter," Olivia said as her stomach rumbled angrily. "Are we done here? I'm starving."

"Yes, of course," he nodded, rubbing his hands together. "Later then, Olivia. Enjoy your dinner."

With Walter's tests out of the way, she headed toward the food shelves, only to be turned aside by Astrid before she'd gone more than a few steps. The younger woman guided her toward the old couch outside her old office.

"Olivia, you were unconscious when Peter carried you in here," Astrid said in a surprisingly firm voice. "It sounded like you guys went through hell. Why don't you just take it easy? I've got dinner covered."

Olivia considered putting up a fight—she felt fine, despite what everyone seemed to believe—but then decided on the path of least resistance and let herself drop onto the tired and sagging couch. Maybe relaxing wasn't such a bad idea. There was still much to discuss, plans to make, ideas to think upon, but for now, she supposed it could all wait. Tomorrow would be a different story. She wanted to hear Walter's thoughts on the creature, on the information from Nina Sharp, and most of all, on herself.  _Have you ever tried?_ What if she could? What then? She tried not to think about it, but the thought was stuck, wedged in tight and refused to go away.

Dinner consisted of canned baked beans with a side of cold and lumpy macaroni and cheese. She ate methodically, without tasting any of it, and watched the others as they moved about. The mood was somber, like a library—or more aptly, a funeral parlor—except for Ella's quiet laugh every now and then from across the room where she and Peter had taken up a game of checkers. From the gleeful look her niece was sporting, she suspected Peter was letting her win. After conducting his tests, Walter had vanished into the storage room, and Broyles and Astrid were talking quietly about what she could only guess. Her thoughts drifted to Charlie, and then to Sonia, alone with her sorrow. How was she holding up? She had just made up her mind to go and find out, when Rachel dropped down beside her on the couch.

"How are you doing, Liv?" her sister asked, maintaining the quiet air.

Olivia shrugged and set the remainder of her food aside on the arm of the couch. "Honestly, Rach, I've been better."

"You want to talk about it?"

"No. Not really," she replied with a slight shake of her head.

Rachel frowned, but let the subject drop. Over the years, it was not the first time her sister had asked that same question, and she'd always received the same answer. She supposed it sounded harsh, but there was nothing to talk about. The truth was that she had gotten her friend killed. A husband. That was the sum of it. And if she were going to talk to anyone, it would be the one left behind.

"You didn't tell them I was awake?" she asked, quietly changing the subject.

"I thought you and Peter needed some time alone," Rachel said, giving her a knowing look. Olivia blinked under her gaze and floundered for a reply. Had Peter told her already? "I'm not blind, Liv," her sister murmured. She sounded amused, if anything. "All it took was one look at Peter's face while you were out to see that something had changed while you two were gone. I thought it might be one-sided, but...apparently not. What happened?"

Olivia shook her head, bemused. "Life, I suppose...," she said simply, then abruptly pushed to her feet. The subject was not up for discussion, not then. Talking about herself and Peter seemed obscene in some way, given what had happened. "Sorry, Rach, I need to talk to Sonia. Tell Ella goodnight for me."

Before her sister could reply she hurried toward the exit, feeling Peter's gaze as she did so, but he made no move to follow.

#

The room that had once belonged to both Charlie and Sonia stood empty and silent, with no sign that its now single occupant had been there recently. Olivia checked the rooms nearby, then made her way through the patchy blackness of the main corridor with the hem of her heavy blanket dragging at her feet. She headed toward the glow of the main lobby, where bars of moonlight stretched across the tiled floor.

She poked her head outside and looked around. Above, the night sky was full of stars, the moon a thin, curling sliver. Someone had cleared the landing and steps of snow and footprints crisscrossed the yard inside the perimeter, mostly centered around what looked like a fallen snowman and a partially finished, but surprisingly well-made snow fort. Only two low walls had been constructed, but she recognized Ella's handiwork, and Walter's possibly. Further out, the wall of cars was wreathed in snow. She spied an odd shape caked in snow atop the hood of a truck, then realized it was the chair Charlie had dragged up there for keeping watch.

The chair sat empty. As she stared at it, her vision blurred and she could almost see him sitting in it, occasionally gazing out through the binoculars in his lap. She stepped out into the cold and let the door shut behind her. The concrete landing felt like icicles stabbing through the wool of her socks, but she didn't mind; the pain was a reminder that she was alive, while he was not.

Why hadn't she listened to him? Was it the need to win, or be proven right? Or was it pride. For once in her life she could have swallowed it. _I should have swallowed it._ Tears made stinging tracks down her cheeks in the frigid air. She welcomed them, and didn't wipe them away.  _I'm sorry, Charlie,_  Olivia thought. Sorrow and guilt racked her chest, twisted her insides. _I should have listened to you. You were right._

"Olivia."

Sonia's quiet voice sent a jolt though Olivia, a chill racing down her spine. She gasped and whirled around, searching the darkness for the older woman. "Sonia?"

Charlie's wife stepped forward out of the shadows of the wide entryway. Bundled in her winter gear, she wore the same pink stocking hat as before, right down to the gun resting on her hip. They regarded each other in silence, with puffs of breath rising in the air between them. Finally, the burden of the other woman's gaze grew too heavy, and Olivia dropped her eyes.  _How can she stand it?_  she wondered.  _How is she not screaming?_

"I... I'm so sorry, Sonia," she said, unable to meet her gaze. "We... I should have listened to him, to both of you. You were right. I should have listened. This is all my fault."

Sonia's eye widened slightly, and she shook her head. "Olivia, no, it wasn't your fault, yours or Peter's. Charlie made his own decisions, his own choices. We all did. That this might happen was always a risk. I remember hearing you tell him that once. He wouldn't want you to blame yourself. I know I don't."

"How can you not blame me?" she asked. Her voice sounded harsh in her ears, with her throat twisted into a contorted knot. "How can you not hate me? He would still be here if I had just listened to both of you. He would still be alive."

The other woman shrugged and moved a step closer. "I don't blame you because all of us are victims here, Olivia," she said. "Victims of circumstance, of this apocalypse, end times, whatever you want to call it. It's all out of our control. All we can do is survive, and fight, and try to hold on as long as we can. Charlie's time, it just...ran out, that's all. He... he's in a better place, now." She paused, taking in a shuddering breath. Her voice became high-pitched. "Did you... did you see him at the end? Were you able to talk to him? Did he say anything?"

In her mind's eye, Olivia saw his bloody grin, could feel the grip of his hand. "I did," she admitted with a nod. "He told me... he told me he didn't want you to see him like that, for you to remember him like that..." Her eyes screwed shut as the pain was momentarily overwhelming, and she saw her gun pressed against his forehead. She blinked the image away. "I... I made sure he could never turn. At the very end, he was still himself."

Sonia's eye grew large in the moonlight, brimming with tears that glisten down her cheeks. She covered her mouth. "Oh, honey... I can't imagine what that must have been like," she whispered. "Thank you. I don't think I'd have had the strength, no matter what he said. Thank you."

Stunned by the other woman's words, Olivia hardly registered the arms encircling her, pulling her into a tight embrace. After a moment, Sonia released her, holding her at arm's length with a hand on either shoulder. "We're gonna get through this, Olivia," she said, then turned go back inside. "When you see, Peter, tell him that it's okay. I understand why he did it. You coming back inside?"

"In a bit," she replied, scrunching her toes together for warmth. "I'll tell him if I see him. Goodnight, Sonia."

"Goodnight," Sonia echoed, then paused in the doorway, looking back. "Are you going to be okay?"

Olivia smiled sadly.  _You're gonna be fine..._ "Sure. Eventually. Is there any other choice?"

Sonia's answering smile was equally joyless. "No. I don't think so. Not for us. Not if we want to stay alive. See you in the morning."

The door swung shut behind her with a gentle thud, leaving Olivia in silence. She glanced around then took a seat on the top step, tugging the blanket tight around her shoulders and burrowing her socked feet into its folds. She stared out at the night. The city was serene, blanketed in ghostly, luminous white. On the street outside the fence was the black shape of the truck. Its front end was crumpled against a parked car, damning evidence of another strike on Peter's driving record. There should have been some humor in it, but she couldn't summon the will to muster any. Exhaustion was nipping at her heels, trying to drag her down, but the chill slinking through the layers of her quilt kept her wide awake. She leaned her head against the sharp corner of the brick entryway and sighed, letting her eyelids droop shut.

Thinking about the future seemed pointless. Her rational mind reasoned that the numb and all-consuming emptiness she felt were born of grief, and perfectly natural, but they was still insidious all the same, creeping, stealing over her. It felt different than with John, more personal somehow. Was it all the years she and Charlie had worked together? Despite her relationship with John, she had known Charlie longer and far better. Much of John's life remained a mystery and always would, she supposed. Her lack of knowledge should have raised several warning flags, but wasn't hindsight always crystal clear? She thought back to the day Charlie had introduced them, not too long after she'd been grudgingly promoted to full Special Agent status.

She'd been in the office break room, refilling her coffee cup. John had been full of his usual swagger; back then she'd yet to knock him down a peg or three. The blatant and completely unprofessional look of appraisal he'd given her had been disconcerting, and left little doubt of the nature of his thoughts. Her icy glare in return had driven nails through his wandering eyes. Afterward, Charlie had informed her that John Scott had just transferred in and was to be her new partner. The order had come from upstairs. She had been livid, with Charlie for not telling her at once, and with management.

 _Him? That egotistical jerk is my new partner?_  she had asked, yanking him aside. _I'll be lucky if he can focus on something other than my cup size long enough to help me solve a single case. I'd be better off on my own..._

Charlie's response had made her think.  _Handle him_ , he had replied with an unconcerned shrug.  _They aren't going to hand you anything, Liv. You're gonna have to prove yourself, every step of the way. The suits upstairs—they want you to fail, you know that don't you? To them, this is a man's profession, and you don't belong in it, not out in the field, at least. They'd rather have you behind a desk, but that ain't you, is it? You're better than that, maybe better than all of us. Prove them wrong, kiddo. Prove them all wrong._

She had taken his advice to heart and had been better for it. And John had turned out to be more than he'd appeared at first glance, hadn't he? She wondered if all the people she loved were similarly doomed, preordained to die unnatural deaths, or if fate could be avoided, or even changed somehow with enough singular determination. If there was a way, she intended to find it. No matter the cost to herself.

#

Olivia's reverie was interrupted by the door swinging open. Blinking at the resurgent whiteness, she observed Peter's silhouette as he stepped outside and looked around. Just as she had missed Sonia, he didn't notice her at first, huddled in the shadows of the entryway. The burn cream on his cheek shone faintly in the moonlight and she watched as he cast his gaze around the yard, obviously looking for her.

Despite part of her wanting nothing more than to be alone, she was glad he'd come looking for her. It was nice to feel wanted, to be missed. Who could have guessed the smartass conman she'd had to drag back to Boston by his ear would become her confidant, someone she'd come to trust almost implicitly? She certainly had not, indeed she'd misjudged him greatly. And now she had hurt him, unintentionally, according to him, but she'd done it all the same. Just thinking about it made her feel ill, and seeing his injuries up close, less than human. Of course she wanted it all to stop. How could he even question it? Didn't she?

 _Or am I just afraid?_  she wondered. _I don't want to hurt you again, I don't want to hurt anyone._

Peter frowned and turned to go back inside, then caught sight of her with a start. "Olivia?"

"Hey you," she said, giving him a wan smile.

He hesitated, then moved closer and sat down beside her on the top step. Shivering, he zipped his parka up to his chin and then shoved his hands deep into his coat pockets. For a little while, they sat in silence, listening to the unnatural stillness, breaths rising up in the cold air together. She felt him shiver again. He despised the cold, every part of his demeanor screamed it. It was a trait of his she had noticed while they'd been gone.

"Aren't you freezing out here?" he asked shortly, glancing down at the blanket wrapped snuggly about her.

Olivia let herself smile a little. "Yeah, kind of. But it's peaceful and quiet, and I wanted to think. Is anyone still awake in there?"

"I think it's just you and me," he said, leaning into her. "Except for Walter, of course. He's tinkering with all his junk down in his storage room. Don't ask me what he's doing. I tried talking to him about what Nina Sharp told Broyles, but I don't think he heard a word I said. I suppose it can wait for tomorrow, or whenever. It's not like we can do anything about it now anyway. Were you out here with Sonia?"

She nodded slowly, staring out at the darkened university building across the street to the north. "Yeah. We talked."

Peter sighed, chin dropping onto his chest. "She's...probably not too happy with me," he admitted.

"Before she left, she told me to tell you that it was okay, that she understood," Olivia said, and felt him go rigid beside her. She snaked a hand onto his thigh. "What's it about?"

He shook his head, blowing a stream of dejection. "This afternoon. After you...well, you know, the fire was spreading fast. Luckily that thing stumbled the other way down the hall, by the way, or I might not have been able to reach you at all. We had to get out of there, and Sonia, she was...upset, to say the least. Wanted to go back for Charlie, but there was no time—by then the corridor was a furnace between us and him. Fire was everywhere, up the walls, the ceiling, smoke so thick we could barely see, or breathe. But she wouldn't hear it." He sighed again, scrubbing his mouth with the back of his hand. "I... I guess I was pretty harsh with her. We had to leave him. And I more or less had to drag her out of there..."

Olivia nodded and squeezed his thigh gently. "Sometimes there are no good options, Peter," she said softly. "Only differing degrees of bad ones."

His earlier question surfaced in the back of her mind.  _Have you ever tried?_ She didn't want to try anything of the sort, but did she have another option? The more she thought about it, the more it became clear that there was only one choice—which mean it wasn't a choice at all. Not if she wanted to keep the promises she'd made to herself. "I've been thinking about what you said, before," she told him.

Peter's eyebrows shot upward. "What I said? About what?"

"When you asked me if I'd ever tried to control it."

"Don't listen to me, Olivia," he said with a grunt. "What the hell do I know?"

She turned toward him, holding his gaze. "But what if you're right? What if... what if I somehow could learn to control it?"

A silent interval passed before he replied. "Are you sure you want to try?"

Olivia turned her head. "No, I'm not sure. Not at all," she murmured. "I just want to know why this is happening to me. And why now? After everything has gone to hell. But...if some good can come of it, wouldn't it be worth it?"

"Well, if anyone could figure it out, I'd put my money on you."

"On me? There's nothing special about me, Peter."

"There must be something," he said, nudging her with his elbow. "Other than your natural good looks and wicked stubbornness. I mean, I haven't heard of the apocalypse bringing out the same abilities in anyone else, have you? Maybe figuring what that is, what's different about you, will also help with the other."

"You make it sound like it's going to be easy," Olivia mused, examining the wounds on his face. "Somehow, I don't think it will be." She reached up and brushed her fingertips lightly over one of the angry welts on his cheek. At her touch, he hissed slightly, but didn't pull away. Dropping her hand, she whispered, "I'm sorry about your face, Peter."

Peter shrugged the apology aside. "Don't be," he said. "I'll take a few burns over the alternative every time." He paused, regarding her with intent eyes. "Olivia, we're probably gonna need Walter's help. You know this is right up his alley."

"I guess there's no way around that, is there?" she said, nodding with reluctance.

"When? How soon do you want to start?"

"Soon. In a few days, maybe. Or after the new year. There's no point in waiting."

Another shiver ran through Peter, and he hissed through clenched teeth. "That's right, it's almost Christmas. Other than the temperature, it doesn't feel like it."

"No it doesn't," she agreed. "Not much cheer these days."

"Walter will want to celebrate." There was a strong certainty in Peter's voice. "You know he will. He's probably been counting down the days, down to the minute, and maybe even the second."

"Let him," she decided. "If nothing else, it'll be good for Ella. She's growing up so fast—maybe too fast. Did they tell you what happened while we were gone?"

Peter frowned. "What do you mean?"

Olivia rose to her feet, holding the blanket tight about her. "Your father saved Ella's life," she told him, and felt a glimmer of humor at his stunned expression.

"What...? Please tell me you're joking," Peter started, staring up in wonder. "Wait, you're serious, aren't you?"

"Oh, I'm serious, all right," she confirmed as he staggered upright. "It's quite the story. C'mon. I think I've had enough."

He followed her inside, listening with growing amazement as she relayed the details of Ella's misadventure, and Walter's subsequent rescue. As she finished the tale, she recalled Ella's fascination with the big library, almost from the very first day they'd arrived. But it had never occurred to her that she would actually go there, alone, and on her own. She was barely five-years old! Part of her was impressed by her niece's courage, and another part equally outraged. How could Rachel have let that happen? They would need to keep a much closer eye on a certain little girl.

When they reached the basement level, a single candle burned on the floor near the lab entrance. They moved toward the flickering light, and upon reaching her door, Olivia poked her head inside. She found two sleeping forms on the pushed-together mattresses, with room enough for herself next to the smaller of the two. Letting the door close quietly, she turned back to Peter.

"This is me," she said, leaning back against the wooden panel. "I know I said nothing was going to change—and it hasn't," she added hastily, "but for now, I think it's best if we just..."

"I get it," Peter agreed, nodding and holding his hands to forestall. "We've got all the time in the world, don't we? It's probably for the best anyway, knowing Walter's sleeping habits."

They both hesitated then, eyes locked and uncertain how to proceed. It was an odd moment, reminiscent of a first date, though surely they were past that. Then Olivia took matters into her own hands by rising up on her toes and pressing her lips against his uninjured cheek.

"Goodnight, Peter," she said gripping his coat. "I don't think I've thanked you for getting me out of there, so thank you. For everything."

"Hey, you'd have done the same for me," he replied, stepping away from her. "At least, I hope you would have. Goodnight." He turned to go then, stopped, looking back over his shoulder. "Olivia, if you want to talk about...anything, anything at all, I'm here."

"I know you are," she assured him. "Good night."

Peter flashed her a crooked grin that was all teeth, then strode away, the soles of his boots clacking loudly on the tiled floor. For an instant, she saw the young boy's face from her dream, smiling the same, toothy smile below the same pair of clear, blue eyes.

_My name's Peter. Mine's Olivia..._

Olivia felt a ripple of unreality, of barely being there, and ran her fingers through her hair, pushing it back tight against her skull. In spite of feeling like, and having the texture of a memory, it had only been a dream. Wasn't it? Surely if she had met him before, even as young girl, she would have remembered it. She might have chalked it all up to coincidence, to her subconscious substituting Peter for the nameless boy from her drawings as a child, yet the drawings  _did_  exist. Several of them were buried in a box of childhood mementos in her apartment.

Peter's retreating outline soon vanished into the gloom, and then his footsteps a moment later. When he was gone there was only stillness. She pressed the candle out between two fingers and darkness closed around her. Then she felt her way back to her door and slipped inside, careful to make no noise. The last thing she needed or wanted was a round of Rachel's twenty questions.

She lay down beside Ella on the mattress and stared up at the ceiling. Sleep was a long time coming. Her mind lingered on Charlie for a while, and then on the dream, on the gnawing feeling that it might not be a dream entirely.  _Jacksonville_. They had moved away when she was eight, mere months before she'd forced  _him_  out of their lives. But before then? What had induced her to make the drawings, so long ago? The details were foggy, like half-remembered dreams. All she could say for sure was that the drawings had made her happy, and at a time in her life when there had been little to be happy about.

_Do you trust him... Walter?_

_You've got to try something right? You should tell him._

Was that how it had gone in her dream? She suddenly wasn't sure; it seemed wrong somehow, but either way, it had to be a coincidence. It had to be. Just her subconscious at work.

But she was no longer sure, of anything.

#

* * *

#

His knee ached with every step.

It had been aching since he'd woken that morning, as it had ached every morning since he'd acquired the injury. It was the persistent cold, he surmised, limping up the stairs into the lab. The cold, and likely a meniscus tear. The swelling had gone down days ago, yet the pain lingered with annoying persistence. It was troubling, and confirmation, in his professional opinion that the injury was not going to heal on its own. Meniscus tears rarely did, and with his age, the likelihood of such an occurrence was negligible. Walter did his best to ignore it, and went about his search for a late night snack.

The lab was empty, with only a single candle lit on the center lab table. He snatched up the candle on his way past—a great paschal adorned with a blue and red  _chi rho_ , with an alpha and omega above and below—and grinned, secretly amused by the now-defunct symbolism. The others had gone to bed, he supposed, though it was barely past nine o'clock in his estimation. Far too early. The night was still young.

He held the candle up and scanned the shelves for food, hoping to find something that would tickle his fancy. Their stock of supplies required constant replenishing, yet the shelves were painfully bare at the moment. What little there was left was hardly satisfying; processed foods, mostly, nothing but empty calories. Nutritional garbage like potato chips, crackers, prepackaged pastries chock full of poisons for the unwary, and of course, the always detestable banana chips, which were in his opinion, barely fit for human consumption. It was not a surprise they'd been left behind. He scanned the row of canned goods and found their numbers distressingly low. Enough for another week, possibly two if they were stingy. And his belt was already loose.

The onset of winter had exposed a flaw in their supply chain, a flaw that was potentially fatal if not rectified sooner than later. Their main source of real food was canned goods, and while the lab was located below the frost-line, the same could not be said for the majority of pantries out in the city. Over the last week, Astro had returned with only a handful of items, and at nearly half of those had been rancid when opened. Cycles of freezing and defrosting, then freezing again were systematically weakening the cans' structural integrity, until tiny splits in the seams developed, and that was it. It was a problem, and one that would only grow worse with time. Perhaps now that Peter had returned, a solution could be found, though he didn't have high hopes. The forces they were up against were powerful, and as old as time itself.

Walter settled on a bowl of watered-down oatmeal, with morsels of dried prunes mixed in for good measure. The mixture wasn't particularly good, but contained many nutrients the body needed; protein, fiber, vitamins A and B to name a few. His vitamin C intake was lacking, as well as calcium, and vitamin K—all theirs were. It was unavoidable, given the circumstances.

He paused with the last spoonful halfway to his mouth as a thought struck, obvious with its simplicity. "Supplements," he murmured to the air. "Yes, of course."

They'd been rather foolish; obtaining a supply of vitamins and minerals should have been a priority from the beginning. They weren't a perfect solution, but were better than nothing at all. He made a mental note to have Agent Farnsworth find some when she went out next, then swallowed the rest of his snack with a grimace. Afterward, he washed it all down with a shot of ice water—the only satisfying portion of his snack, and also growing increasingly short in supply. With a sigh, he scraped the bowl clean and set it aside. There were problems looming in the road ahead. Not the least of which was that dining after the world's end was becoming a particularly wretched endeavor indeed.

He glanced into the shadowed corners of the lab, then headed back down the steps into the sub-basement to resume his search. His knee was on fire when he reached the last step. Something would have to be done, but what? The only doctor around was himself, and he knew his limits. He shoved the thought aside; it was the least of their problems.

The storage room was overflowing with boxes and file folders, and ancient binders covering every flat surface, and sections of the floor. His earlier frenzy had left a disorganized mess behind, but he'd been unable to control himself. There was so much to process! A creature that should not exist—mostly likely a successful chimera, given Peter's description—was enough to chew on for days, but even such a scientific marvel as that paled beside his son's other revelations. He paced a path through the chaos, absently working the arthritic pain from the knuckles of his left hand.

Telekinesis.

He could scarcely imagine it. That Agent Dunham should suddenly manifest such an ability was simply unbelievable, and yet Peter had seemed certain. Very certain. Still, he might have chalked it up to fantasy in spite of his son's certainty, except for what else he'd said.

Directed spontaneous combustion.

Hearing Peter's description of what had transpired in the hotel had jarred something loose, some relic of the distant past, from the time before his incarceration. It was familiar. He had encountered such before. But when?

As before, he reached back, dredging the dark depths of his mind. Certain memories from that time in his life were resistant. Slippery. He imagined silly-putty oozing between grasping fingers, trying to pull them free. Was their repression a result of old age or something else, something more insidious? The time spent locked away had left his mind in ruins. Differentiating between fact and fantasy, between his past and his imagination was more than difficult at times. They often seemed one and the same, and why wouldn't they? When everything else had been taken from him, all that remained was his imagination, and they'd been constant companions. Sometimes Walter wondered if that twit, Sumner, hadn't done something to him, some sort of hypnotherapy while he'd been under one of the man's infamous drug-induced fogs. How would he know?

Walter rubbed his temple, trying to put the pieces together. Elizabeth had been up north, with Peter. Up north. Before the sickness. A fire—no, an explosion! Different from the fire in '91. Not an accident, but an experiment! Yes, that was it. Belly. William's experiment.

_Dear god...it worked, William!_

_Is she okay?_

_She's fine._

_Was anyone hurt?_

_...Do we know what triggered it?_

Belly. Voices came to him like whispering echoes, and images also.  _Jacksonville_. Walls and ceiling scorched black. A charred end table. At the center...a girl. A toddler, little more than a baby. Pale hair, hugging her knees—the girl is quaking, terrified. She was at the center of it all.

_It's okay... Nobody is angry with you... Everything is going to be okay, Olive..._

Olive.

Walter went still, fingers frozen in the curls of his hair. He gasped, feet taking root in the concrete floor. The words had come from his mouth. He was certain of it. Olive. Olive. Olive.

_Olivia._

Surely, it couldn't be. For a moment, he couldn't breathe. The convergence, the juxtaposition of chance and causality—his mind went blank at the implications. He could almost feel invisible strings guiding his actions, guiding all their actions, all the way back to Belly. But toward what goal? And who was the puppeteer? He had never believed in fate, in higher powers. Such ideas were beneath him, for those with small minds and little in the way of imagination.

Grabbing the candle, he turned back to the shelves of boxes lining the storage room walls. Of those still remaining on the shelves, most were from the stash in his old wagon, recovered only weeks before the outbreak.  _Jacksonville_. He ran his finger over the cardboard, tracing the faded permanent marker labels some had. The boxes were ancient, and coated in a thin layer of wax for waterproofing. He cracked the lid off one and peered inside, then shoved it back into place. Where was it? Feverishly, he checked another, then another, then moved onto the next shelf, holding up the light. It had to be there—it had been among those carried in from the wagon, he was certain of it.

He found what he was looking for suddenly and without warning; an unassuming brown box on a top shelf, sandwiched between a box of old circuit boards and his magazine collection from the late 1970s. Carefully, he pulled the box free and cleared a place on the center table beneath the tall church candle's flame. On the outside, written in barely-legible ink was:  _Jacksonville - 1981._

Walter's eyes bulged at the sight. It started to come back to him, the bits and pieces, the shattered memories from the time before. There had been a day care center. Only it hadn't been, not in truth. Experiments. Children. Belly and his obsession. With a gulp, he eyed the box's lid warily. Did he want to know what was inside? Nothing good would come from whatever it was.

Yes. He must.  _If it's true_ , he thought with a nod to himself,  _everything could depend on it. Everything._

He lifted the lid and set it aside. Inside the box was a jumble of a collection of ancient Betamax videotapes and cassette recordings, both useless of course, without a way to watch or listen to them, but they did have labels. Belly had always labeled everything. With trembling hands, he dug into the box, looking for what he wasn't sure; he would know it when he saw it. And a moment later he did.

It was Belly's slanted handwriting—he could recognize it still, even after all the time that had passed. The letter and numbers were scrawled across a videotape's label in thick, red ink.

 _Subject 13 - O.D._  
C.T. 10/17/81  
Treatment #7, 30mg

Shaking now, Walter traced his thumb over the faded initials as the fog began to clear, as doors began to swing open, letting in the light. The memories came faster, unfurling at mind-numbing speed. He remembered. He remembered it all. Cortexiphan. The children. Elizabeth. Peter, and the great war to come; Belly's war. Somehow he had forgotten all about it, repressed with all the pain and sorrow and suffering that came with it.

 _It is unavoidable, Walter_ , he heard William's raspy voice say.  _Interaction between the two sides will lead to an inevitable progression, the end result of which is total destruction—of us, or them. We can never hope to catch them technologically, but the children, they will be our..._

It was true.

Walter straightened, hugging the tape to his chest. "Oh my dear, Olive," he whispered to the shadows. "You've found your way back to me."


	19. Fête

**-December 2008**

Time passed slowly in the days following Charlie's death. For Olivia, it passed in colorless increments, in starts and stops, in moments measured by the beating of her heart as she lay on her mattress, staring at a small spot on the wall beneath the window.

Her restless mind turned the daylight hours into minutes, the minutes into seconds that trickled past, stretching out, elongating until the last possible moment before flipping over to the next. When night fell, she lay awake, searching for the rhythm of sleep, for the peaceful refuge of dreams. But even her dreams were denied her. Instead of peace, she found a torrent of shapeless nightmares; of fire and pain, of featureless eyes and mouthfuls of cruel fangs, of friends dying in her arms, of Ella and Rachel screaming, of Peter's rotting corpse dead by her hand, of being alone, the last living soul trapped forever in the world of the dead. And each morning she woke unrefreshed, more exhausted than the last.

In the moments between waking and nightmares, she went through the motions of living—if being confined to the lab could be called living. The world turned gray, blurred into a series of dull interactions that repeated daily. Part of her was aware of her own apathy to the situation, but she found herself helpless to pull out of the tailspin, to change course. Rachel was worried about her, and Peter also. He, had least, had only brought up the subject once with her, then never again—not that he was around much to bring it up. Her sister's ever-present frowns and long glances were quickly becoming sources of irritation and resentment, though she hated herself for feeling them. Mostly, she just wanted the numbness to fade, and to feel like herself again, if that were possible. She'd come to the conclusion that it might not be possible. Maybe Charlie's death and the things happening to her had changed her somehow, broken something inside her, perhaps forever. Staying in bed and avoiding it all seemed easier. She hated herself for that, too, and lay awake staring at the same spot on the wall.

Yet that morning, something had woken Olivia earlier than was her new normal. Something. Beside her on the mattress, Ella snuggled in her blankets sound asleep, as was Rachel on her niece's other side. Their combined breaths see-sawed quietly in the silence.

A wide yawn stretched her mouth open wide, and she rose up on her elbows and glanced around the darkened classroom. The room was still, bathed in gray shadows that would soon give way to the light of day. The onset of sunrise was not what had pulled her from sleep. After a moment, she relaxed back on her pillow as another yawn forced its way out, intending to salvage what little remained of the night. But then her nose caught a whiff of something. An aroma.

The scent jolted her wide awake, clearing away the fog of sleep in an instant.

 _What is that?_ Eyes bulging and with hands that moved of their own accord, Olivia threw back her blankets and sat up, reaching for her boots sitting nearby. She slipped them on, ignoring the laces in her haste, and slipped out of bed. The smell lingered in the air, tantalizing; a throwback to the time before. She glanced down at the pair of sleeping figures, then hurried out of the room into the blackness of the corridor, making sure to shut the door softly behind her. Outside her room the scent was stronger, and grew stronger still as she moved toward the lab door, where a faint light glowed through the clouded glass. She crossed the hall in two quick strides and yanked open the door. The scent inside was overpowering. Mouthwatering. In a daze, she made her way down to the lab floor proper, where a halo of candlelight surrounded Walter's chemistry set on the center table.

A small portion intricate tangles of glassware bustled with activity. Water boiled inside a bubble of glass above a blue flame, steam bubbled through a tube of spiraled glass, dripped into a large strainer lined with paper of some sort, which in turn dripped into another glass beaker with a wide pouring spout. The end result was a blackish liquid she'd thought to never see again. Walter stood on one side, oblivious of her presence, turning a valve carefully with a wrinkled frown. He was decked out in full lab gear—white smock, gloves, and goggles—and humming what sounded like a Christmas carol under his breath.

Olivia moved forward into the light. "Walter!" she said in strangled gasp. "You made coffee."

The old scientist turned at the sound of her voice. "Ah. Olivia," he said in an oddly cordial tone. From his tone, he might have been expecting her. He waved her closer with one hand. "Join us for a cup. It's almost ready, dear."

Before she could however, a shadow moved behind the chemistry set, then resolved into Peter as she stepped forward into the light. Absurdly, he was wearing a lab coat also, and had a pair of goggles resting on his brow.

Olivia gaped at the sight of him. For a heartbeat, she thought she might still be asleep, dreaming the entire sequence. He met her gaze with a disarming smile. No. She was definitely not dreaming. Her eyes ran over his face, lingered on the light layer of stubble on his left side. He was getting better, the burns healing nicely.

"Good morning, Olivia," Peter said in a surprisingly chipper voice. "You're up early today."

No, he was the one that was up early. This was her normal time—or it had been. Her eyes flicked to the chemistry set. "You...you made coffee," she stammered again, glancing between the father and son. "I could smell it from my room..."

"Yes, you're quite observant this morning, Agent Dunham," Walter said, lips crooking into a cagey grin. He leaned closer as if he were about to impart a great secret. "It's good to see you bright and chipper. You know coffee is a highly complex chemical substance, my dear, containing hundreds of separate compounds, many of which heterocyclic in nature."

Hugging herself against the chill in the basement air, she glanced at Peter for clarification. "...Heterocyclic?"

"Organic compounds that can influence how we taste and smell things," he supplies, watching his father with a small smile.

Walter nodded enthusiastically. "Indeed they are, and indeed they do—at least, in this case. They cut across a wide swathe of human scent receptors, which is of course why most homo sapiens love the smell of coffee and nearly anything associated with it. I once attempted to categorize them all, back in 1976 in this very lab. The perfect blend of scents and flavors, for the perfect cup of joe." His voice deepened with a note of melancholy. "It was a worthy line of research, but one that ultimately ended in utter failure," he finished, then turned away, shaking his head and muttering under his breath—about his belly being disagreeable, of all things.

Peter chuckled at his father, then grabbed a pair of coffee mugs off the table beside the chemistry set. Olivia watched as he filled them carefully, then stirred in a packet of sugar into one of them with a plastic spoon. "Here," he offered, holding out the cup with the sugar. "Should warm you up. Black with one sugar, right? That's how you took it?"

Olivia blinked at the coffee cup in his outstretched hand, recognizing the familiar pattern of trees wrapping around its base. It was hers—the one she had used regularly, before. She reached for it gingerly, then met his gaze. "How'd you know?"

"You're not the only one who's observant," he replied softly, lifting his shoulders.

"Oh..." She dropped her eyes, and put two and two together to make four. It had been months since she'd had any coffee. Which meant that he had noticed her preference before the outbreak, back when calling him a friend would have been a stretch at best, and laughable at worst. She certainly had not paid any attention to how he'd taken his coffee—which was black, apparently. But then she had been in a different place at the time, dealing with John in the aftermath of his recovery. It was difficult to believe how much had changed since then, not only the world, but she with it.

Meeting Peter's blue-eyed gaze over the rim of her cup, she took a sip and sighed. The heat was divine, the taste even more so. It warmed her insides, and for a stretched-out instant, transported her backward through time, back to the past, to when her world was still sane; when the worst thing her day might offer was a difficult case, and the best a quiet night curled up on her couch with a good book and a glass of wine. She closed her eyes, soaking in how it used to be. Maybe John would be there, massaging her feet idly while he watched television. Or Rachel and Ella, visiting for the weekend. Or Charlie, or even Peter. Anything was possible. She was there again, in her mind's eye. And it was there in the past, staring at how she used to be, that she found herself again. Her lips began to quiver, and she took another drink to mask the rising tide of emotion.

"And? How is it?" Walter asked suddenly, invading her space. He wet his lips, rubbed his palms together manically. "Not too bitter, I hope?"

"Um...it's perfect," Olivia said, and wiped at her eyes with two fingers. "Delicious. Thank you. It might be the best cup of coffee I've ever had."

"Oh?" Walter's eyebrows shot upward as he grabbed a cup for himself. "Well. Don't thank me, dear. It was all Peter's idea, of course. His technique."

Peter shot Walter an annoyed glance and shrugged. "I was planning on surprising you with it," he said, pulling her aside while sneaking another look at his father, who was stirring a copious amount of sugar into his mug. "Seeing how today's Christmas and all. But I guess that's out the window."

Olivia started. It was Christmas? How had she missed that? What was wrong with her? She looked back at her behavior over the last week and could only feel disgust at how she'd been acting, pushing everyone away in her grief. She wasn't the only one grieving, just the most childish. He'd made the coffee for her, as a gift. She felt something stir inside her, bloom into life.

"I...I don't know what to say," she whispered through a sudden tightness in her throat. "It's the thought that counts, right? Isn't that what they say?"

"Some people..."

"Thank you, Peter," she said, smiling up at him. Then a thought struck, and she narrowed her eyes. "If you knew how to make coffee with Walter's stuff before, why'd you wait until now?"

Peter wet his lips and shrugged. "Didn't occur to me before," he explained, then lowered his voice. "I've been checking the gas pressure at the regulator over the last few days..." He hesitated, darting another glance at the chemistry set where Walter was tinkering with the glass tubing. "Olivia, we're running out."

Olivia gasped, and nearly spit up her last swallow. "What? We're running out?" she hissed.  _Shit..._

"Yeah, it kinda sucks...," he agreed, scrubbing back his hair, and she realized she'd spoken her last thought aloud as Peter continued. "I haven't told anyone else yet, not even Walter. Frankly, I'm amazed it's lasted this long. Even if we ration it, which we already have been, sooner than later there won't be enough pressure left in the system to run the burners."

Out of gas. The thought left an unpleasant image in her mind. The uninterrupted supply of gas was more or less the only reason why life was bearable in the old university building. Running out would change the situation, perhaps drastically. Perhaps alternatives sources could be found, but none of them would make up the pure convenience the lab offered. She raised the cup of coffee made from their dwindling reserve of fuel, and took a sip. "What do you think we should do?" she asked calmly.

"Well, that's a matter for debate, I guess," Peter said. "The real question is; how long are we going to stick it out here? I don't know about you, but that house we stayed at in Brookline—it was nice, wasn't it?"

"You think we should leave?" Olivia felt her heart quicken at the idea. And amazingly, the mention of Brookline and what had happened there only brought on a moderate amount of pain. She stowed it away carefully, for safekeeping.

Peter gestured vaguely, lifting his shoulders. "I'm not sure. Maybe? On the one hand, it hasn't gotten quite as cold down here as I'd thought it would, but on the other? We're living in an old musty basement, sleeping on mattresses that feel like they were made in the 1970s." He motioned toward the old coal furnace, sitting amid Walter's lab gear. "I've thought about using that thing for heat, but it looks like the flue was blocked off upstairs."

Olivia eyed the wide flue of black iron rising from the furnace's arched top and contemplated leaving. "Where would we go?" she mused out loud. "Outside the city? Toward that light we saw in the sky? We'd have to check it out first."

"I don't know," Peter said again. "Just think about it."

"I will," she promised with a nod, then eyed him through her lashes.

She and Peter hadn't seen much of each other over the last few days, or had a moment alone since they'd returned from the Federal Building, the night she'd let him walk away from her door. Not that she had sought him out, despite a part of her that longed to do so. He appeared to have intuited that she needed her space and had not attempted to intrude on her grief, and for that, she was grateful. He had been busy. After a few subtly placed questions, she determined he was frequently outside the perimeter, sometimes with Astrid and Rachel, other times by himself. She sipped at her coffee, and wondered what he'd been up to.

Before she could ask, however, the door rattled open and Astrid rushed inside. The former junior agent let out a squeal, then leapt down the steps to the lab floor.

"You made coffee!" she cried at Walter, and hurried over to the makeshift coffee brewer, eyeing it with delight. "Coffee! I don't believe it. Where's a cup?"

Not long after Astrid, the others soon woke; Rachel and Ella first each wearing a blanket over her shoulders, then Broyles hobbled in on a pair of crutches, and finally Sonia, who surveyed the scene at the top of the stairs for a moment before joining them in the ring around Walter's setup.

Olivia couldn't help but smile at Ella's confusion at the adults' excitement. When the five-year old tried a sip from Peter's cup, she blanched at the taste, gagging noisily, face scrunched with disgust. Raucous laughter erupted from every corner, even from Sonia and Broyles. Meeting Peter's gaze, she found herself joining in, and for a time managed to put aside their problems; their dwindling supplies—which now apparently included gas for the burners—and even the lingering darkness in which she'd been submerged in the wake of Charlie's death receded.

It was a start.

#

To Olivia's surprise, the good mood she'd found over coffee stuck around for most of the day. There was a different atmosphere inside the Kresge Building—the aroma of Christmas, she supposed—that infected everyone. After breakfast, an unspoken decision was made to take the day off and relax, which was how she found herself holding up an old bowling ball and staring down a seven-ten split at the other end of the long hallway outside the lab.

The bowling ball and pins were an unexpected surprise, courtesy of Astrid, who in her spare time, had made several trips to an alley on the north side of Cambridge and hauled it all back. It was an impressive feat, as the pins were surprisingly heavy, and only reiterated to Olivia that she should have been making better use of the younger woman's tenacity much sooner.

"C'mon, Aunt Liv," Ella called from behind, standing in the front row of onlookers. "We're waiting..."

A chorus of laughter followed, and Olivia glanced back at her audience with a smile. Except for Walter, who was in the lab preparing some cryptic surprise for them all, the entire group was crowded in the hallway. Even Broyles was participating, seated on a folding chair and serving as the official scorer, a skill he had apparently picked up in some other life. She found the thought of him hanging out in a bowling alley hard to imagine, but it must be true, as he had needed no explanation on how to go about it. Ahead of her, the corridor doors were all open, letting in what little daylight they could, just enough to see by. Hanging from the ceiling above the pins at the end was a headlamp on a strap, pointed downward and illuminating the pins in a bright glow. Before her first turn, years had passed since the last time she'd rolled a bowling ball, possibly even as far back as Northwestern, but it had come back to her as easily as riding a bike. Astrid had chosen the black and red swirled ball based on her own finger size, and the only one of them who had a real problem with the fingerholes was Peter, who had merely palmed the ball when it was his turn, just prior to her own.

Olivia took in a breath and started her motion, stepping toward the line of demarcation Peter had put down with a roll of duct tape. Four measured strides, and then she bent over, hooking her arm upward and letting the ball slide free of her fingertips as her socked feet came to stop at the line. The ball landed with resounding crash, bounced once, then angled toward the ten pin with a low, grinding rumble. Wincing, she willed the bowling ball to stay in bounds as it zoomed perilously close to the corridor wall that served as gutter on either side. Skimming along the edge of the wall, it narrowly missed a protruding door frame, then clipped the ten-pin and sent it spinning across the hall into the seven.

She raised her hands in anticipation as the seven pin tottered for a moment, then pumped her fist when it toppled over. Ella whooped and a round of cheers and clapping erupted.

"Not bad, Dunham," Broyles said when the cheers subsided as he scribbled on the score sheet. "If I'd have known you were a ringer, we might have gotten off to a better start back at Logan."

"I don't believe it...," Peter muttered, emerging from an open doorway further down the hall. "What are the chances of that? That was so lucky, Olivia."

Olivia smugly recalled how his first two rolls had been gutters. "Luck had nothing to do with it, Bishop," she told him, smirking and arching an eyebrow. "It's all in the wrist."

Rachel chimed in. "Olivia's not kidding, Peter. You should have seen her when we were kids. Remember that time at Aunt Missy's, Liv? She almost bowled a perfect game."

"Really," Peter said skeptically. "A perfect game."

"Well, it was only a two-sixty-five," Olivia admitted, tossing her hair back over her shoulder. "That was the highest score I ever got."

" _Only_  a two-sixty-five?" Astrid snorted. "Geez. I thought I was doing good if I broke one-thirty back in the day."

Olivia followed Peter to the end of the hall to help set up the pins for Ella, whose turn was last before the order started over. As they went about it, she found herself thinking of that day in Chicago. The memory felt foreign, like someone else had experienced it, some other Olivia in another life. She had been surrounded by family, one of the last times she remembered them all together. Her family. A year later, Mom would succumb to cancer, leaving them adrift without a tether.

"Everything all right?" Peter asked, glancing up as they gathered the pins and set them back in place.

"Yeah. I was just thinking of that day—when I bowled my high game," she replied, reaching for a pin and setting it on one of the open circles markered on the floor tile. "I was thirteen, and my Mom was still alive. We were in Chicago for a week, visiting my aunt. I haven't thought of that day in a very long time." She shook her head and snorted softly. "It's one of the few happy memories from my childhood."

Peter nodded slowly. "When your mom passed, where did you go? Into the system?"

"Almost...," she said, setting another pin upright and steadying it with the tip of her index finger. "Rachel and I were this close to getting split up and placed in foster care, but then my aunt...I guess she felt guilty and took us in. She didn't have any kids of her own, you see, and I don't think she ever wanted any. So..." She reached for another pin and trailed off, recalling the awkward silence on the drive away from their social worker's home where they'd stayed temporarily.

"So I'm guessing having two kids dropped in her lap didn't go so well."

"Yeah, not so much. Back then, I was pretty much angry...at everything, which was how I ended up in boarding school. According to my aunt, I was in need of a serious attitude adjustment."

"Ouch," Peter winced. "I'm sorry. That can't have been fun."

Olivia shrugged. "It ended up being good for me. I didn't have any friends to speak of, so I just focused on my grades and got accepted to Northwestern. I suppose the rest is history."

"And look at you know," he quipped, snatching up the bowling ball and rising from his crouch. "Living it up in the lap of luxury."

"Yeah, it's everything I hoped and dreamed for," Olivia said dryly, matching his grin as she straightened. Down the hall, Ella was bouncing from foot to foot. "You're all set, Ella," she called, and waved her forward.

Ella let out a shout and scrambled for the closer foul line Peter had put down just for her. Olivia looked on as he bent down beside her niece and instructed her in the ways of the illustrious granny-shot, complete with a comical demonstration. Not for the first time, she was amazed at the rapport he had developed with Ella, who was watching him with adoring eyes. And the feeling was mutual, as far she as could tell.

With cries of encouragement from the watching adults, Ella squatted at the foul line and heaved the ball forward with both hands. She wobbled, then fell back on her rear as the bowling ball lumbered inexorably toward the triangle of pins. At the last moment, it struck an imperfection in the tile and veered off center, then plowed a path through the pins, decimating the left flank as Ella squealed with delight. When the ball came to a stop, the five-year old looked back at them, wearing a huge smile. For the first time in what seemed like forever, there was true happiness on her niece's face, happiness not seen since before the outbreak. The others were all smiling and laughing, even Sonia, whose eyes were dancing.

 _We should have done this sooner_ , Olivia thought, watching their faces. When was the last time any of them had truly laughed like that? She couldn't recall.

"Was that good, Peter?" Ella wanted to know, bouncing to her feet.

"It was better than me, kiddo," he replied, ruffling her hair and meeting Olivia's gaze over her niece's head. "You must be a natural, just like you're aunt."

"You trying to earn some brownie points, Bishop?" she asked.

"Hey, a guy's gotta try," he said for her ears only as he moved past to retrieve the ball for Ella.

Olivia chuckled, then gave Ella an encouraging pat and moved back to join the others and wait for her next turn. When they finished the last frame, it was Sonia who was declared the winner by Broyles, with a score of two-seventeen. Olivia came in second with a respectable one-eighty-two, and Peter dead last, with a completely unimpressive score of eighty-seven, just behind Ella. The second game Olivia won in a landslide, and then Sonia—her only real competition—took the tiebreaker, winning on her last roll in the tenth frame.

Moments after the final game came to an end, Walter emerged from the lab with an apron covered in flour tied around his waist, and announced that it was time to eat.

#

From the first step into the lab it was apparent that Walter had been busy. Olivia followed him inside, then stopped just inside the doorway, gaping, and taking it all in.

The lab was transformed, alight with the flickering dance of numerous candles and oil lamps she had never seen before. The light refracted on dozens of globule Christmas tree ornaments of all sizes and color that hung from any compatible surface, glittered along lengths of gold and silver garland strung between cabinets, between brick archways, and from a single unlit light fixture in the center of the room. The garland radiated outward from the light fixture, tied to anything within range; shelves and cabinetry, lab equipment, even the old tank where she had mind-melded with John, forming a canopy of sorts over an open space in front of the upright piano. One of the long work tables was cleared of its usual mess and covered by a deep green table cloth, laden with an arrangement of place settings centered around several deep cooking pots that steamed in the lab's cool air. A delicious aroma she'd all but given up hope of ever smelling again assaults her nose.

 _Cooking_. Real cooking, that smacked of home and comfort, of family and days gone by. Olivia's mouth watered, her stomach growled. She took an involuntary step forward as her niece rushed past, bounding down the steps to the lab floor.

"Oh, wow!" Ella cried. Her eyes grew huge as she skidded to a stop beneath the canopy of garland and turned in a circle. "Look, Mommy! It's pretty!"

"I see that, honey," Rachel said, but her attention was locked on the steaming pots of food, as was everyone's, except for Ella's.

Walter threw his hand wide "Merry Christmas everyone!" Walter exclaimed with a mad grin, throwing his hands wide and then ushering them in. "Come in, come in. I have quite the feast prepared, or at least, as good as can be, given our unfortunate lack of quality ingredients."

"Where the hell did you get all this stuff, Walter?" Peter asked, sounding as bewildered as Olivia felt. "Have you been shopping?"

"That was me," Astrid admitted, fingering a strand of silver garland. "Walter had me check some homes in the area for decorations earlier this week. It wasn't hard to find."

"Yes, quite right," Walter nodded eagerly. "Astro's help was an essential ingredient into today's fête. And so were you, Peter, though I may have fibbed on the reasons I had you acquire what I needed for my other surprise, of which we will partake later." He motioned them to the table with both hands. "But come! Dinner is ready and waiting."

"Is that chili I'm smelling, Dr. Bishop?" Broyles inquired, struggling over to the table with his crutches. His eyes were bulging, with what Olivia could only describe as lust. "Real chili?"

"Indeed it is, Mister Broyles, indeed it is," Walter replied. "Tofu chili, my late wife's—Peter's mother's—recipe, or as close as I can approximate. I suppose it's not a traditional Christmas dinner, but we must all make do. Come. Let us eat. If I have to wait any longer, I feel as if I might faint. Come."

Despite the wonderful smells filling her nose, Peter's words from that morning echoed in the back of Olivia's mind. How much of their dwindling supply of gas had Walter just consumed with his feast, and with their coffee that morning? Days worth? Weeks? What would happen when they ran out? She didn't want to think about it, but it wasn't something she could just ignore. Plans would have to be made. Contingencies. Plans she should have been making already, instead of letting herself sink into a well of depression in the aftermath of Charlie's death.

 _I'm sorry, Charlie_ , Olivia thought sadly, taking a seat beside Ella and Rachel.  _I'm sorry, but this has to end_. Across from her sat Peter and Sonia, with Broyles on one end opposite Walter, and Astrid seated beside him. She met Peter's gaze, and her cheeks colored under his scrutiny. After a moment his brow furrowed. She shook her head slightly and shrugged in response to his silent question.

"Do I like chili, Mommy?" Ella wanted to know, giving the food on the table a dubious look.

"Literal beggars cannot be choosers, Ella," Rachel said. "This is what we have. You're just gonna have to deal with it, sweetie."

"Fear not, child," Walter said. "Fear not. I've also whipped up some rice and black bean burritos, with fresh tortillas, still warm—if that is more to your liking."

Peter looked down the table at his father. "Are you kidding me? Fresh tortillas."

"Yes. They're quite simple, actually," Walter said with a nod. "Flour; it's a common ingredient found in almost every household, and typically kept in a sealed container to keep out the mites. We should have been eating them long ago, but I suppose we can't think of everything until we do. Now, if anyone feels the need to pray, go right ahead, though I can't say I'll be joining you."

When no one offered to bless the food, they dug in, with Peter dishing out ladlefuls into waiting bowls thrust at him from all sides. Olivia rolled her eyes but didn't complain when he filled her bowl first—perks were perks, after all. The chili was steaming hot and the first mouthful nearly burnt the roof of her mouth, but it warmed her insides in a way nothing had for what seemed like an eternity. And it was wonderful. It was all wonderful, possibly the most satisfying dinner she could ever recall eating. After months of eating only bland, almost tasteless food, the pure contrast of flavors on her palette was addicting, drug-like. She ate faster, helpless to stop herself, and noticed the others doing the same.

For a while, no one spoke. Olivia was aware of the silence on some level, but it mattered not; they were starving, and had been to some degree or another for months on end. They ate in a frenzy at first, a frenzy of ringing utensils, of smacking lips and gurgles of water in between; the sound of intense consumption filled the silence. Then, when the urgency to fill the constant pit in the bottom of their stomachs subsided enough to allow for talking, rounds of laughter and overlapping voices engaged in small talk echoed through the lab. For a few minutes, they were nothing but family and friends sharing a Christmas dinner—albeit a strange one in a strange place.

Finally, Olivia leaned back in her chair, stuffed to the brim, and watched with some small amusement as Peter shoved what looked like an entire burrito in his mouth in one stretched-open chomp. They had all been eating like that, stuffing their faces, even Ella who was on her second serving. "Walter this is incredible," she told him around her last mouthful of chili, and the sentiment was quickly repeated around the table. "Where did you get this tofu?" she continued. "Did you make it, too? And how did you put all this together without us knowing?"

"Eh?" Walter grunted, looking up from his bowl. "Did I make it?" He shook his head and gestured with his spoon. "Sadly...no, as fresh tofu would have been the kicker, but it would be quite impossible to create with the equipment we have here. And as for putting it all together, it was all quite on accident, really, though thanks to the lovely Agent Farnsworth, it all worked out. When she returned a few days ago with several aseptically sealed packages of tofu, it struck me that with only a few more ingredients and some spices, my Elizabeth's chili was finally within reach." His voice softened. "She did so love making huge pots in the wintertime, didn't she, Peter?"

Peter's face tightened, and when he nodded his agreement a second later, a look of inner torture resided behind his eyes. Flickers of emotion crossed his face, in turn; sadness and guilt, and a hint of anger. After a moment, he noticed her regard and gave her weak smile. Olivia wondered if either of them would ever conquer—or at least outlast—their personal demons. She pressed her foot down softly on his under the table and smiled, which he returned shortly, along with a gentle nudge of his own. For some reason her mind went back then, back to the strange dream she'd had, of the boy named Peter who had talked of coming from a world at the bottom of a lake. The boy in her dream had mentioned Walter, referred to him as his father. Hadn't he? It was all foggy, nearly opaque in her memory. With the passing of time, it seemed more like a regular dream, and less like a memory. Yet there had been something about it, some feeling that had struck her, clung to her and refused to dissipate. It meant something. She hadn't mentioned the dream to Peter yet, and wondered what his reaction would be when she did.

"So let me get this straight, Astrid," Rachel said, leaning forward and looking down the table at the junior agent. "You've been in on this the whole time? Well, aren't you good at keeping secrets. Must be an FBI thing. I could never get Liv to tell me anything, either."

"You know we almost didn't make it, Walter," Astrid confessed. "Finding canned tomatoes, of any kind, that were still good wasn't easy. For every can I found, there must have been twenty that were rancid."

"So that's what you were doing the other day," Sonia muttered under her breath. "I was wondering why you kept insisting on taking all the pantries."

"You got me," Astrid chuckled. "Guilty as charged."

Olivia spied Sonia across the table. A smile crossed her face but never reached her eyes. There was a flatness to them, a dullness, as if all the life had gone out of her. Their conversation on the steps outside on the day Charlie was killed came back to her. Sonia had avoided everyone for a couple of days, and then had taken up going outside the perimeter with anyone who would go with her, ever searching for supplies. Was she keeping herself busy, keeping her mind occupied? Perhaps she was honoring Charlie in her own way; he had never let anything slow him down either, not even the strange panic attacks he had developed near the end. The older woman's determination was something to be admired. She dropped her eyes, feeling a surge of guilt. Sonia, at least, had not let apathy overwhelm her, had not given in to the path of least resistance. It was to be admired.

Walter suddenly rising from his seat at the end of the table pulled Olivia from her melancholic thoughts. "Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen," he said in a quavery voice. "Excuse me, but...I have something that I would like to say. A few words, if you will."

The lab fell silent and all turned toward Walter expectantly. He blinked down at them, wetting his lips and wiping his hands on the apron about his waist. After a moment, Peter gave him an encouraging smile and he began to speak.

"I would just like to say," Walter began with a swallow, "that our situation here, while indeed grim, is not entirely hopeless. That we have survived as we have, with our wits, by using our intelligence—it is a great testament to the vast adaptability of the human race. In the coming days, I suspect we will face even more difficult hardships, but we mustn't lose hope. Hope is what keeps the torch of the human spirit alight, and gives us the imagination to make the impossible, possible. I...I'm very proud of you all, and of those of us who have...already left us," he ended abruptly with a nod, then lowered his eyes. "That is all."

Olivia felt a throbbing ache in her throat as a hushed quiet descended. On the other side of the table, Sonia's eyes glistened and she nodded slightly, covering her mouth. A shadow fell across the lab, the shadow of those who were missing. Charlie. John. Even Greg. They would all be missed; none would be forgotten.

After a few moments, Peter rose from his chair. "Very well said, Walter," he said, then crossed over to his father and pulled him into an embrace. "And just so you know, I'm proud of you also."

Walter blinked, jaw quivering as his chin rested on Peter's shoulder. "Oh. Why... why thank you, son," he said in a hoarse voice. "I hope... I hope you'll always feel that way." The two of them separated, and Walter's voice strengthened. "Now. I hope you'll all indulge an old man, and join me for some after dinner refreshments."

"Refreshments?" Peter's eyes narrowed, and then he smacked his forehead. "Of course. The powdered milk and eggs. And the rum."

#

"You're kidding me," Sonia chortled, leaning back in her stool. She lost her balance for an instant before catching herself on the edge of the seat, sloshing her drink over the rim of her cup. "Charlie never said that, did he? Really?"

"I swear he did," Olivia said through a hunched over laugh, then took a sip of her drink. The not-quite-creamy concoction slid down her throat, leaving behind a strong aftertaste of rum along with an addictive coating of vanilla and cinnamon on her tongue. "Right after the disciplinary hearing where they split up me and John. Charlie comes up and says, 'Liv, what the hell were you thinking? Admitting to fraternization with your partner? You'll be demoted...' And I was like, Charlie, I'm tired of hiding it. John told me he loves me. And then Charlie goes, in that rough voice he had, all serious like, he goes, he goes...," She lowered her voice, doing her best impression of her old friend. "'So what? He told me he loved me too, but at least I never shacked up with him!'"

Charlie's wife cackled wildly and came close to falling from her perch beside the couch where Olivia was seated. From the other end of the couch, Broyles was watching them. His head shook slowly with disapproval, but there was a trace of humor in his dark eyes and he wore a slight smirk. She caught Sonia's gaze and was helpless to stop another round of uncontrollable giggles. She laughed until her stomach hurt, and then dabbed at her eyes with the edge of her sleeve as Peter sashayed past her with Ella in tow. There was an ecstatic grin on Ella's face as he twirled her around, lifting her feet in the air, and moving to the rhythm of Walter's upbeat tempo on the old piano. Rachel sat beside him on the bench, shoulders swaying from side to side with the music. Her cheeks were a rosy red, a classic sign of her advanced state of inebriation if Olivia had ever seen one.

She glanced down at her cup. It was her third serving, and was already nearly gone. A pleasant buzz had fallen over her, lightening her head on her shoulders, and dulling the sharp edge of her thoughts. Eggnog had never been among her favorite drinks before, but Walter's version was savory and delicious, and incredibly filling. Her stomach felt as if it might burst. She took another sip, watching Peter's grin as he spun her niece about. They looked good together, almost like a father and a young daughter dancing at a wedding. The thought came out of nowhere and seemed utterly strange.

"Again, Peter!" Ella cried, clapping and laughing as the song came to an end.

"Hey, girl, I want a turn, too" Astrid said, sliding off her stool in front of the piano where she'd been watching.

Walter sprang up from the piano bench, holding up one hand. "Oh Peter! Would you mind playing for us? A polka?" he asked, extending a hand toward Astrid. "Astro, would you care to dance, my dear?"

Peter let out a snicker as he moved toward the piano. "Wow. You really know how to sweep them off their feet, Walter," he commented, shaking his head. "For the ten-thousandth time, her name is Astrid."

"I'd love to dance, Walter," Astrid replied. Her eyes twinkled. "Even if you choose not to remember my name ninety-five percent of the time."

Peter grabbed his drink off the piano lid and took a long swallow, then sat down beside Rachel. He pulled back the sleeves of his coat, stretched out his long fingers, then cracked his knuckles and began to play. The tune was unfamiliar to Olivia, but it had a kind of old-world feel, like something that would have been played in a crowded ballroom in a Jane Austen novel. Walter grinned madly as he twirled Astrid about, holding her with one hand on her waist.

"You feel like dancing, Olivia?" Sonia asked, eying Walter and Astrid. "That looks fun."

"Maybe later," she replied with a head shake. "You should ask Rach though. She's always loved dancing." Her sister had always loved to dance. She'd met her husband on a dance floor at a nightclub in Chicago.

Sonia nodded and then wandered over to the piano to cajole Rachel into a dance. Soon the three women and Walter were laughing and turning about in the orange light beneath the canopy of tinsel and garland. Conflicting shadows moved across the floor, cast by the myriad of candles in surrounding the makeshift dance floor. Covertly, Olivia watched Peter play over the piano top. His face was set in concentration, brows furrowed, lips a thin line, head bobbing slightly. After a moment he glanced up and caught her regard. A slow smile crept onto his face, then widened into a contagious grin.

"Does this happen often?" Broyles asked suddenly.

Olivia pulled her gaze from the piano and found her former boss eyeing the merry scene over the rim of his cup. He wore an odd look on his face. Was it strange to him, to see light and happiness again? What was it like after everything he'd been through in the Federal Building, all the death, the betrayals, being trapped and alone for weeks on end, to see joy again? To be in the light of civilization, if just for a few moments? Was it alien? How much had his experience changed him?

She shook her head. "No, we've never done this before. Though maybe we should have. Sometimes, I think we forget the reasons we have to keep fighting, why we have to survive. You know what I mean?"

Broyles nodded and took a sip of his drink. "You've done a hell of a job here, Dunham, keeping it all together. As good as can be. It's commendable." He fingered the ridge of his forehead, staring out at the dance floor. "You know, I never expected you to follow my orders after everything went to hell. You could have left, given up. No one would have blamed you if you had."

"That wasn't an option, sir," she said. "It still isn't."

"Do you think any of what I told Walter can make a difference? A real difference?"

Olivia shrugged. "It has to. It certainly isn't going to hurt.

"I hope you're right."

"Yeah, me too," she snorted softy as Ella wandered over from where she'd been watching Peter play.

"Can you dance with me, Aunt Liv?" she asked, sticking out her lower lip. "There's no one left but you and Mister Broyles, and I don't think he can dance."

Olivia noticed Broyles's lips curl into an amused grin on the edge of her vision. "Of course I'll dance with you, baby girl," she said, then drained the rest of her cup and set it on the floor beside the couch. "I was just waiting for you. C'mon."

She led Ella out onto the dance floor, otherwise known as the open space between the tank and the railing guarding the stairwell down to Walter's storage room. Though it had been over a decade since the ballroom dancing class she'd taken on a whim one summer at Northwestern, it all came back like it had been yesterday. She guided a delighted Ella through the steps and turns, then into a promenade then carried them in front of the piano where she could feel the light caress of Peter's gaze on their way past. When they executed a spin, he flashed her a cheeky grin, then increased the tempo of his playing. The ring of the piano filled the lab. Opposite her, Ella's face was a picture of unbridled glee. Lips slightly parted, her dimples were prominent, and her dainty hands gripped Olivia's tightly. She caught a glimpse of a giggling Rachel whirling beside them, of Sonia, with watery eyes. The older woman was still smiling, though, still able to laugh. They bounced and hopped, spinning past Walter and Astrid. The old scientist and junior agent's eyes were intent, not on each other but on the past from their distant looks, on some memory of the time before. Peter stepped up the tempo again, banging out notes that shook the air. No longer a song fit for ballrooms, at some point it had regressed into a barn-burner, fit for a country fair. Ella burst out laughing as they tried to keep up, spinning ever faster. Her eyes beamed, sparkled with joy. Over on the couch, Broyles's teeth were exposed in a wide grin as he clapped and stomped in time with his good foot. When the song finally ended, they switched partners and Olivia ended up with Rachel while Walter spun a grinning Sonia about and Astrid took a turn with Ella.

Smiling down at her little sister, the moment stretched out, froze in Olivia's mind. And just for a little while, in that brief span of time, she put it all aside; her worries about their future at the lab and the unwavering apathy that had taken hold of her since Charlie's death, her hopes, her fears, and the horrors they'd endured. It all faded into the background in that moment. She lingered briefly on those no longer with them, on Charlie, on John, then moved onto those who remained. They were her people.

Her people.

#

Later, well past the hour when the sun had dropped below the horizon, Olivia found herself lounging on the old couch beside Peter.

Most of the others were already bedded down for the night, having long since succumbed to exhaustion or alcohol or both—including an overtired Ella, who had been virtually asleep on her feet at the end. Walter was still awake however, and was thumbing idly on the piano, humming some song or another under his breath. Broyles was passed out in one of the examination chairs, feet propped up, head tilted back and snoring softly through parted lips.

Only a few candles still cast flickering lights, and coupled with Walter's idle playing, the atmosphere was relaxing, hypnotically mellow. She was undoubtedly drunk, head on a spring, lips curled into an involuntary grin. Peter seemed in no better condition than she. His head rested against the couch back, eyes unfocused on the ceiling above. They'd been sharing the last of the rum, and the tall bottle was wedged upright between their thighs. Whiskey or scotch would have been preferable alternatives to rum, but rum was all they had. She wondered where the bottle of top-shelf scotch Peter had found on their way to Brighton had gone. Had it survived the trip back? At some point, she'd lost track of it.

Peter shifted beside her. "You think he's okay there?" he asked, glancing toward the sleeping figure in the examination chair.

Olivia lifted one corner of her mouth, eyeing the former Special Agent In-charge. "I think he'll be fine," she said. "We can throw a blanket over him later." She lifted the bottle of rum and took a sip, sighing at its spicy heat on the way down, then passed it to Peter. "Where did you learn to play the piano like that anyway?"

Peter lifted the bottle to his lips and swallowed, leaving a finger-width at the bottom. "Believe it or not," he said, pressing the rum back in place between them, "I learned at a little honky-tonk outside of Nashville."

"Really? Nashville, Tennessee? What were you doing there?"

"Running...more or less," he admitted, displaying only a little of his usual reticence when discussing his past. "Trying to get as far away from here as possible. There was a guy there—older, must have been around seventy, seventy-five at the time—he played piano most nights. He was good, real good. Showed me a thing or two." He paused for a moment, and a hint of regret entered his voice. "One day he didn't come in—turned out he'd had a massive heart attack in his sleep."

"I'm sorry," she said, and meant it.

"It happens," Peter shrugged.

"So you two were close then?"

"...He was close with Peter Rook," he replied, staring down at his hands. "He never even met Peter Bishop."

"Ahh..." Olivia nodded slowly. "I understand."

Or at least, she thought she understood. But did she? She wondered what it was like to live a lie. Day in, day out, every moment hiding your true self. Would it wear on you? Leave a mark behind? A scar? How long until the lies he told, the walls, became permanent, the default state of mind for interacting with anyone? She intended to break them all down, eventually, and find out what was behind them. Delicately, of course.

The discordant piano notes from across the room had suddenly become organized, resolved into a song. Over the piano top, Walter's eyes were closed, and his lips moved silently. What was he thinking about? She didn't recognize the song, it was some classical piece—not Bach. He seemed in deep concentration, lost in whatever memory or thought process he was trying to facilitate. She glanced at Peter, and came to a decision.

"Peter, would uh... would you like to dance?" Olivia asked, dropping a hand onto his thigh. "With me?" she added at his confused look. The man could be remarkably dense at times.

"Dance..?"

"Yeah, dance," she grinned, and nudge him with her shoulder. "You know, two people moving together to a rhythm? I only asked because we didn't earlier, and I just thought that, maybe you'd like to. Unless you don't like dancing."

"I don't actually," he said. "Like dancing, I mean. I never have."

"Oh..." She dropped her eyes, and her cheeks began to burn in the cool air. "Well... that's okay, I just thought that-"

"But I would with you though," he interrupted, covering her hand with his own. "You seemed like a good dancer, before. It might be fun. But what about him?" He inclined his head toward his father. "He'll see us for sure."

"I don't care if Walter sees us," she said. And she didn't. Walter already knew most of her other secrets, why not this one too? "Do you?"

A slow grin crept across Pete's face. "I might come to regret it, but no, I don't as long as you don't." He took a small sip of rum, then passed her the bottle. "Here, finish her off," he said, then staggered to his feet, looking unsteady as he did so.

Olivia obliged, tilting her head back and emptying the bottle in one burning gulp. She let Peter pull her upright, and the concrete rolled beneath her feet. As she steadied herself on his forearm, it occurred to her that Broyles was not the only one with a diminished tolerance. She looked up at Peter. "Ready?"

At his nod, she led him out into the open space in front of the tank, beneath the muted sparkles of garland. They came to a stop in the center, where she glanced up and noticed a tiny sprig of faux mistletoe hanging down, waiting ominously for a pair of lovers to walk beneath. It was Walter's doing of course, and she wasn't sure how she'd missed it earlier. Stepping in close to Peter, she settled her left hand on his shoulder while he clasped her about the waist, and their free hands came together in the traditional pose, arms extended to the side. He smiled down at her, and then they started to move, turning slowly to the soft chords playing in the background. She soon discovered that in spite of his initial reluctance, Peter was a more than able dancer, and led her through the steps and turns with ease.

"I didn't think you knew how to dance, Peter," she said as they moved in a circle. "You're not bad at all."

"I said I didn't like dancing," he corrected with a chuckle. "Never said I didn't know how. In my former line of work...well, let's just say it was a tool that came in handy on more than one occasion. You're not so bad yourself, 'Livia. Let me guess, you took a class sometime in your youth."

"I did," she told him as he raised their hands, spinning her about. "At Northwestern, over the summer between semesters. I think I was about nineteen at the time. Not really sure why I took it, and the instructor was practically a drill sergeant."

When they came together again, she pressed herself in close, breathing in his scent. She realized that she had missed it, had missed him. The two of them had spent hardly any time together since Charlie's death. It was her own doing, and unintentional or not, a space, a distance, had grown between them. He had given her space to deal with her grief in her own way, and for that she was grateful, but enough was enough.

Abruptly, the music faltered for an instant before resuming with slightly more force. When Walter next came into view, his eyes were bulging at them over the piano. The look in his face could only be described as ecstatic.

"We may just have opened Pandora's box," Peter said under his breath. "He's never gonna let this go. Do you have any idea how long he's been waiting for something like this? Decades."

Olivia smiled at the beaming Walter, then pressed even closer to Peter, laying her head on his shoulder. "He's fine, Peter," she said softly. "He's your father. All he wants is for you to be happy."

Walter continued to play for them, moving on to a different song, and the music was soothing, lulling on her senses. They moved together as one, and she almost felt like she was floating on air. At some point it came to her that she knew the song Walter was playing, not by name, but she'd heard it before. Peter had played it for her—after refusing to play her some Bach.  _That's way too stuffy. What you need is some jazz..._ Olivia smiled to herself and closed her eyes. In that moment, nothing existed but herself, and the feel of her partner in her arms. And they were partners, in every sense of the word.

"I am happy, you know...," she heard Peter say. His arm tightened about her waist, holding her even closer. "In spite of everything, hell, the end of fucking civilization, I don't think I've ever been happier than I am right now. Is that crazy?"

"Maybe a little crazy," Olivia murmured, then took the sting out of her words by pulling his lips down for a kiss.

She inhaled his breath, pulled on his lower lip. Their tongues came together in a tentative dance of their own. He tasted of alcohol and desire, and mostly of himself. A familiar heat began building inside her, and she sighed into his mouth. After several pounding heartbeats, she reluctantly forced herself away from him; they had an audience, after all, and there was no reason to put on a show. When they separated, Peter's eyes were heavy-lidded and glazed over. His lips crooked into a foolish grin that she found herself matching. Finally, the music ended and they stepped apart, though she kept a tight grip on Peter's hand as they turned to face his father.

The piano bench screeched loudly as Walter surged to his feet. He quickly moved out from behind the piano, barely holding his excitement in check. "Peter. Olivia!" he exclaimed. "That was wonderful! Reminded me of Gene Kelly and Cyd Charisse in  _Brigadoon_! Ah! To be young and in love again. How long has this been going on?" He stopped in front of them and stroked his chin shrewdly, his gaze shifting between them. "I am correct in assuming the two of you are now courting, yes? And it's not just a reaction to my mistletoe?"

"Courting?" Peter wrinkled his nose. "Walter it's not eighteen-seventy."

"But you are..." His eyebrows raised suggestively as he gesticulated with both hands.

"What the hell are you doing?" Peter said with a horrified look.

"Walter, Peter and I...," Olivia started with a wince. "While we were gone, well, I guess you could say we started having feelings for each other."

"Ah yes. Nature at work; the birds and the bees," Walter nodded with disturbing eagerness. His eyes went unfocused. "You know, I've always detested that expression. What do birds and bees have to do with one another? Nothing at all. There certainly is no chance of them ever successfully mating, unlike yourself and Olivia. They aren't even in the same phylum, much less genus."

"Walter," Peter groaned, "Don't ever mention Olivia and me, and mating, in the same sentence ever again."

"What?" Walter threw his hands wide. "It's true! There's no point in denying it, son. It's perfectly natural." He paused, giving them both a surprisingly stern look. "Although, you should remember that condoms aren't one-hundred percent effective, and furthermore, that conditions for a pregnancy, should you decide you want children, are far from ideal. You two are aware of this, yes?"

"Please stop talking," Peter muttered, looking ill.

Olivia cringed internally. Children? A child was the last thing they needed, even if she did want one. Bringing a child into the world as it was now would border on criminal. Tucking her hair back, she reminded herself that she had asked for this, and that Walter was just being Walter. She hooked an arm through Peter's. "We're gonna go to bed now," she said. "I want to thank you for setting all this up today, Walter. It was great. And I think we all needed it. I know I did."

"Oh! Of course. Think nothing of it." He nodded and waved them away with a lewd smile. "Well, don't let me get in your way, you two."

She started to turn toward to the exit, then hesitated, glancing back at the old scientist. "Walter, have you...thought at all about my, uh...problem?"

Walter's face went still, and his eyes shifted about. "Um, yes. But I'm... still formulating a hypothesis. I believe I may have encountered something like the...abilities, you displayed before. And I may have some...ideas, that may or may not prove fruitful, but I'm not quite ready to discuss them."

"Well, when will you be ready?" Peter wanted to know. "Walter, from the way you reacted when I told you, I thought you'd be all over this."

"What about the information from Nina Sharp?" Olivia asked instead. "The strange anomalies they detected? Do you have any idea what it might indicate?"

"It's all very intriguing," Walter replied, sounding more eager all of a sudden. "And it also supports my theory that the infection, as you call it, is merely a reaction, a byproduct, a side-effect of something else, some non-biological process. Of course, without knowing the exact nature of the experiments they were conducting at Massive Dynamic, or without having access to a working particle accelerator, there is little I can do with it here, other than conduct thought experiments."

"So it was for nothing then?" Olivia said, feeling sick in her stomach. "Downtown. Charlie. It was all for nothing?"

"For nothing?" Walter frowned. "On the contrary, Agent Dunham, the information could prove vital if we only had the results of their experiments, and might confirm my theory on how exactly the infection is spread, as well as give us ideas on how we might combat it, or indeed reverse its effects." His frown deepened. "Haven't I mentioned this? I'm certain I've mentioned this."

"What are you talking about?" Peter scowled. "You think you've figured out how it spreads? You definitely haven't mentioned that."

Walter blinked and shivered, hugging his arms across his chest. "Oh...well, I could have sworn I had," he said. "In any case, I believe we are dealing with a virus of sorts, but not one biological in nature, as I said before."

"A non-biological virus? You know that makes no sense, right?"

"When has quantum theory ever made sense, Peter?" Walter retorted. "Einstein himself despised the very idea of it, you know. Think of it this way. We know that the infection is not in their blood, yes? You cannot get infected by their blood, even by ingesting it."

"...And you know this how?" Olivia asked. She was certain she already knew the answer, but she had to ask.

"By swallowing a small amount I extracted from Judy, of course," Walter confirmed in a casual tone. "When we still had her body in the lab."

"You...drank its blood?" Peter said in a strangled voice. "Jesus. Why would you do that? You couldn't have known for sure, Walter. You could have turned right there!"

"I admit there was some risk involved, and it was quite rancid, I assure you—but it had to be done. It was the only way to be sure. Don't you see? If the infection isn't passed by their blood, then how can it spread to the living? Or cause the dead to rise in the first place?"

"So how does it?" Olivia said.

"Well, it's only a theory, of course, but it is my belief that it is only when they ingest  _your_  blood that the change in  _you_  occurs. You see, I suspect they're all connected by some kind of energy, some sort of field we're unable to see or detect. The field could be made up by particles of an unknown nature, or something else I've yet to determine, but I suspect it's all around us, even now in the lab, which is why the newly deceased turn automatically. But for the living, it doesn't work that way. Perhaps our life forces are enough to disrupt this field, and it is only when an infected takes in your blood, your flesh, your genes, your DNA—the very things that make you, you, and are quite individual to all of us—that they combine, or become...contaminated, or corrupted somehow by the mechanism that causes the infection, and then corruption works its way backwards to you, through a quantum entangled link of some kind established through your blood or DNA."

Olivia struggled to wrap her head around the explanation. The idea that the source of the infection was all around them, filling in the gaps between molecules was highly disturbing. Were they breathing it in? Or did it merely pass through them? Were they passing through her at that moment? She shifted her shoulders at a sudden tickle crawling up her spine.

"So what," Peter uttered. He twirled his fingers as he spoke. "A non-biological, quantum entangled virus? That's insane, even for you, Walter."

"Is it?" he replied. "Consider this. You'll recall my experiment with Judy. We removed her head, yes? Yet her limbs remained animated, even after separation. But, when we-"

Peter inhaled a sharp gasp. "When you finally killed the head, they stopped moving. They were connected."

"Correct," Walter nodded, holding a finger upright. "There must be a link. It's the only explanation that fits the facts. A link that goes beyond the blood or the flesh, beyond what we can see or touch. And if these anomalies detected by Massive Dynamic are related, then something, some force, is interfering with this universe's physical constraints at the most basic of levels, the tiniest of scales."

"But how can we fix something like that?" Olivia said. "Something we can't see or touch."

"It certainly poses not a small obstacle," Walter admitted. Hesitating, he crossed his arms and rubbed his elbows, glancing around the lab with sad eyes. "And I'm afraid fashioning any sort of...response, will prove rather difficult, if not impossible—at least with the equipment we have here. Without access to electricity…" He shakes his and glances around the lab. "The time may come when we have to leave all this behind."

Olivia felt a jolt of surprise. That Walter might not need convincing to leave the lab was unexpected. Of all of them, she had assumed he would be the most reticent. "We'll have to worry about that when the time comes," she said, and then gave Peter's arm a tug. "Think about my problem, Walter. These things...they have to be happening for a reason."

Walter's jaw quivered. "Of course. Yes...yes, I shall, Olivia," he agreed, nodding and massaging the knuckles of his left hand manically. "And I...I'm sure you're quite right. There must indeed be a reason. Well. I'm off to bed. I'm sure you two have more pleasant matters to attend to. Good night to both of you."

He gave them each a nod, then spun on his heels and hurried into his bedroom, grabbing a candle off a countertop on his way past. When he reached his doorway, he hesitated, glancing back at them over his shoulder, then darted inside, shutting the door behind him with a slam that rattled the window.

"Good night, Walter," Olivia said quietly to the air, narrowing her gaze on the closed office door and the candlelight moving inside, visible through window shades. She glanced at Peter, whose brow was creased with suspicion. "That was weird, wasn't it? What do you think he's not telling us?"

"Who knows?" he muttered with a deepening frown. "The man can barely remember his name half the time. I'll see what I can get out of him tomorrow."

Olivia nodded, and they began pinching out the remaining candles, blanketing the lab in darkness. She tossed a spare blanket over Broyles, who was still sleeping soundly in an examination chair, then grabbed an oil lamp with a long, fluted chimney that looked made of crystal and led Peter out of the lab into the corridor. Outside her door, she turned to face him.

"Wait here a second," she whispered, then passed him the oil lamp and slipped into her room before he could reply.

Rachel and Ella were sound asleep on the mattresses in dim shafts of moonlight. She tiptoed to her side of the bed and was reaching for her pillow and an unused blanket when one of the sleeping bodies shifted beside her. Olivia froze at the slight sound as her sister's eyes snapped open.

"It's about time, Liv," she murmured, then rolled on her side throwing an arm over Ella. "I didn't realize you were such a prude."

Olivia spluttered. "What? I'm a what? I'm not, I'm just..." She huffed and fell silent as her cheeks began to burn, and then felt a surge of irritation. Why should she be embarrassed? She was a woman grown, and if she was going to do it, she might as well do it all the way. There was no point in sneaking around and trying to keep it all a secret, when the only people that might care—namely her sister and Walter—already knew or had guessed. Charlie crossed her thoughts then, and her heart felt heavy in her chest. He had given his approval grudgingly as it was, with the only requirement being her happiness. "Mind your own business, little sister," she muttered, and snatched up the blanket and pillow and hugged them under one arm.

Rachel let out a quiet chuckle. "Tell Peter I said hi."

With what little remained of her dignity, Olivia gathered a few more personal items from the file cabinet in the corner and stuffed them in her backpack; the thick sweatshirt she used as a pajama top, her toothbrush, fresh undergarments, tampons and deodorant, and finally the lone picture of her and John. She studied the picture for a moment in the faint light before shoving it into an outside pocket. It had been taken in another world; she hardly recognized herself in it. Her hand wavered over a stack of pill boxes in the bottom of the drawer, and after hearing Walter's warning in her head, she grabbed them too. As she zipped up her pack, she snuck a glance over at the mattresses against the far wall. Rachel was leaning on her elbow, watching her silently.

"Good night, Rach," she said, pushing the file cabinet closed, and then tossing the backpack over her shoulder. "I'll see you in the morning."

"'Night, Liv," Rachel replied, then fell back on her pillow as Olivia headed toward the door.

She found Peter leaning against the far corridor wall, fingering the stubble on his still-healing cheek. At the sound of the door closing behind her, he looked up. His eyebrows shot upward as he noticed her burden. Then his mouth dropped open, and he quickly snapped it shut.

"You ready?" she asked, grinning inside at the look on his face.

He swallowed, then pushed off the wall. "You bet," he said, then extended the oil lamp. "Here, I'll trade you."

She exchanged the pillow and blanket for the oil lamp, they started together toward the turn at the far end of the corridor, moving side by side. Broyles's empty room slid by on their left, and then came Astrid's on their right. A faint light flickered inside the narrow window in her door, and Olivia caught sight of her former assistant reading a book by candlelight for an instant. She wondered what sort of books Astrid liked to read, if there was anything good in the small collection she was accumulating. Not that Olivia felt like reading much lately; all that remained were relics of a forgotten world. Reading them would likely make her homesick. Would new literature—if anyone ever had the leisure time to write any again—be as banal as what had filled much of the bookstore shelves? Perhaps they would regress to oral tradition, to lessons and warnings of current events passed down by elders and teachers as in days long past. How long would it take before it became legend, and then myth? Fifty years? A hundred? She tried imagining a world a thousand years from the present; cities overgrown and wild, places of danger, places to be avoided, humanity living in small groups, tribes even, like in prehistory, or a story straight out of science fiction.

Only it wasn't fiction, it was real.

 _It's only real if we fail_ , she thought.  _Only if we fail_.

"You sure about this, Olivia?" Peter said as scattered bowling pins emerged from the darkness as they neared the turn in the corridor, glowing palely in the light of the oil lamp. They stepped through them carefully, avoiding the potential foot hazards. "You know, you don't have to-"

"Peter...," she interrupted with a flat shake of her head. "I think you know me well enough by now to know I wouldn't be here if I didn't want to be." She took his free left hand, now mostly healed of her burns, and interlocked their fingers as they turned the corner. "Now, let's get some sleep. We have a busy day tomorrow."

"We...do?"

"Yep," she nodded, pulling him down the hall toward his room—toward their room. "I've sat around long enough. I'm no good at it. And I...I've been a fool."

"Olivia," Peter started gently. "No one thought for a second that you-"

"Just hear me out," she cut in. "Charlie's gone, and I just have to accept that—whether it was my fault or not. What happened, happened, and he wouldn't want me to mope about it for days on end. It's time to move forward. I have to move forward." She came to a stop at his door and looked up at him. "Tomorrow, we're going outside the perimeter. Somewhere where we can work in private."

Peter's breath hissed and his eyes widened. "It's time then?"

Olivia smiled.

#

* * *

#

The pencil sat upright in the center of the table, resting on the flat edge of its pink eraser. As far as pencils went, there was nothing noteworthy about it, no distinguishing marks or features, no dents or cracks in its yellow paint, no identifying monikers imprinted on one of its hexagonal edges other than a stereotypical number two stenciled inside a black border just below its brass ferrule. From the look of its needle-sharp tip, it had never been used after its initial sharpening. It was just a pencil. Two others flanked it to either side, each in equally pristine condition, and a squat candle of red wax rested off to one side. At the other end of the table beneath a teal green lamp shade sat a metal cup that served as a quiver for another handful of similar writing instruments, readying and waiting for use by patrons who would never arrive.

They had a wholly different purpose, now.

Peter leaned back in his chair. The left side of his face began to itch again, but he resisted the urge to scratch it with some difficultly; he dared not move, lest he break Olivia's concentration. Across from him on the other side of the table, she sat hunched forward in her seat, brilliant green eyes locked on the center pencil. Atop her head rested her black beanie, and her unbound hair fell forward, framing her face in waves of gold. She had been wearing her hair loose ever since unceremoniously moving into his room on Christmas, just under a week ago. As he watched, the tip of her tongue peeked out between pale lips pressed together in a thin line of determination.

He still couldn't quite let himself believe that she was with him—that she had chosen to be with him. The first morning after she'd moved in, he'd woken to find her curled up next to him, legs entwined and gripping the fabric of his shirt in her sleep. For a heart-pounding instant, he'd been afraid to breathe, afraid that it might shatter the dream in which he found himself, but then she'd opened her eyes.

With an effort, Peter stripped his gaze from Olivia's face and took in the reading room of the Widener Library. The yawning expanse was deadly quiet, still frozen in its last moments as a place of learning. A faint odor of decay drifted across his nose, ruining the atmosphere. There were dead in residence, or had been. Several had interrupted them on their first day, and there could be others; they hadn't ventured down to the lower levels where Walter and Ella had had their misadventure. Outside the tall, arched windows of the reading room it had begun to snow. Great, feathery flakes drifted downward, settling on top of the crusted remains of yet older snow, all the while gusting and twirling in steady wind out of the west. The temperature had been dropping lately—even down in the basement of the Kresge Building—and the effects were beginning to show. Just that morning, the half-empty bottle of water he'd left on the floor beside the bed had been frozen solid upon waking, as had most of their supply in the lab. If he believed omens, he would have considered it an ill one.

And the temperature wasn't the only problem, or even the most pressing. Every morning, he checked the pressure on the regulator where the gas line entered the building, and every morning the needle on the gauge was a smidge closer to zero. That morning, when he'd checked it with Olivia at his side, the needle had been buried in the red, hovering just above the final notch.

 _How much do you think we have left, Peter?_  She had sounded worried, and with reason.

 _If it lasts long enough to boil a pot of water, I'll be surprised_ , had been his answer. Privately, he'd doubted his own words. He had been wrong, however. The burners had come on, just like they had every morning, with no one the wiser.

But it wouldn't last. In a day or two, perhaps as many as three, if they had luck like a multiple lightning strike victim, the gas would cease to flow. He'd traced the gas line back to a massive, oblong propane tank on the west side of the building, housed in a fenced enclosure surrounded by tall hedges, an enclosure he'd previously thought contained dumpsters for trash. The building's lab gas ran on propane, not natural gas as he'd assumed at first. When he thought about it in hindsight it made sense; if they had been hooked in the city's natural gas, they'd have run out within the first week of the outbreak.

Luck.

How much of their survival so far had depended on it? They would have to manufacture more before long. Brainstorming for a way to fill the tank had yielded nothing; there was no refilling it, short of somehow getting a fuel truck to make a delivery. And the chance of that happening was unlikely in the extreme. He might as well wish for time to run backwards or for the earth to halt its progress around the sun. Which left what, exactly? He'd thought long about it, but couldn't see any way out of their situation. Since the advent of the outbreak, the lab had been all too hospitable, minus the chill and uncomfortable mattresses. As long as they'd had gas to cook with almost any amount of discomfort could be endured, or so it had seemed. But without it? What did it offer? They had no electricity to run Walter's equipment, no way to conduct any real research on the infection. Other than comfort for Walter, it offered nothing they couldn't find somewhere else, and with nicer bedding. No. The lab was not a long term solution, and never had been.

Which left leaving, finding somewhere else to call home. But where would they go? To the east was the ocean, and the north would only be colder. Which left west and south. The strange beam of light they'd seen from Brighton had come from the west. But that had been months ago, and he had never seen it since, though admittedly, he hadn't been looking for it.

Before he could think any more on their mounting problems, Olivia suddenly exhaled and fell back in her chair across from him. She breathed in and out, fingers steepled over her mouth, eyes filled with frustration.

"It's no use, Peter," she said with a look of misery. "I can't do it. I can't make it happen. There's nothing there—not even a glimmer of anything. Just like every other time." She shook her head and snorted softly. "The part of me that knows you can't move something with your mind feels like an idiot for even attempting this."

Peter glanced at the trio of pencils, still balanced on their erasers. His breath alone had been enough to knock them over when he'd been setting them up earlier. Each day so far had ended with similar results—meaning none at all. The pencils were still standing and the candle remained unlit. If he hadn't witnessed her exploding with his own eyes he might have doubted her words about the rest. Might have. But he had seen it, had felt the heat of it, up close and personal. The evidence was still healing on his cheek. She had an ability of some kind. They just had to coax it out of her. And concentration, apparently, was not the key.

"Well, what did you try to do this time?" he asked.

Olivia mopped a trickle of sweat from her forehead. "What did I try to do? The same thing I try every time. I tried to visualize the pencil falling over. Tried to...force it to happen, like, in my head. That's it. Just the pencil falling over. But there's nothing there. It's like I imagined it all."

"You didn't imagine it, Olivia. We have the proof right here," he said, touching his face. "And if you think about it, concentration must not be the key, or else some kid pretending to be a Jedi would have discovered how to do it years ago. Maybe we should try something else."

"Like what?"

Peter shrugged, then leaned toward her on his elbows. "I don't know. How about...well, what were you thinking about when you did it the first time? The time with me in the stairwell."

"I don't know, exactly...," she said in a distant voice, and her eyes went far away. "I guess... I guess I was scared. No. I was terrified, too terrified to scream. I saw that infected behind you, ready to take a bite out of your leg. But you didn't see it. And I remember thinking...that, that I couldn't lose you...too." She came back to the present then, meeting his gaze with a look of tenderness that tightened his throat, sent his pulse racing. A silence fell between them and she smiled slightly, mysteriously, then cleared her throat and went on. "Anyway, you were too far away. There was no way I could get to you in time, so I just..." She waved a hand vaguely, then threw them both up in frustration. "I don't know, Peter. I don't know what I did! It just happened."

Reaching across the table, he took her gloved hand. "Hey, it's all right," he said, rubbing her palm with his thumb. "We were never gonna figure this out in a single day, or even a week. Let's go back further, back to the first time anything out of the ordinary happened. The night after I got shot—what happened then?"

She hesitated, quirking her lips to the side and brushing her hair back behind her ear. "I was on the Cambridge Street bridge," she started, "searching for any signs of you on the river bank. There was...an infected, crossing over the river from the south. It surprised me, came at me out of the darkness." She paused, swallowing with a look of revulsion, and Peter felt a tremor in her hand. "It was female...and there was a baby carrier strapped across its chest. And Peter, the carrier...it wasn't empty."

"Fuck...," Peter uttered, squeezing her hand tight. His stomach churned at the horror she must have felt. An infected baby. She had failed to mention that when she'd told him of the other world the first time, and there was no reason to ask why. "Sometimes I wonder how long it'll be before this shit drives us all insane." He shook his head. "Maybe we already are. Might explain a few things."

"Tell me about it," Olivia said with a wan smile. "I just remember wanting to be the hell away from there, from it, to be anywhere but there...and then suddenly I was, for a moment, at least. But I didn't consciously do anything—it just happened, same as in the stairwell with you."

"Then there's something we're missing," he mused, releasing her hand. He leaned back in his chair, rubbing his ears which were starting to sting from the cold. "Something basic that we're thinking past."

"And what would that be?"

"No idea. We can always corner Walter," he suggested. "We could make him talk. I know he has ideas, things he isn't telling us." Walter had been acting decidedly odd lately, avoiding them both for the past week, avoiding everyone.

Olivia shook her head once. "No. Not yet. I'm not quite desperate enough for that yet." She exhaled dejectedly and rubbed at her eyes, then leaned on one hand, regarding him from across the table. "Peter, this may be a...strange question, but did your father ever work at a day care center that you know of?"

"A day care center?" Peter replied with a snort and bout of laughter. "Not likely. Can you see someone hiring that man to look after their children?"

"He's not so bad with Ella. He's pretty good, actually."

"That's because half the time, he acts like a child himself," he said. "They're friends. But in any case, the Walter you know spent seventeen years in an institution. Believe me, he isn't the same as he was when I was a kid." The Walter from his childhood had none of this version's best attributes, and all of his worst. He had been moody and harsh, with Peter and his mother both, and done his best to avoid spending time with his family whenever possible. It was still difficult to reconcile that they were the same man, and he almost found it easier to imagine that the current Walter was a double, a replacement for the man he'd known before. The thought brought to mind pod people, and the body they'd found stuffed in the cabinet at the Federal Building. Another mystery they had no resources to solve.

He met Olivia's gaze. "Why'd you ask?"

"No reason, really," she answered with a slight shake of her head. "It was something I dreamt awhile back." She pushed her chair back with a screech and rose to her feet. "You ready to get out of here? Rachel mentioned something about having Walter show her how to make his burritos for lunch. I guess Ella's been bugging her about them since Christmas."

Peter grinned and followed her toward the exit. Yes, he could see Ella doing that. The five-year old wasn't shy about letting her mother know how much she disliked their current selection of food.

#

They returned to the Kresge Building, and lunch as it turned out, was not waiting for them. Voices echoed down the corridor as they exited the basement stairwell, overlapping voices filled with panic. Peter exchanged a confused glance with Olivia, and they raced toward the open lab door midway down the hall.

She spun through the door ahead of him then skidded to a stop at the railing overlooking the lab floor. The others were all there, standing in a circle—except for Broyles, of course, who was propped up on a work table, legs swinging beneath him—around the center table where Walter's glassware resided and the majority of their cooking was done on the built-in gas outlets. The surrounding tables were covered in pots and pans, cooking utensils. A cutting board covered in flour with a small pile of uneven tortillas on one corner sat nearby, along with an open sack of black beans that Peter had come to hate the sight of.

"What's going on?" Olivia said, pulling off her beanie and moving toward the stairs.

Walter spun around at the sound of her voice. "Peter! Olivia. Where have you two been? Out fornicating? We have a serious issue here!"

Peter ignored his father's snide remark, quickly sizing up the situation as he and Olivia joined the others in their ring. The source of the problem was readily apparent, intuitively obvious; it seemed his earlier estimate had been off by one meal.

"The gas isn't working, Liv," Rachel said, confirming Peter's suspicion. She wore a flour-dusted black apron over her coat, matching Walter. She motioned toward the burner beneath a tripod stand holding a wide frying pan filled with non-bubbling cooking oil. "It just turned off a few minutes ago. Are we out, Peter? How can we be out?"

Olivia opened her mouth, then glanced his way. "Um...Peter?"

All eyes in the room shifted his way, and he rubbed his neck uncomfortably under their focused attention. Finally, he sighed. "...If the burner doesn't light, then we're out of gas," he admitted. "There's a propane tank on the west side of the building. I noticed it was getting low the other day. To be honest, it was inevitable. We were lucky it lasted as long as it did."

"But...how will we cook our food now?" Ella spoke up, looking around for an answer. "Mommy...?"

There was a brief silence, and then voices filled the lab as everyone began speaking at once, offering ideas, plans on how they might continue on as they had, all the while as Olivia tried to sell them on remaining calm. They didn't understand. Yet. Most of the ideas put forth would never work, and Walter's idea of harnessing their own methane gas was plainly ridiculous. Sonia's plan to find a propane tank exchange kiosk or search nearby residences for gas barbecue grills was the only idea with an ounce of merit, but it was still only a short term solution, and impractical. Throughout the conundrum, Peter remained silent, as did Broyles, who met his gaze from his seat on the far side of the circle. He wore dark blue jeans and a navy-colored sweatshirt that hung loosely from his shoulders. Peter thought the shirt might have once belonged to Charlie. His dark eyes were calculating and stern. The man had mostly remained in the background since they'd rescued him from his fate in the Federal Building, as if he'd not wanted to disturb the pecking order already established, or so Peter suspected.

In the midst of the commotion, he noticed Ella staring up at the arguing adults with a pale face and wide eyes, largely unnoticed. After a few moments, she teared up and began to cry. Peter was about to go to her, when a piercing whistle cut through the air, stopping everyone short. The room fell quiet and Broyles lowered his fingers from his lips.

"Panicking isn't going to get us anywhere, people," he said when everyone looked his way. "Peter. I think you have something more to say?"

Peter blinked at how easily the man had read him. It was easy to forget that their former boss was more than a suit, and had probably been an exemplary agent in his day to have been handed the Fringe task force in the wake of the Flight 627 attack. They all looked at him, including Olivia, who gave a barely perceptible nod.

"After I discovered we were getting low on gas, Olivia and I have been discussing this possibility," he told them. "We were thinking that we might be better off moving on, finding somewhere else to call home."

"Find somewhere else?" Astrid frowned. "You mean leave the lab for good? Are you serious?"

"But where would we go?" Sonia asked at the same moment. "Out of the city?"

"Peter and I were thinking to the west, to start with," Olivia put in.

"Why west?" Rachel asked, pursing her lips. "Isn't that where we think all the infected went? Why not south? It'll be warmer if we go far enough."

Olivia hesitated, wetting her lips, fingering the threads on her beanie. From the single glance she snuck his way, Peter suspected she was about to tell them about the light, and a moment later she did. "A few months ago—actually the night Peter and I found you and Ella in my apartment, Rach—we saw a light in the sky. Far to the west."

Walter who had been being strangely silent, spoke up. "What kind of light? In the sky, you say? Did it move? Was it an aircraft? Could it have been a ufo?"

"What...?" Peter scowled and shook his head. "No, Walter, it wasn't a ufo, or a flying saucer, or anything else in the same category. It was a search light, and a big one, I think. Pointed straight up at the sky like some kind of beacon."

"We only saw the light that one time," Olivia added. "And after Peter was shot...well, we had other things to worry about. But whoever it was, they had power—electricity. And..." Her voice quavered for a moment before she could regain control of her emotions. Peter watched her face silently, feeling her pain. It happened randomly, he'd observed, where some stray thought or emotion would bring back all the pain she boxed herself off from. "...And Charlie said something to me once, not long before we went downtown. He asked me what we were doing here, scavenging, just living day to day. What was our purpose, beyond merely surviving? At the time, I'd forgotten...but he reminded me. We still have a purpose—a duty, or at least I do. We can either accept the world the way it has become, or we can try to change it. I heard somewhere that if we can imagine a better world, we can make it happen. But we can't do that here. Can we, Walter?" she said, turning toward him.

Walter flinched at hearing his name called, the attention shifting his way. He lowered his head, and then nodded. "It's true," he confessed. "While the information Mister Broyles was kind enough to provide us with has been essential in developing my theory on what the infection might be and how it might spread, without access to electricity, to specialized equipment, there is no way to test my hypotheses, or develop a way to stop it from spreading further."

There was another silence, a stalemate filled with uncertain glances and worried faces. Something Olivia said near the end of her speech had struck Peter with a ring of familiarity, but he couldn't place what exactly or when he'd heard it before, only that he had. Why did it make him think of his mother? The thought left his mind as Astrid spoke up.

"So what," she said, sounding unhappy and more than a little angry. "You think we should just pack up and move? Right now, in the middle of winter with snow piling up outside and without any idea of where we're going? That's crazy. There's gotta be another way, some other solution."

"It certainly isn't ideal, Astro," Walter agreed, scratching his forearms.

"Can you make a cure, Doctor Bishop?" Broyles asked bluntly. "If we had access to the right equipment? Do you know how to stop it?"

Walter licked his lips. "I...have some ideas, but again, they are only ideas at this time. I simply have no way to test any of them."

Broyles nodded thoughtfully. "And I assume the kind of equipment you're talking about, it's not going to be sitting around on a street corner, is it?"

"Certainly not," Walter confirmed. "But it might not be necessary. If what I suspect is true, then we aren't looking to synthesize a cure, Mister Broyles. There is no cure."

Broyles rose from his slouch, straightening his shoulders. "Say again? You gave me the impression that you might now how to cure it."

"Correction," Walter said, holding up his index finger. "I said I may know how to stop it, which is not quite the same as curing it. These... anomalies Nina Sharp told you of—we'll need to either verify them ourselves first, or somehow gain access to the results of their experiments. Then, and only then, will we have enough data to formulate a plan. Now. As a working particle accelerator is difficult to come by these days, I suggest we do the latter."

"Can we do any of that today?" Rachel interrupted, pulling a wide-eyed and sniffling Ella into the circle of her arms.

"Well...no," Walter admitted.

"Then this is all fine and good," she said, "but what about _right now_? What are we going to do about food? About cooking?" She threw a hand out toward the food shelves. "Most of the food we have left that isn't snack food—we have to cook it. Unless you like risking botulism? Or eating beans and oatmeal raw? Pasta and rice?"

An uneasy quiet fell over the room. Peter glanced between the others before finally coming to rest on Olivia. She tucked her hair back, then rubbed tiredly at her eyes before looking his way.

"Peter, is there any way to use that thing?" she asked, pointing toward the old coal furnace. "I know you said the flue was blocked off on the third floor, but is there any way at all to get it to work?"

"I don't know," he shrugged, eyeing the furnace doubtfully. "That thing hasn't been used in decades. The blockage looked pretty solid. I'll take a closer look at it, but even if I can get it to a point where we don't all suffocate from smoke inhalation, what are you planning to burn in it? Furniture?"

"Yes," she nodded. "And any and everything else we can find. It'll only be temporary, until we can find someplace better. As for cooking with it, I'm sure you can figure something out, can't you?" Her lips curved into a hopeful smile.

"So that's it, then?" Astrid said. She hugged herself and looked around uselessly. "We're just gonna leave? Just like that?"

"I don't see how we have any other choice, Astrid," Olivia said gently. "Do you?"

Astrid shifted about, mouth working silently, and then reluctantly shook her head. "I guess not..." she said in a melancholy tone.

Peter watched her eyes turn glassy and wondered if she'd been secretly holding out hope that she might find her father still, and that by leaving the city behind, she would be leaving him behind. He felt bad for her, but realistically, there was little chance he was still alive. Or of them risking any sort of rescue attempt. He'd heard her mention once that he lived south of Dorchester, somewhere near the coast in Quincy or Weymouth. It was simply too far away and on the wrong side of the city, to boot. How likely was it that he would even be there, wherever he'd lived? Too much time had passed. There was little doubt in his mind, at least, that if he and Olivia had not gone to Brighton when they had, Rachel and little Ella would be among the dead also.

"But you're absolutely right, Astrid," Olivia continued. "We can't just up and leave, not without having a good idea of where we're going first."

Ella suddenly pulled away from her mother and moved to stand in front of her aunt. "You're leaving again," she said with eyes that were sharper than any five-year-olds deserved to be. "Aren't you, Aunt Liv?"

Olivia smiled sadly, bending down in front of her niece. "I'm afraid so, sweetie," she said, cupping her cheek. "I have to know that wherever we go, it's safe before I take you there. You understand that, right? I have to make sure it's safe."

"I know you do," Ella said, lifting her chin bravely. "And I know you'll come back for us. You always do."

"How soon will you go then, Olivia?" Sonia asked, peering at the snow falling outside through the lab's tiny windows with a frown. "You can't go now, not in the middle of this weather."

"No, I'll have to wait for it to clear up," Olivia said, straightening from her crouch. "Hopefully, it won't be more than a day or two."

"You're not going out there alone, Liv," Rachel stated firmly. "That's for sure. I assume you'll be going with her, Peter?"

Peter nodded at once, meeting Olivia's inquiring gaze. They had never actually discussed who would go, but in his mind, it wasn't even a question; of course he was going with her. "I've got her back," he said, and noticed the same glint of a smile form on both sisters' lips.

"Well, I'm glad that's settled," Walter announced, and smacked his palms together. "However. I would still like to eat, today if possible. Olivia, I believe you had an idea, something about cranking up the old coal furnace? They decommissioned it not long after I took possession of the lab, when the building underwent a complete renovation. It was too heavy and bulky to move, so they just left it. I always thought it added to lab's character, don't you agree?"

Olivia eyed the furnace critically for a moment. "Umm, if you say so, Walter," she murmured. "Peter?" Her eyebrows arched with a hint of coquettishness as she looked his way.

Peter blew out a sigh and glanced at the small collection of tools he'd managed to accumulate so far scattered about his work table. "I'm on it," he grumbled, moving toward the tools. He hadn't found much—not that he'd spent much time looking—and none of the tools were particularly suited for breaking concrete. But they had to eat, didn't they? So some improvisation was in order. If he could clear the plug blocking the flue, he envisioned turning the furnace into an oven of sorts, something like the ovens used in good pizza shops. Whether or not it would work remained to be seen. The crowbar on the weapon table caught his eye, he snatched it up on his way past. "If you hear a ruckus upstairs, that'll be me."

#

Taking a breath, Peter leaned over the far edge of the mop sink and swung the hammer again, grunting and wincing simultaneously at the deep ache that shot through his left shoulder. Tiny bits of concrete splintered across his face, and the voice of his old high school shop teacher echoed in his head, warning him to always wear his safety glasses. He squeezed his eyes shut and turned away as an errant piece of shrapnel came perilously close to proving the fellow right. When the dust cleared he leaned over the sink again and poked at the obstinate circle of concrete, painted to match the color of the floor with the angled tip of the crowbar now serving duty as a chisel.

Nothing. The concrete refused to budge, to crack, or shift even a millimeter. Other than a number of criss-crossing scores in the grayish paint, it so far had refused to acknowledge his presence in any way. In the back of his mind, tendrils of frustration were beginning to smoke, searching for enough heat to burst into flame.

 _Goddamnit,_ he cursed silently.  _Motherfucker_.At his current rate of progress, he just might finish chipping all the way through sometime in the next decade.

Of course, it didn't help that the only hammer he could find was far too light, and entirely unsuited for the task required of it, or that the maintenance closet was tiny—barely large enough to even be deserving of the name—with little room to maneuver. Or that the blocked off section of flue was tucked into the corner just to the left of the door, which made for an awkward swing angle for a lefty. Unfortunately, he didn't trust his right hand for the job, not with the force required to even make a scratch in the concrete. Smashing his good hand with a ball-peen hammer was not on the afternoon's agenda.

The temperature was frigid on the third floor, and despite that, drops of sweat beaded on his brow. It rolled down into his eyes with the sting of salt. With a tired exhale, he crooked his neck and wiped his forehead on the shoulder of his coat, then propped the crowbar in the corner and massaged the aching shoulder.

 _There's gotta be a better way_ , he thought after a moment, and reached for the flashlight off the floor beside him. He thumbed it on, directing the beam at the spot where the flue poked through the floor. Ages ago, the black-iron flue had been cut off in serrated fashion, probably by some handyman with a hacksaw. Then they'd plugged the hole with a dollop of cement and called it a day, all to make room for a few more mops and brooms. From the look of the concrete's pocked and uneven surface, he guessed the work performed wasn't quite up to union standards. Although so far, he had to admit that it had gotten the better of him.

Peter looked up, inspecting the closet's ceiling. A messy square of patched plasterboard marked the spot where the flue had once run up to the roof. The patch was coated in a messy layer of yellowed and water-stained plaster. He reached up and pushed the tip of the crowbar through the repair job until he felt resistance and heard a faint ring of metal. He pulled the crowbar free, then hooked a thumb through the hole left behind and pulled. He strained for a moment, and then a jagged section of ceiling ripped free. A shower of dust and grime greeted him, along with dark, seed-like pellets that looked all too much like mouse shit for his liking. Cringing, he batted the grime from his face and spit profusely into the sink below. Then, using the hook of the crowbar, he quickly slashed away the rest of the patch, exposing an inky blackness that reeked of mold and its cousin mildew. He shined the light up into the space above the ceiling and saw another cut section of flue—properly sealed with a metal cap. It was a good sign. Why bother capping it if the flue didn't continue up to the roof? He would need to remove the cap, of course, but that was for later. The point would be moot if he couldn't remove the blockage. Returning to the lower section, he shined the light on the lump of concrete again, and noticed a slight divot or gap he had missed before, up against the near edge of the flue where it poked through the floor.

He experienced a momentary surge of excitement and reversed his grip on the crowbar, setting the angled tip into the narrow gap. The fit was perfect, almost as if it was custom made for his use. He grabbed the hammer, and giving the crowbar a few taps, felt the tip start to dig in. It was progress—more than he'd made so far. Twisting to get a better angle, he raised the hammer again. His shoulder ached in protest but he ignored the throbbing and crashed the hammer down with all the force he could muster. Once, twice, three times. The crowbar pealed and vibrated in his right hand as the tip sank in noticeably, several inches at least. When he released his grip on it, the crowbar stayed upright.

"Now we're getting somewhere," Peter muttered, dropping the hammer loudly onto the floor beside him. He gave the crowbar a little tug and it held fast, wedged in place in the gap. _Perfect._

He grabbed the crowbar behind the hook and pulled, using just his arms at first, but then he threw his weight into the fray when the concrete didn't budge. He leaned back, bending his knees and bracing his feet on the edge of the sink. At first there was no sign of progress, but then he heard a slight groan of metal, high-pitched and eerie, like a small animal suffering in its death throes, and there was a low grinding. Sensing victory, he pulled harder, gritting his teeth.

Without warning, something broke loose with a dry snap. The corridor tilted, and before he knew what was happening, he was falling backwards. There was a flash of white as his head rebounded off the floor. At the same moment, he saw the crowbar, flipping end over end like an errant football. It zoomed closer in his vision, angled tip and hook aiming for his head.

"Fuck!" he hissed, and made a last ditch effort to cover his face, but instead of spearing him, crowbar landed beside his ear with a metallic clang, then fell harmlessly across his chest.

Peter chuckled out loud, then lowered his arms and sat up. He looked around and then started when he saw Ella standing not far away, watching him from against one wall without expression. She was dressed in her winter coat and hat, though her zipper was only halfway up, exposing a maroon wool sweater beneath. A pair of white mittens dangled from her left hand, swinging back and forth.

"What are you doing, Peter?" Her voice was curious, as was the look on her face.

Grinning, he shook his head. "Falling on my butt, apparently," he said, climbing to his feet as Ella let out a giggle. "How long have you been standing there?"

She pushed off the wall and crossed over to him. "I saw you fall down. You said a bad word." There was no accusation in her tone. She was just stating the facts.

"You heard that, huh?" He bent down to retrieve the crowbar. "Well, don't repeat it in front of your mom. Might get me in trouble."

"I know that, silly," Ella said, rolling her eyes like she was fifteen instead of her five years. She stared past him into the maintenance closet. "Is that where the pipe from the lab goes up?"

"It is," he replied, and wondered if she'd been in the closet before. He figured she had probably explored every inch of the Kresge Building—it's what he would have done at her age, especially as there was nothing else to do. "Although somebody cut it off a long time ago. You want to see? Grab that flashlight."

She stooped for the flashlight on the floor beside the hammer and placed it in his hand. To his surprise, when he shined the light inside the closet, the circular chunk of concrete had shifted in the flue. It was still stuck, but turned on its edge, and not nearly as tight as before. There was a rusted wire mesh glued to the bottom side of the concrete, presumably what had held it in place. Quickly, he wrenched the concrete free with the crowbar's hook and tossed it aside with a resonant thud.

Ella squirreled in front of him and leaned over the now gaping hole in the floor. "It goes all the way down to the lab, Peter?" she asked, sounding impressed.

"Yep. It should," he replied gazing down at the hole's blackness. "Assuming the flue isn't blocked somehow between here and there, at least. Hey, you want to help me out?"

"What can I do?" she said with an eager nod.

"Run down to the lab and have someone open up the furnace for you, and then shine one of the head lamps with a white light inside. I want to see if I can see the light from up here. Can you do that?"

Ella nodded again and then scampered away, racing for the stairwell. After she was gone, Peter turned back to the maintenance closet, scratching absently at his cheek. It was a shame that he hadn't tried to get the furnace working before now. The closet would have made an excellent meat smoker of sorts, for serving up Gene. His short stint in Nashville had left him with a taste for barbecue and the thought of a nice brisket or a rack of ribs was drool inducing. He had a strong memory of digging into a luscious brisket at a joint in Mission Hill he'd gone to for the occasional fix. God, he could taste it. The interior of his mouth flooded with saliva and his stomach grumbled greedily. Reluctantly, he forced the memory away. It was not to be, and dwelling on what was lost and would never be again only encouraged despair and madness, and he needed neither.

Peter turned his attention back to the capped upper section of the flue, shining the flashlight into the darkened space above the ceiling. Though it was incredibly rusted, a simple pipe clamp with a tightening screw was all that held the cap in place, and it came loose with a twist of his screwdriver. As he yanked the cap free, footsteps echoed behind him.

He turned to find Olivia hurrying down the corridor. At the sight of her rosy cheeks, he exhaled in relief. While he'd gone in search of a hammer in one of the nearby university buildings, she had taken the truck with Rachel and Astrid, to scavenge one of the further out grocery stores before the snow became too deep to drive. They had been out for hours, and from the dusting of snow across her shoulders, had only just returned.

"How'd it go out there?" he asked when she stopped in front of him. "You guys have any problems?"

Olivia lifted her shoulders dismissively. "Nope, just a couple infected trapped inside," she said, pulling the beanie from her head and shaking her hair out, a sight that tightened his throat and warmed his insides. "Nothing we couldn't handle. We found some more water, more powdered eggs and a few other things. Nothing life changing, though. But you'll like this, Astrid found some more Red Vines for your father, so maybe he'll..." Her eyes narrowed, and she paused in the act of tucking her long bangs behind her ears. "What?"

Peter smiled and turned his head. "Sorry. It's nothing."

"Uh huh...," she grunted softly, but her lips ghosted into a smile as their eyes met. He noticed a spot of blood on her cheek, mingling among her freckles. After a moment, she looked past him, into the open closet. "Is everything okay here? Ella flew past me down the steps like she was on a mission."

Shaking himself free of her spell, he motioned toward the discarded chunk of concrete. "She was on a mission," he said. "I got the flue opened up here. Now we just need to see if it's clear all the way down, which was what Ella was on her way to help me with."

He leaned into the closet, crouching forward over the hole in the floor. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust, but then he saw something. The view reminded him of looking through a telescoping lens backward, but there was something there, far below. There was a flash, a flicker of light, and he breathed easy. The flue was clear.

"Well?" Olivia said behind him. "Is it gonna work?"

His knees cracked as he pushed off the mop sink and straightened. "I think so," he told her. "I need to test it out first, but I think it might just work." He also had to seal the closet air tight, or as close as he could make it. There was a roll of duct-tape down in the lab, and it would have to suffice. If he could seal it, the closet itself would function as the missing length of pipe.

Olivia sighed. "Thank god. It only needs to work for a few days, maybe a week or two, hopefully. "She shook her head, staring upward at nothing. "Now that we've got some kind of plan, something to do, it feels like we've been waiting here for years instead of months. You know what I mean?"

Peter did and told her so. "Your feet get that feeling, like they're starting to itch?" he said, chuckling. "And the only way to scratch it is to get going, to move on."

Their eyes met, and he reached out, cleaning the spot of dried blood from her cheek gently with his fingernail. Before he could pull away, Olivia placed her hand over his, holding it in place. Grief still lingered in the depths of her viridian gaze, a kind of unwavering sadness that had been present in one form or another since Charlie's death. Or was it uncertainty? She stared up at him with eyes huge and melancholy, leaning into his hand.

"Peter," she murmured. "Do you think we're gonna make it?"

"Out of the city?" he frowned. "Sure. Why wouldn't we?"

She shook her head slightly. "No. Not that. People. Humans," she clarified. "Do you think we're gonna be able to fix this? It seems so much bigger than us. Sometimes I wonder what we can possibly do to change any of it. We're just a few people."

Peter slid his fingers back, curling them into her hair. He pulled her close, enclosing her in his arms. It felt right to do so; it felt wondrous to do so. "We'll make it if we deserve to make it," he said softly against her hair, and her arms tightened about his waist, snaking beneath his coat, then beneath the cotton of his shirt. Her fingertips were like icicles tracing across his back. He held her even tighter. "As for what we can do, all it takes is one stubborn person to change the world."

Olivia cocked her head, eyeing him askance. "Is that a quote?"

"I don't know," he admitted. "Probably is from somewhere."

"Seems kind of optimistic for you, don't you think?" she said with an amused smirk.

Peter considered. He had once considered himself a full-time pessimist, but then the world had ended. It was difficult to imagine life getting any worse. Where else was there to go but up? Or perhaps being in close proximity to a certain former FBI agent on a daily basis had changed his outlook for the better. Either way, he was powerless to stop it. "I guess you've ruined me," he said, cracking a toothy smile. "I'll have to turn in my cynic-card."

"So this is my doing, is it?" Olivia said, arching an eyebrow and pursing her lips skeptically. "You know what I think? I think deep down, you've always been something of a romantic, haven't you, Peter?"

"You can't prove anything," he said, losing himself in the gold speckles around her irises.

"Oh, I think I can," she retorted. Her voice was low and husky, and stood his hair on end.

Her fingernails bit into the muscles of Peter's back, pulling him closer, and they came together in a desperate whirlwind of heat, of desire barely held in check. His heart pounded as their lips moved together, fought for dominance. He took in her air, tasting her sweetness, and something else, which the part of his brain still capable of thought registered distantly. He couldn't get enough of her, and didn't think he ever would, or could. When he finally came up for air, he nibbled on the base of her neck and smiled at the high-pitched inhale it induced as her fingers tangled in his hair, twisting, gripping him just short of causing pain. Eventually, they separated. He felt her chest heaving against his as he held her close.

"I missed you out there, today, Peter...," Olivia said, eying him shyly. "It was strange being on the outside without you watching my back." She shook her head, eyes distant. "It was even stranger seeing Rachel take down an infected all by herself. She's tougher than I ever gave her credit for. Is that awful of me? That I doubted her?"

Peter shrugged, absently picking at an itching scab on his cheek. "Now you know what I felt hearing about Walter and Ella," he said, recalling his utter shock at the revelation. "But to be honest, I'm not surprised your sister kicks ass. She's your sister. She's a Dunham."

Olivia rolled her eyes, then firmly moved his hand away from his face. "Stop that. You're gonna make it scar, Peter," she admonished. Her eyes moved to the closet. "Are you done here?"

"Almost. I need some duct-tape from the lab," he said, and they moved together toward the stairwell and the rectangle of daylight at the other end of the corridor. "Then I'll test it and if it works—if it doesn't smoke us out down in the basement—we'll be good to go. I figure they can use the furnace like a pizza oven. For a little while, at least. It's not gonna be exactly risk free though," he added. "And I seriously doubt the local fire marshal would approve, but lucky for us, he's dead."

Olivia grinned and snorted softly at his quip. She stopped in front of the window. "And then we just need this weather to clear up," she mused in a distant voice as she stared outside. "And then we can get going. You think it'll last long?"

"Who knows?" Peter replied, glancing up at the overcast sky. Huge snowflakes whipped and whirled in ecstatic displays of agility. Snowcapped trees bent slightly against the insistent wind. The sky had been clear for the last week, since Christmas, but they had woken that morning to gray clouds hanging low over the city, stretching from horizon to horizon. The snow certainly showed no signs of letting up. "Where's a weatherman when you need one?"

They turned to enter the stairwell, but Olivia paused and looked up at him. "Hey, I found something else today. A surprise for tonight. Can you guess what it is?"

"A surprise for me? You shouldn't have, Dunham."

"Well, it's not all for you, Peter," she said with a snort, then entered the stairwell. On the threshold, she glanced back with a mysterious look in her eyes. "Oh, and I already gave you a clue."

"You did?" he called after her. "What clue?"

But there was no reply, and Olivia vanished into the dimness of the stairwell without another word. Peter took up the challenge, furrowing his brow. He replayed her every move since she'd found him in the closet, but there was nothing out of the ordinary. A clue? They had gone to checkout out a grocery store to the north, over on Broadway. He recalled it being a fairly basic, no frills supermarket, and tiny. There had been a locksmith next door, and at some point he'd made acquaintances with the owner, a burly fellow named Gino. He'd had long, delicate fingers, almost like a woman's. Locksmiths were useful friends to have, and Peter had made use of Gino's particular skill set on more than one occasion. Next to the locksmith's shop, there had been a corner liquor store, one of the few places that had fallen for his homemade fake ID in his late teens. At the thought of alcohol, a smile crossed his face.

The liquor store. When they had kissed, he had tasted a hint of something on her lips. A taste more than her usual spice. And it was New Year's Eve.

Bourbon.

He plunged into the stairwell after her, wearing a wide grin.


	20. A Bleak Road

**Part II**

**-January 2009**

Peter raised the axe again, gritting his teeth. The ache deep in his left shoulder pulsed up and down, keeping perfect time with the pumping of blood in his ears. Ignoring the mounting pain, he swiped the leg free, then tossed the seat onto the growing pile in the corner. He might chop them up later. Or not; motivation was hard to come by lately. In any case, the legs and spindles simply fit into the furnace better, and required the least energy to break down. He tossed the leg onto a separate pile, then reached for another chair.

He made quick work of it, chopping it up with practiced efficiency, and wondered how much longer they could go on as they were. The supply of wooden classroom furniture was dwindling at an alarming rate. Most of the furniture down in the basement was as ancient as the Kresge Building, and burned as if it had been doused in gasoline. In the span of time since they'd started using the old furnace for heat and cooking, Olivia's old room was already barren of anything wood, as well as four others. Five rooms in less than two weeks. By his estimate, the basement would be empty of anything wooden inside a week or two. And the upper floors of the Kresge Building were more modern and contained far less in the way of burnable furniture. Then they would be moving on to doors, and with only the small hand axe for cutting, it was not something he was looking forward to. He paused for a moment, letting the axe hang and massaged his aching shoulder. No, he wasn't looking forward to that. Not at all.

Despite the time being near mid-afternoon, he worked by candlelight. The classroom's pair of tiny windows emitted a faint glow as daylight trickled down through a massive snowdrift stacked up against the east side of the building. It had been snowing off and on for days on end.

If only the damn cold snap would break. How long had it been? He tried to count the days since the wave of frigid weather had descended over Cambridge, but they all blended together. Had it been New Year's Day? Days on days of shivering, of huddling in the lab around the furnace for warmth. He couldn't remember ever experiencing such a stretch of frigid weather before, at any point in his childhood, and couldn't help but wonder if the current state of the world had something to do with it. The cold had penetrated even down into the lab, where he and the others had thought the basement's partially buried walls would offer some measure of protection. They had been wrong, however. Unequivocally wrong.

Letting out a tired sigh, Peter resumed his chopping. He went through three more chairs before taking another break, panting slightly from his exertion. He felt weaker than he used to. It wasn't a good sign. Each breath hung in the air for an impossibly long instant before evaporating. His fingers and toes felt singed around the edges, his ears like they were covered in a thin layer of frost. They weren't of course, he knew that, but that was what it felt like. He hated the cold, hated if more every day, more every second. There was no escaping it.

Outside the open door, the familiar patter of running footsteps echoed in the corridor. He turned around expectantly, and a moment later a rosy-cheeked Ella swung into the classroom, right on cue. Her tawny hair was hidden beneath a white stocking hat, and a thick, purple scarf was wrapped about the tall collar of her wintergreen parka. It struck him that she looked like she should be hitting the slopes, not living in the freezing basement of an old university building after the end of the world.

"We need a lot more wood, Peter," Ella burst out, shivering inside her coat. "Astrid says the fire is almost out again, and we need to make dinner."

Peter's black mood returned in a heartbeat. "Goddamnit...," he growled under his breath, then dropped the axe with a loud thunk.

The wood was old; it burned fast. He'd explained it to them a hundred times already that they had to keep a closer eye on the fucking fire or it would go out. But did they listen? No. They wanted to stay warm, so the fire had to burn around the clock, twenty-four hours a day—and still they let it go out. It had to, or they would all freeze in the night, and even then they still woke to freezing toes and fingers, to chattering teeth. And to make matters worse, using its indirect heat to heat water required extreme temperatures, which in turn consumed their supply of wood even faster. It was a vicious cycle, one that always seemed to end up with him chopping wood alone and freezing his ass off.

"I...can help you carry some," Ella offered. Her eyes flickered between him and the woodpile. "If you want..."

Peter exhaled and stared up at the ceiling. _She's just a kid, you asshole. It's not her fault. None of this shit is her fault._ He forced himself to smile and looked down at her. "Sure thing, El," he said, and grabbed several lengths of spindles for her to carry. He scooped up the remaining for himself, along with most of the legs and chair backs, enough to fill both arms, then followed her out into the hall. "So what's on the menu today? Let me guess. Bean soup or bean soup?"

Ella looked up, flashing him a speculative grin. "Astrid is going to try and make some real bread. She said she found some yeast...? She thought it might still be alive."

"Bread. Sound delicious," Peter said, nodding and smiling slightly.

His thoughts turned to Olivia, who was currently outside the perimeter with Sonia and Rachel. They'd been gone all day, out searching for food and water, which had somehow become exceedingly scarce as of late. If there was a warm loaf of freshly-made bread waiting for her upon her return, she would be ecstatic. He tried to picture her face, and hoped Astrid was up to the task. Though unless she had managed to find some active dry yeast somewhere that was somehow still good, her attempt was going to end in a spectacularly flat failure. But a still edible failure, so he wasn't about to begrudge her the attempt.

"Peter, what is yeast?" Ella asked as they approached the entrance to the lab. Her face twists into an uncertain. "Is it...bugs?

From the tone of her voice it was a serious concern, and Peter found himself grinning despite his earlier foul mood. He attempted to explain the world's fungi and microbes in a way a five-year old might understand as they walked into the lab.

Inside, they found Astrid and Walter hunched over a steel worktable whose surface was covered in a layer of flour and several dough pans he'd never seen before, all of varying size and shape. Broyles looked up from his seat at their entrance, and tossed a nod Peter's way. The man had filled out noticeably in the weeks since his rescue from the Federal Building, almost to the point where he resembled his former self. He had even managed to limp around a little on his club foot—without the use of his crutches, though he was far from swift and more than likely never would be again. But it was better than being dead, and the man had admitted as much himself. The Peter Bishop that Olivia had met in Iraq recognized that their former boss was a liability who had consumed a rather large amount of their supplies during his recuperation, and wasn't shy about telling him so every so often. Usually when his stomach grumbled. But he did his best to ignore those thoughts.

The temperature was notably higher inside the lab, though not what anyone would call warm. And around the old coal furnace the air was even warmer still, a bubble of heat in which all activity now centered. In the frigid weather, the lab had become their home. Sleeping away from the furnace's heat was an exercise in misery. When night came, their beds and blankets formed a tight circle around the furnace, packed up tight against its tiled surface. In his opinion, it was all just another reason to leave. If only the weather would change. For the hundredth time, he wondered how long it could possibly last.

Walter looked up as they crossed the lab floor. "Oh! Peter. I'm afraid the fire has gone out again. And Aspirin and I were just about ready to put the bread in the oven." His face became animated and he smacked flour-coated palms together in his excitement. "We're attempting to make a French boule and a baguette. They're going to be delightful!"

Peter clenched his jaw. "Of course the fire's out, Walter," he said evenly on his way past. "That's what happens when you don't pay attention to it. This wood is older than me. Of course it's gonna burn like paper. I'm pretty sure I've mentioned this once or twice already."

He was aware he sounded harsh, of how his father blinked in surprise at his rising tone, and that it was getting harder and harder to keep his temper in check lately. He could blame it on the tight rationing they were under, that it seemed like he was always hungry, always thirsty. But it was more than that. It was the lack of privacy, the constant contact with other people, the noise, Walter's god-awful snoring, and mostly, it was the fact that there was nothing he could do about it. Such was the nature of survival now that winter had fully descended. But he didn't have to like it.

"It's my fault, Peter," Astrid said, giving him an apologetic smile. "I got sidetracked with the baking. I'm sorry."

"Don't worry about it," he muttered with shrug. "It's fine. I'll take care of it." _'Cause that's what I do_ , he added silently, then felt bad at once for doing so.

How often did he cook? Or babysit his father, for that matter? Never was the answer to both questions. They each had their roles, and the only way they were going to survive the mess they were in was to play them out. So he would get the fire going—again. With a sigh, he set his load of wood down on the concrete beside the furnace, then reached for the furnace door's iron handle without thinking. The handle was burning hot. With a gasp, he jerked his hand back, mouthing a silent curse.

"Are you okay, Peter?" Ella asked, looking his way as she dropped her load of wood on top of his.

"Yep," he replied in a tight voice, and pressed his palm against the cool concrete. "I'm fine."

As he had already discovered at various points in his life, karma could be a real bitch.

Ella eyed him doubtfully for a moment, then scampered over to Walter and Astrid. She squirmed in between them for a closer look at the pans of dough. Peter watched her for a moment as she showered them with questions. She had climbed into bed with him the night before—much to Olivia's amusement—claiming she was cold. He wasn't sure what to make of her picking him over her own mother or her aunt, or even of his place in her life. Somehow, through everything she had endured, she hadn't lost her innocence. Darkly, he wondered if he'd ever been like her.

He shook his head, then pulled on a pair of gloves from his coat pocket and opened the heavy furnace door. The door squealed in rusty protest, and the furnace belched out several dollops of acrid gray smoke along with a blast of heat. Squatting low, he peered inside and saw several dull hints of orange and red through the fog of smoke and layers of ash. At least the fire wasn't completely out, as had happened before, and he still had coals to work with. He reached for the shovel he and Charlie had used to bury Gene so long ago, and tried to separate the coals from the ash, which would require removal before he could get the fire going again.

"You need any help with that?"

Peter turned to find Broyles standing over him, leaning on one crutch. He tried to keep his gaze away from the man's gnarled foot, but it was like a magnet, complete with its own gravity. "Sure," he said with a shrug, turning back to the furnace. "You can grab that bucket over there and hold it up while I clear out this ash."

"Of course," Broyles nodded, then limped over and retrieved the metal bucket sitting near the back door, all without the use of his crutch.

Working together, they quickly emptied out the ash without spilling too much on the floor, and then Peter laid a new bed of wood over the remaining hot coals. The fire was soon roaring again, and with only a minimal amount of coaxing. He and Broyles both reveled in the heat, fanning their hands over the open door. Finally, Peter grabbed the long-handled shove and carefully pushed the burning wood to far back, clearing a space for cooking. It wasn't perfect, but it worked well enough, despite the addition of a strong smoke flavor to any and everything they'd cooked in it so far. He expected Walter and Astrid's bread to be no different.

After shutting the furnace door, he rose to his feet and stared out at the gray, featureless clouds through the lab's westward facing windows, and at the falling snow. It was never going to end. For some reason Jack Nicholson's rendition of Jack Torrance's fate in _The Shining_ popped into his head. He thought it was an appropriate comparison.

With the temperatures plummeting into dangerous territory, what little there was left of the water and canned food now resided down in Walter's tiny storage room, the only place in the Kresge Building far enough underground to resist the cold. They'd not told Ella, but the truth of the matter was that they were making bread because there was nothing else even remotely nutritious to eat.

"We're almost out of water, Peter," Broyles's said quietly, giving him a sideways look. "Rationing isn't enough anymore."

"I'm aware," he replied with a nod, and eyed Ella again. None of them were drinking enough, though Broyles was the first to bring it up. He supposed the man had good reason. "Olivia said they were trying Harvard Square today. There's lots of shops and little restaurants there that might have something left."

"And if they don't find anything?"

"Then I guess we're down to melting the snow. Unless you got a better idea? 'Cause I'd love to hear it."

Broyles shook his head slowly, eyes distant. He ran his fingers over his bald head. "When I was stuck in that cafeteria...," he started, "I could...feel myself wasting away, could feel my body...devouring itself. You got any idea what that feels like? It's not something I plan on experiencing again. And believe me, you don't want to experience it, either. Now what do we have here I can start filling up with snow?"

Peter directed him toward Walter's cabinet of spare beakers, some of which were on the larger side, then watched as he hobbled over to the back door, juggling a box of glassware. The man hadn't asked for help and Peter hadn't offered any. He had the sense that Phillip Broyles was a proud man who had decided his injury wasn't going to get the best of him.

_Good for him_ , he mused, turning his attention back to the furnace door. Trickles of smoke leaked out from an imperfect seal, but there was nothing he could do about it. The air around the furnace was growing warmer, and at the moment, that was all he cared about. He glanced down at the pile of fuel. It seemed small and insignificant already. More would be needed, and sooner than later. And just like that, the cycle continued. Blowing out a tired sigh, he started for the door.

#

He met the women on his way out of the lab, emerging from the stairwell at the end of the hall. Their shoulders were slumped, and their backpacks appeared far from full. Snow covered their coats and hats, and scarves pulled tight over lips and noses were caked with ice.

Peter had eyes for Olivia only, wearing her usual black coat and beanie. She came to a stop in front of him as Rachel and Sonia filed past without a word, each tearing their scarves away to expose wind-burned cheeks and faces ripe with dejection. Olivia wore the same look as she unwound her own scarf.

"So how'd it go?" he asked when they were alone. Olivia's chin dropped at his question. She shook her head slightly, then stepped closer with a sigh, letting him pull her into his arms. He held her close and she laid her forehead against his shoulder. "That bad, huh? Did you guys find anything at all?"

"It is so cold out there, Peter," Olivia murmured, shivering against him. "I think it's colder than it was yesterday. I can't feel my toes or my fingers. And all we found were four bottles of water—and two of them are half empty. Rachel found a couple cans of green beans and some beef stew, but...I don't think any of it is still good. To be honest, it wouldn't surprise me if it was all spoiled. Oh. And we ran into some infected in Harvard Square. They were out in the street. About a dozen of them," she added lifting her head from his shoulder.

"That many? Did they come out of the subway?" he asked quickly.

"I don't know. I don't think so. It looked like their tracks came from further south, past the subway entrance."

A ripple of unease worked its way through Peter's gut. South could mean the river. Had it frozen over yet? The weather was perfect for it, as it had remained below freezing for days on end.

"How much longer is this is going to last?" Olivia wondered out loud. She sounded and looked exhausted. "If this weather doesn't let up soon..." Her voice trailed off, leaving the obvious unsaid.

"I wish I knew," he said, running his gloved hand down her back, over particles of ice stuck to the fabric of her coat. "We'll get through it, though. We have to. It can't last forever. Broyles is out collecting snow in some of Walter's beakers. To melt. We'll have water at least, if nothing else."

After a moment, Olivia nodded. She pulled away from him and her eyes went to the lab door. "What's going on in there? Please tell me the furnace is hot, and that there's something good to eat?"

Peter grinned at the wistful look on her face. "I just got the fire going again," he said. "As for food... it's not ready yet, but how does freshly baked bread sound?"

"Bread...?" Olivia's eyes bulge open. "Astrid, you're a saint!" She twirled away from him in a flash of golden hair, and was through the lab door in an instant, as if she'd simply chosen to skip over the intervening space.

Peter found himself smiling wide at her rapid departure as he moseyed down the corridor. It seemed like his first real smile all day. The smile lasted until he reached the classroom where he'd been working prior to Ella's arrival. The separate piles of wood were just where he'd left them, undisturbed, and the axe also, lying in the middle of the room. The candle still sat in the corner, and had burned low. It flickered with harsh brilliance. He stopped in the doorway and stared down at the dancing flame, tiny and insignificant, and was overcome by a sudden sense of futility, laced with exhaustion. He leaned against the doorframe for a moment, breathing in and out, watching his breath rise, each exhale a minute amount of his body's moisture.

Olivia was right. They couldn't go on as they were for much longer. Their bodies simply wouldn't allow it. Chopping wood, searching for food out in subzero temperatures; all activities that used up precious resources—calories and fluids that weren't being replaced at the same rate. And all the while the cold worked on them, sinking in its teeth, whittling away at their resolve. It was zero-sum game with only bad endings. But what else could they do? It wasn't in him to roll over. It never had been.

So he stepped inside the room, and with a sigh, picked up his axe.

#

The sub-arctic temperatures continued to plummet as the cold front hovered over Cambridge, unwilling to move on or dissipate. Even the wind seemed frozen, dry and brittle, with sharp edges capable of slicing through any amount of layers, of clothing and coats. Life in the lab became a series of repeating tests. Or marathons, more accurately.

They woke each morning to bitter cold clutching at their fingers and toes, to icy fire burning the tips of their noses and ears, no matter how hot the fire was. And each night they collapsed from the sheer exhaustion of fighting off the cold. The chill was bone deep, and ever-present. Moments blended together into blurs of hunched shivering, chattering teeth, and the ache of an empty stomach. Time spent outdoors, and to a lesser degree outside the lab chopping wood, was an exercise in torture, and limited to minutes at a time. Tempers flared, boiled over, as result of hunger, and the little annoyances of living in such close proximity that began to add up. In short, it was five days of hell, for Peter, and for everyone else. And when the break in the weather finally came, they had reached the limit of their endurance. If not for the bubble of tiny warmth around the coal furnace, they would have never made it, of that Peter was certain.

On the morning of the sixth day since the girls' trip to Harvard Square, he woke to find Olivia's spot beside him empty. He was as cold as ever, but something had changed, felt different in the lab's atmosphere. And at present, any change in his opinion, was good. The others were all still asleep, huddled together in a tight ring for warmth, even Walter, who for once had managed to sleep through the night without letting out a single stuttering snore. It was a minor miracle. He threw a few more strips of wood onto the dwindling fire, then slunk out of the lab in search of a certain fair-haired FBI agent.

After searching the basement level, he saw Olivia outside through a window in the lobby, staring up at the building. She wore her usual garb, black coat and jeans, though her gloves and hat were missing, despite the strong gust of wind blowing her ponytail sideways. What was she doing out there? How was she not freezing?

Peter frowned and poked his head outside. "Olivia, what is it?"

Olivia lowered her gaze and gave him a dazzling smile, full of teeth. It was the first he'd seen in days. "It's over, Peter. For now, at least. Look."

Peter stepped outside and she pointed up at the edge of the roof, where a long, thick crust of jagged icicles had formed over the last few weeks. Some of them were huge, easily as long and as thick as a baseball bat. Or they had been. Water dripped steadily from each, and the snow beneath was pocked with holes where water had melted through. It was then that he noticed the temperature. While it was still cold, it was missing the sharp, cutting edge that had defined their existence for what seemed like weeks on end. The sun hovered above the eastern horizon, below a sky so incandescent and blue it seemed unreal, or like a prop of some kind, or like being inside a rainbow.

Peter shielded his eyes from the brightness. "Then it's time to go?"

Olivia nodded and her green eyes glittered in the sunlight. "It's time. Or it will be, once some of this snow melts. Are you ready?"

"Do you even have to ask?" he shot back. For some reason, he couldn't stop grinning.

#

"I still don't like it, son," Walter said. He paced a few steps away with a slight limp, then turned around. "Why can't we all leave together? As a group?"

"Walter, we don't know what's out there," Peter said gently. "And if it was just us...maybe we would. But there are others to think about."

Walter glanced over at the stairs up to the Kresge Building, where Ella was sitting on Olivia's lap on the bottom step. The little girl let out a squeal as Olivia snuck a finger under her coat and tickled, and then threw her arms about her aunt's neck—which turned out to be an evil ploy as she scooped a handful of snow down inside the collar of Olivia's coat. Olivia let out a squeal of her own, then chased a surprisingly quick Ella across the yard as Rachel and Astrid looked on, smacking their thighs and laughing uproariously.

Two days had passed since the weather broke and the snow was melting at a frantic pace. Patches of concrete were visible where the sidewalk led out to the van-gate. Out in the street, the snow had finally melted down enough to allow for use of the truck once more.

"I understand...," Walter said finally, looking glum. "And I suppose it is necessary. If you were still that age, I would probably feel the same way. And I'm positive your mother would have."

Peter put a hand on his father's shoulder. "Thanks for seeing it that way," he said, squeezing slightly before releasing him. "I'm sure Rachel and Olivia both appreciate it. In any case, we're not leaving just yet. Astrid and I'll be back in a few hours."

"Of course you will," Walter said with a nod, then turned away, and stared out over the fence at the street to the east. When he spoke again his voice was quiet. "Please don't leave without saying goodbye, son."

"I wouldn't dream of it, Walter," Peter replied, clapping him on the back. His father gave him a tremulous smile, then trudged back through the melting snow toward the building. "You ready to go, Astrid?" he called over to her on the steps.

"Ready whenever you are." Astrid rose to her feet, giving a wave of goodbye to Rachel before moving toward him across the yard.

He turned to Olivia as she spun Ella about, holding her over one shoulder. _Stay safe_ , he propelled a thought her way. As if she'd heard him, she nodded once, holding his gaze, and he tossed her a little salute in return. She had her own errands to run while he and Astrid attended to theirs.

"Bye, Peter! Bye Astrid!" Ella yelled as he pulled open the van-gate's door.

Peter grinned and waved goodbye, then climbed through to the snow-covered street on the other side. Astrid ducked out of the van behind him a moment later, shutting the door behind her. The black SUV was idling quietly across the street, warming up for Olivia and Sonia. The two of them were taking the truck east on a supply run, to scour homes and stores previously unreachable on foot. Critically low stores had to be replenished before he and Olivia left. And another vehicle obtained, preferably a four-by-four. The particular truck he had in mind was a maroon Suburban he recalled seeing parked at a used car dealership on the frantic drive back from Downtown.

He led Astrid west down Cambridge Street, clumping through snow deep enough to cover their boots. The snow was wet and clingy, perfect for snowball making. He scooped a handful, forming it into a ball that he bounced on his gloved palm as they walked. When they reached Massachusetts Avenue, they turned northwest crossing the street into Cambridge Commons; a park he remembered playing in often as a small child. It was ancient area of Cambridge, dating back to colonial days. Bronzed statues stood in various locations throughout the park, including a covered memorial with a sculpture of George Washington. Supposedly the statue stood on the spot where the old general had taken command of the Continental Army. He had a clear memory of standing in front of the statue with his mother, of looking up at the stern figure while she explained its significance. He'd been fairly young at the time, but she'd been like that; no subject was too tall for his age.

As they passed by the memorial, he reared back and tossed the snowball in a tall arc toward the erect figure on the dais. His throw was off the mark by a wide margin and exploded harmlessly against the memorial's concrete foundation.

"Don't quit your day job, Peter," Astrid commented with a chuckle. "Cy Young, you are definitely not. And I don't think Abe would appreciate you trying to hit him. What did he ever do to you?"

"Hey, my shoulder's still healing," he said defensively. "And for the record it's Washington, not Lincoln."

Astrid shook her head and eyed him askance. "No, it's definitely Abraham Lincoln."

"Hey, I'm the one that grew up around here," he reminded her, tapping a finger against his chest. "I think I would know."

"Are you sure?" she asked, narrowing her eyes. "'Cause after they made the task force permanent, I took a walk through here, looking for any good places to eat near the lab. I'm pretty sure it was Lincoln. I think there's a plaque for Washington on the other side of the park, though."

Peter frowned over at the silhouette standing inside the memorial. It had been decades since he'd set foot in the park—at some point they had simply stopped going there—but the knowledge that it was Washington was inherent in his memory, like knowing that the Green Monster was the left field wall at Fenway, or that the Statue of Liberty resided on Liberty Island. He _knew_ it. Yet she seemed certain also, and had obviously been there more recently than he had.

"Well, I guess there's only one way to solve this case," he said, meeting her gaze.

Without warning, Astrid took off, making a beeline through the snow over toward the memorial. Her black coat was a blur in front of him. Grinning, Peter sprinted after her, stomping alternately over concrete beneath the layers of snow and ground that felt squishy beneath his boots. A few moments later he stood before it, chest heaving, gasping for breath. Astrid looked over at him, wearing a huge grin.

"Hahah...," she chortled with pleasure. "The great Peter Bishop, totally wrong for once in his life. And I here I thought I'd never see the day."

Peter stared up at the statue, unbelieving. Clearly she was right. It was Lincoln, the iconic Lincoln with the wild hair and jutting chin and beard, and wearing a long overcoat. From a distance he looked like a gunfighter out of the Old West. And any child raised in the States past the age of six or seven could have recognized him at a glance. Yet the statue in his memory was different, despite the memorial building itself being the same; a square-shaped structure of concrete, open on all sides and topped with a tall plinth holding a statue—of a Union soldier, instead of a revolutionary.

"I don't understand," he muttered, rubbing his neck. "I could have sworn it was..."

Astrid gave him a little nudge with her elbow. "Hey, everybody makes a mistake once in a while, Peter. Even geniuses like yourself and Walter. Welcome to the world of mere mortals."

"No, I'm serious," he insisted, shaking his head. "I used to play in this park when I was a little kid. And I remember my Mom telling me about it. It was Washington."

"How old were you?"

Peter shrugged. "I don't know. Five maybe?"

"That's pretty young. I doubt I had a clue who either men were at that age. Maybe you're just remembering it wrong."

"I guess so...," he conceded, turning away from the statue. Only it didn't feel that way. It felt like his memory had been edited like a picture in Photoshop. Or reality had. And both were impossible.

Something else occurred to him then. The strangeness of chance. What were the odds? Of him coming to this place again after so many years—of him coming here at all if the infection had never happened? He might have gone on believing the statue was of Washington for the rest of his days. His mother would have never made a mistake like that, so Occam's Razor dictated that Astrid was correct; he was remembering it wrong. Perhaps the entire memory was a fabrication of his mind. Or a half-forgotten dream. Either way, it was irrelevant, and they were wasting time.

"Learn something new every day," he admitted both to himself and to Astrid. "C'mon. It's not getting any earlier. Olivia had her heart set on leaving today."

#

Peter squinted ahead of them, shielding his eyes from the sun.

The air was dead calm, and the road in front of them a perfect sea of white, unmarred, except for a single pair of meandering tracks that drunkenly pinballed from curb to curb. In the distance, he could see the car dealership, along with a solitary figure moving sluggishly through snow just shy of shin deep. They followed after it, but the infected continued on down the street past the dealership parking lot, oblivious to their presence behind it. When it disappeared from view around a corner, Peter put it out of his mind.

He stepped over the curb into the parking lot and surveyed the area. Other than a shattered window in the main office, the dealership was mostly untouched by calamity. Parallel parked between two compacts along the street was the maroon Suburban, covered in a thick layer of dripping snow. It was the sort of truck he had formerly viewed with disdain, near the length of a limousine. But he had a different view now, as the truck was perfect for carrying an entire extended family—or any number of survivors and their gear comfortably after the apocalypse.

"So. Are you gonna show me how to hot-wire this giant or what?" Astrid said, viewing the truck with a crumpled frown he took to mean that she was not looking forward to driving such an obnoxiously large vehicle.

Peter nodded. "I can, if we have to, but first..."

He stepped forward and began clearing the snow away, wiping over the windows and hood with both hands. Astrid joined him and in a few minutes they had the truck relatively snow-free. Unsurprisingly, there was no key in the ignition and all the doors were locked. As breaking one of the windows was a last resort, he went about trying to jimmy the door open with a length of bent hanger wire he'd brought for just that purpose. Astrid watched him for a moment, then ventured inside the dealership, picking her way through the shattered front window. She returned several minutes later, wearing a wide smile.

"We're in luck, Peter. Look what I found," she said, twirling a set of keys on a ring around her index finger. "Somebody left in a hurry and forgot to shut the key locker." She slid the key into the driver's door lock, then glanced around the lot. "You sure we don't want something else? That little green SUV over there looks nice." Before he could reply, she yanked open the door and added, "I know, I know. It's too small," then slid into the driver's seat and unlocked the passenger door.

Peter climbed in beside her and was greeted by a strong dose of nostalgia, courtesy of the new car odor that still lingered in the air. The interior was pristine, if icy. Heated leather seats and a fancy, if not useless by now, GPS display was built into the dash. In another stroke of luck, the engine turned over and roared to life on the first try, despite having sat untouched for almost five months. Astrid giggled with delight, then twisted the radio on out of habit. When there was only static on the dial, her expression turned dour and she turned it off reluctantly.

They sat in silence, waiting for the engine to warm up. After a while, Peter felt the heating element growing hot through his jeans and thought of Walter. After so long in the nuthouse, his father had been particularly impressed with the heating elements in Olivia's car. Smiling faintly, he pulled the walkie-talkie from his pocket and turned it over between his hands.

"Are you sure those are gonna work?" Astrid wondered, looking over at the handheld radio with a frown. "I had a pair that sorta looked like those once. The range really sucked. What if we can't reach you two?"

"With the new antennas I put on, they'll work," he told her, "assuming, of course, that we're each at a high enough elevation. They should have a working range of thirty miles or so, if conditions are right." He pointed out a trio of office buildings a few blocks past the car dealership that towered over all the other structures in the area. "See those buildings over there? If you're on the top floor of one of those, and Olivia and I find some high ground outside the city, we should be able to stay in contact as far out as Marlborough, and maybe even Worcester if we're lucky."

"So, what...," she replied, eyeing the buildings uneasily. "You want me to climb up one of those everyday and just wait for you guys to call?"

"More or less." It wasn't the greatest plan in the history of plans, but it was all they could do. He pressed the call button on the radio, raising it to his lips. "Olivia, are you there? Come in, Olivia."

Almost instantly the radio crackled with Olivia's voice. "Peter...? What's the matter?"

"Nothing, we're fine. Just testing out the range. How is it on your end?"

"Perfect. Crystal clear."

He pointed to radio and mouthed a silent _See!_ to Astrid, who merely rolled her eyes. "Same here," he said into the radio. "How are you guys doing?"

"We're on our way back to the lab," came Olivia's brisk reply. "The truck's full. We should be all set. Where are you?"

"We just got the other truck started. We're gonna make a slight detour, and then we'll be on our way."

"All right. See you in a bit. Olivia out."

The radio fell silent and he switched it off, then dropped it into a cup holder between the front seats. "What's this detour?" Astrid asked. "Something tells me I'm not gonna like it."

Peter gazed over at the trio of buildings rising above the treetops. "We should probably check out one of those buildings before we ask you to go up there alone, don't you think?"

Astrid's eyebrows arched upward. "You make a good point," she said, then reached for the heater knob and turned it on full blast. "And what if they're all infested? What then?"

One of them had to be clear. If not, then their plan of staying in contact was in serious trouble. No other buildings in the area were even close to tall enough to send and receive a clear signal. "Let's hope they're not," he answered. "Or else we'll just have to think of something else."

#

The sun was straight overhead by the time Astrid finally pulled the long Suburban up behind the smaller black SUV on the street outside the Kresge Building. The other truck's rear door was open, and from the look of it, Olivia had already packed most of their gear into the back, along with an assortment of weapons.

Astrid pulled her key from the ignition and leaned her head back against the rest. "So we're really doing this, Peter?" she said in a worried tone. "Splitting up again? Leaving Cambridge because of light in the sky you haven't seen for months? What if something happens?"

Peter glanced out the window. There was activity outside the building; Ella was playing in her rapidly melting fort, with Rachel looking on from the stairs beside Sonia and Broyles. He peered around the yard, searching for his father, but he was nowhere in sight. A flash of yellow hair on the other side of the van-gate caught his eye. Olivia was coming to meet them.

He turned to the woman beside him. "It's only for a few days, Astrid," he said quietly, leaning back against the seat beside her. The trucks interior was toasty and warm, and he was loathe to leave it behind. "Just until we can see what it's like outside the city. Until we can find some place safe. There's gotta be something. We can't be the only people left. And nothing is gonna happen, but if it does...you'll figure it out. If we stay here, we're gonna eventually run out of food, out of water." He let out a sad chuckle. "We've already scoured almost all of Cambridge. And more importantly, if there is some way to stop the infection, to reverse it, or whatever Walter's plan is, the answer's not here. It's out there, somewhere."

Astrid was silent for a moment, fingers tense on the steering wheel. Then she turned toward him. "You've come a long way, Peter," she said with a half smile. "You know when I first met you, I had you pegged as a lone wolf, me-first kind of guy."

Peter grunted softly. "You weren't wrong. That was me, down to a tee."

There was movement in the passenger door mirror, and Olivia appeared to his right an instant later. She glanced inside the truck curiously, but swept past them without slowing, trudging through the snow to the open rear of the black SUV. Matching assault rifles were balanced on one shoulder, and a heavy-looking backpack hung from the other. She tossed the backpack inside, then slid the rifles into a narrow gap beside the wheel well.

"She's good for you," Astrid said in her soft voice, staring out through the windshield. "And you for her, I think. Don't screw it up, buddy."

"I know she is," he replied, then reached for the door latch. _I know she's too good_. "And I don't plan on it," he added. He had doubts about the second half of her statement, but he was done rationalizing the whys of their relationship. Pushing the door open, he stepped out into the cold.

"Truck's all loaded, Peter," Olivia said as he joined her. "Full tank of gas and I've got a spare can in the back, just in case. We got lucky in Somerville. There was a house with a wine cellar, filled to the brim with food and gallons of water." She shook her head and gave a humorless chuckle. "The owner must have been preparing for the end of the world. But we've got enough food to last us a few days, and they'll have enough in the lab for a lot longer, maybe even a few weeks. You two have any problems?"

"Nope. The office building was empty, locked up tight. I don't think anyone's even been in it since the outbreak started. Astrid shouldn't have any problems."

"Good," Olivia said with a slight nod. "Then we're all set." Her eyes were intent, determined. There was a restless impatience about her, an eagerness, like a tennis player bouncing on the balls of his feet awaiting the serve. "Are you sure you're up for this, Astrid?" she asked as the younger woman joined them. "I know it's asking a lot."

Astrid lifted her shoulders. "I guess so. I don't like it, but...if leaving can get us closer to fixing this, then it's what we have to do. So it's every day, nineish?"

"That's the plan," Olivia confirmed, then turned to Peter. "I want to leave as soon as possible, Peter. I already grabbed your things, and lunch for the road. It's your old favorite," she said sweetly. "Granola bars. Is there anything else you need from the lab?"

"Maybe a few things, some tools," he said, lifting up on his toes to peer over the fence into the perimeter. "Where's Walter?"

Olivia inclined her head toward the lab. "He was moping down in the basement when I saw him last. I think he's waiting for you."

"Wonderful," Peter muttered. "I'll be back in a few minutes. Hopefully."

He left Olivia and Astrid behind and ducked through the van-gate. Tools weren't all he needed. He needed information, and Walter was going to give it to him, one way or another. They were out of time. No more stalling, no more putting it off. He was going to talk. Plodding through the melting slush on the sidewalk, he mulled over the best way to approach him and came to the conclusion that blunt directness usually got the quickest results.

As he passed near what was left of the snow-fort, Ella's head suddenly peeked up over the wall. She wore an evil grin. "Hey Peter...," she called out, then jumped up, already mid wind-up. "Catch!"

Before he could react, a snowball zoomed by his face, narrowly missing him. Another followed almost instantly, exploding across his chest. Particles of snow and slush showered over his face, snuck into the gap between his coat collar and chin. Peter gasped at the chill, stood up on his toes as the ice worked its way down his shirt.

"Hey! You little monster!"

Ella shrieked hysterically as he darted for handfuls of snow and began returning fire. She obviously had been preparing for the encounter, and seemingly had an unlimited supply of snowballs behind her wall. With no cover to speak of, it was he took the majority of the damage, much to the amusement of the onlookers.

"Get him, Ella!" Rachel shouted as the others laughed.

Peter ducked a missile of ice, then caught another full in the face before admitting defeat and falling back in the snow, cheek stinging. To his surprise, Ella rushed over to him and dropped right in his lap, throwing her arms about his neck. She squeezed him tight, and a lump began to rise in his throat at the feel of her smooth cheek against his. After recovering from his initial shock, he carefully put his arms about her waist and held her close.

"I guess you're leaving with Aunt Liv," Ella said after a moment. Her voice was melancholy, and he felt her tremble against his cheek.

Peter was surprised to find that her sadness mirrored his own. He was going to miss her, and her constant questions. He couldn't pinpoint exactly when the little girl had become like family to him. The realization was strange and out of the blue. He wondered if it was what having a daughter felt like, or perhaps a kid sister. Over Ella's shoulder, he saw Olivia watching them both, and hiding a smile from the way her hand was covering her mouth. He pulled away from Ella, placing his hands on her shoulders.

"Looks like it, munchkin," he said. "Think you can keep an eye on Walter for me while I'm gone? Make sure he stays out of trouble?"

Ella nodded but said nothing, and the lump in his throat became a tight knot when she wiped away tears rising in her eyes. She let out a sniffle. "Will we ever see you again?"

"Hey, of course you will," he assured her. "You're aunt and I are just going to find another home for us, one that works a little better. And as soon as we find it, Astrid's gonna bring everyone there. See that big truck?" He pointed over the wall to the roof of the maroon Suburban. "It's big enough for everyone, and all your stuff."

Ella looked over at the truck for a moment before turning back to him. "You promise, Peter?"

"I promise. Scout's honor."

"Okay," she nodded again, this time with a little more confidence. She wiped her eyes again. "Then I'll keep an eye on Walter for you."

"Deal," he grinned, ruffling her hair.

They separated and climbed to their feet, then Peter made his way past a smiling Rachel and went inside. He made his way through the dimness down to the lab, for what was likely to be the last time — if all went according to plan. The thought that if it wasn't the last time, something will have gone horribly wrong, crossed his mind also.

He pushed open the lab door and hurried inside. The lab was empty, with his father nowhere in sight, but a faint glow from the stairwell to the sub-basement gave away his location. He ran his gaze over the room their lives had revolved around since the start of the outbreak, and even before then, with the Flight 627 attack. It struck him then that he was going to miss this place, just a tiny bit. The lab represented a turning point in his life, his and Olivia's beginning, and he wouldn't soon forget it.

After grabbing his prized multi-tool from his work table, he descended the stairwell into the storage room and found his father rummaging through a box of old vinyl records by candlelight. Walter looked up as he reached the bottom step.

"Peter!" he said, motioning with one hand while simultaneously flipping through record sleeves with his other. "You're back. Look what I found. It's my old record collection! Isn't it wonderful?"

Peter eyed the dimly lit storage room with a frown. The room had been a scattered mess before they'd cleaned it up to make room for the food and water, and it seemed to be regressing toward chaos once more. Trash and overturned boxes lay all over. He stepped over a pile of circuit boards that appeared to have been made in the stone age, otherwise known as the analog era, and moved to his father's side.

"That's...that's great, Walter," he said, removing his gloves and wiping the snow from his hair. "I'm...really happy for you."

Walter nodded excitedly, then frowned, and flipped rapidly through sleeve after sleeve, muttering under his breath. Finally he looked up, bristling with outrage. "It's missing. It's not here."

"What's missing?"

"My favorite Bowie Album! _The Man Who Sold the World_. It's gone!"

Peter sighed and rubbed at his temples. He could feel a pressure headache building, like a ticking time bomb. His father was in one of his moods. _Excellent_. "That's wonderful, Walter," he said. "But we're leaving soon, and I need to talk to you about Olivia."

"But... but someone's pilfered it!" Walter stuttered. His voice began to rise. "The record was here when I put them in this box seventeen years ago, and now it's not. Who could have taken it? And why?"

"Walter you don't even have a record player, and even if you did, it wouldn't work. So what does it matter? The odds of you ever listening to any of those again is pretty much zero." He took his father by the shoulders and turned him away from the source of his distraction, a tactic which had worked well in the past. "Now listen to me. I have to talk to you."

Walter blinked. His jowls quivered for a moment before he relaxed, and took in a deep breath. "I'm listening," he said calmly. "What would you like to discuss, son?"

"Before the weather turned to shit," Peter started, relieved Walter appeared to have snapped out of it. "Olivia and I were working on her...problem. These abilities she seems to be manifesting. She wants to learn how to control it, if she can, but we haven't been getting anywhere. You said you had some ideas."

"Yes. Yes, I did. I do," he replied, massaging the knuckles of his left hand.

Peter waited expectantly, but his father remained silent, eyes shifting about. "Well?" he asked, giving in to his rising impatience. "What are they? No more putting me off, Walter. Tell me."

Walter's mouth opened and closed. He wet his lips and stared down at the floor, then paced a few steps away before turning around. "Years ago," he started, "I worked with Belly, with William, on developing a way to prevent the natural limiting of the human brain's potential. Belly had a theory that the process started at birth, and continued on into maturity, with each outside interaction."

"Potential?" Peter said, leaning back against a table. "Potential for what?"

"Well, Belly's original theory hypothesized that if we could limit this limiting somehow, it might allow for the brain to...harness it's mental capabilities to its fullest capacity, in essence to allow for the growth of a... a super-genius, if you will. A smarter man."

"C'mon, that's ridiculous," Peter scoffed, shaking his head. "That's just a myth. The human brain already uses its full capacity. It was proven while you were in the nuthouse, Walter."

"Yes. You are quite correct, son," he conceded with a smile that was more than a little condescending. "The adult human brain does indeed work at full capacity—a capacity already stunted by this limiting we posited occurred in childhood. We ran a trial on an experimental drug called Cortexiphan, a drug whose purpose was to limit this limitation. It was Belly's creation. His...white whale, so to speak. Before he moved on to acquiring new technology."

"And...? Did it work?" Peter wanted to know.

"Not precisely as we first imagined. Patients who were administered the drug began to exhibit certain...abilities. Abilities previously unknown. Abilities that defied the laws of known physics. We...tested it at a developmental learning institution on a military base in Jacksonville."

"Jacksonville?" Peter said sharply. Why did that mean something to him? Then it came to him. His blood began to freeze, to thicken in his veins. "Jacksonville, Florida?"

Walter wet his lips again. "Um... Yes. The trial took place in Florida."

Peter gripped the table as the statement descended like a falling axe. A developmental learning institution. It was a fancy way of saying a preschool.

Or day care center.

A sick feeling began spreading through his gut. "When was this, Walter?" he asked softly, carefully. He walked a razor's edge as the picture of what his father was telling him came slowly into focus. "I don't remember you working at any day care center, definitely not in Florida."

"This... this would have been in the early eighties," Walter admitted. He swallowed nervously. "Peter... I... I want you to know that, that I was different back then, that I was a different ma—"

Peter cut in harshly. "What are you gonna tell me, Walter?" he said, advancing on his father. Walter retreated backward, until his shoulders bumped up against the wall of shelves. There was nowhere for him to hide, though from the look on his face, he desperately wanted to. "Are you gonna tell me what I think you're gonna tell me? That you and William Bell were experimenting on children? On fucking children? What the hell is wrong with you?" His last sentence was a grating whisper as grabbed a fistful of his father's shirt.

Walter flinched back, knocking his head against a shelf. He began to tremble. His lips quivered. "I... I was a different man in those days!" he cried out. "I was different. We never mean to hurt any of them. I never meant to hurt her!

Peter froze, breath caught in his throat.

_Her._

The word hung in the air between them. Walter's face went slack as a deadly stillness fell over Peter. His mind raced, putting his father's vague insinuations together, forming a complete and terrible picture. Perhaps he should have seen it sooner. Perhaps a part of him had, but he'd been denying it, hoping it wasn't true. That there was some other explanation.

Her. Jacksonville. A day care center. Experiments.

It was insane.

_Children._

"Hurt who?" Peter whispered through teeth clamped together so tight his jaw ached. Walter's eyes roved about the room frantically, as if searching for a way out. But there was no way out. He was going to say it. He was going to admit it. "Hurt who, Walter?" he said again, louder.

Instead of replying, Walter tore himself free of Peter's grasp, spinning awkwardly away from him. He pulled a box from a shelf and removed the lid. Holding up the candle, he looked inside and pulled something dark and rectangular out. He hugged it against his chest as if it were a dear treasure. "We... we were trying to protect our world, son. You... you must understand that. You must."

"What is that?" he asked flatly. He held out his hand. "What is that? Give it to me, Walter." After a moment, his father reluctantly passed it over, refusing to meet Peter's gaze.

Oddly, the object so dear to him was an old videotape. A Betamax. Frowning, Peter turned the tape over. On the other side was a white label, covered with writing he couldn't quite make out in the dimness. He held it up to the candle, and then time seemed to slow down. His heart began to pound. Blood rushed in his ears.

The label was covered in a mess of slanted handwriting, written in red ink. He read each line carefully, and saw an image of Olivia's sad, beautiful face. Something broke apart inside him, shattered into a million pieces. Was it is heart? The shards were lethal. _Olivia..._ _I'm so sorry._

When he was finally capable of tearing his eyes from the video cassette, for several heartbeats there was nothing; his mind was empty of rational thought. There was only rage. Rage that filled every ounce of him, every micro-particle. The man standing before him wasn't his father. He wasn't even a man at all.

He was a monster.

Barely holding himself in check, Peter held up the videotape. "What is this?" he whispered, and found that he was shaking all over. His voice was harsh and grated in his ears. The ancient plastic creaked under the pressure of his grip. "What the hell is this, Walter?" Using his free hand, he shoved his father backward over the center table. The box of records went flying, sleeves dumping their contents onto the cold concrete as he held Walter in place by his bunched lapel. "What did you do!" His strangled shout filled the storage room. If anyone was in the lab above, they would have heard him also, but none of that mattered to him in the slightest. His father had conducted experiments on children. Children. And Olivia had been one of them. Walter's head rebounded off the table top. "What did you do!"

For several moments, he saw nothing. There was only red, inside and out. He was nothing but red, nothing but fury. Then abruptly, he became aware of the squat barrel of Olivia's automatic pressed up against Walter's forehead. And his finger was on the trigger, applying fatal pressure. Exhaling carefully, he straightened out his index finger, moving it safely out of range. He had come within hairsbreadth of no longer having a father. He wasn't sure he didn't anyway.

Beneath him, Walter's face was a pale vision of stark terror. Tears leaked from the corners of his eyes, tumbled down his cheeks. "Peter, please!" he was saying. "It wasn't me, it was Belly. It was his trial!" His head shook from side to side as he repeated the same words over and over, like one of his broken records. "We never meant to hurt them, I swear!"

"Tell that to Olivia!" Peter hissed. He pressed harder with his left hand. Spots of blood began to well up around the tip of the gun, where the front sight dug into the skin of Walter's forehead. "Is this gonna hurt her? Is it?"

Walter's head shook, and he spoke rapidly. "No. No. The drug was harmless in children. There should be no ill effects, other than what she's already experienced. Peter, I swear to you. It won't harm her, not directly."

Harmless in children. There was only one way they could known that. _Sick bastards_. Pulling the gun away from his forehead, Peter leaned in close, until their faces were inches apart, until he could feel his father's panicked breaths against his cheek. "You'd better be right," he said woodenly. "'Cause if this ends up hurting her, father or not...I'm gonna kill you. Do you understand me, Walter?"

Walter's eyes widened. "You love her."

Peter ignored the statement. He set the handgun down on the worktable, then held his father's gaze. "I want to know everything you know about this...Cortexiphan—what it does, how it works, and how Olivia can use it. Start talking."

#

The truck plowed slowly westward through the layer of snow blanketing Route 20.

Peter stared out his window at the barren countryside, the empty houses, and all the abandoned businesses as they rolled past. Everything outside the pocket of warmth in the SUVs cabin was flat and meaningless, as bleak as stick figures drawing a child's cartoon. None of it was real. None of it had life. Only the dead, who wandered, in herds or alone, dark shapes moving or standing still, seen in flashes through the dense trees on either side of the road. They weren't a threat. So far. He saw it all, yet at the same time, he saw nothing; what his eyes were looking on passed through him without registering.

His mind was in another place.

"Did Astrid say how Ella was doing?" Olivia asked suddenly, breaking a silence that had lasted far too long. He had the feeling that she was talking just to say something, venting the tension building between them like a relief valve on a steam pipe. "They're keeping a closer eye on her this time, aren't they?"

They had spent the night in an abandoned home on the outskirts of Waltham, nearby a radio tower high up on a ridge. There had still been plenty of daylight left, but he had spotted the tower from the road and it seemed a likely place to test out their communication system before they were too far away from Cambridge. It had been a long night; Peter had hardly slept, instead opting to lie awake beside Olivia, alone with his tortured thoughts, and watch the fire in the fireplace burn itself out. He'd felt no better in the morning, or on the long climb up the radio tower in a frigid cross wind.

Every ounce of skills learned in another life had been required to keep the smile on his face as he said his goodbyes with Walter's stuttered explanations reverberating inside his head. His father had told him everything, or so he claimed. And Peter believed him; the man had been in tears by the end of the interrogation, practically on his knees begging for forgiveness.

Madness. It was all madness and lies.

Then, after they had left, he'd felt the brush of Olivia's gaze from the driver's seat every now and then, saw the hint of a question on her lips in the corner of his eye. He knew the question, but he didn't know how to answer it. How could he answer it? What could he tell her? That in some cruel stroke of cosmic bad luck, his own father was responsible for what was happening to her? That he had conducted experiments on her? He had abused her, by any standard definition of the word—and other children also. How could he possibly tell her that? They had left Ella with the man—not that he truly believed his father would ever lay a finger on her, but would Olivia see it that way?

Walter had tried to shift the blame onto William Bell, but he was just a complicit, just as guilty. The man was disgusting, a human monster, no matter what his insane reasoning. Or he had been at the time. He had said he'd changed, that he was a different man, now. But could someone change so much? Some lines could never be crossed, not without losing one's humanity at least, and he had blown right past them without stopping, or even slowing down. It was unforgivable, and he had offered none.

_I have to tell her_. The inside of his skull was an echo chamber; it had been since he'd walked out of the lab with Walter on his knees behind him. _Tell her!_

But how? For once in his life, words had abandoned him. He had come close as they neared the outlying suburbs of Cambridge. He'd even gone so far as to look her in the eyes and open his mouth. But then the words had lodged in his throat. Olivia had waited for him to speak, lifting her eyebrows expectantly. In the end, he'd said something inane, some joke or another as he had done in the past, before he'd started being honest with her. He hated every second of it, keeping something from her that concerned her past so intimately, but would burning her world down around her be even worse?

So instead Peter had chosen to wait, and tried to work up the courage to tell her, all the while stewing in the still-glowing embers of rage that simmered just below the surface of his thoughts. His falseness had sprouted a wall between them that grew thicker with every forced smile and deflected interaction. And the worst part was that Olivia sensed that something was amiss—she was too intelligent, too observant not to—and the confusion blooming in her eyes twisted his insides into thorny knots. Part of him wished she would just come out and ask him; he would never pull off lying to her face. He never could. She would see right through his obfuscation and demand to know what the hell was going on. And then all the poisonous betrayal would be out in the open. How would she react? Could she separate the sins of the father from the son? Would she? But she hadn't asked, and something told him that she wouldn't. She was waiting it out, just as he was.

_God damn you, Walter._

He swiveled to face her, grabbing the hand rest as the SUV bounced over an odd lump in the snow. "Astrid said...," he started, injecting a lightness into his tone, "she said everyone was fine. Ella was with her on watch this morning. They saw two infected wandering west down Cambridge Street."

"Just two?" Olivia frowned. "And they came from the east?"

"That's what she said."

Olivia's lips pressed together the way they did when something was troubling her. He knew what it was. They had discussed it, in private, at least; the possibility that the Charles had frozen over. He was now regretting that the discussion had been private, but it was his nature. It was both their natures.

"It was just the two, and Astrid said she took care of them. I don't think there's anything to worry about yet, Olivia."

She nodded slightly in reply, holding the steering wheel in a white-knuckled grip. Peter clenched his teeth as the unnatural silence descended once more. He hated himself for what he was going to have to tell her, and wished for the hundredth time he wasn't such a coward.

The temperature readout on the center console was several degrees lower than it had been last time he looked, dropping back down below freezing and then some. Even as he watched, the temperature ticked down another degree. Peter winced at the sight. Perfect. That was all they needed, for the temperature to drop back down into the uncomfortable range. Outside the window to his right, obscured structures appeared through the trees. He scanned the road ahead for familiar landmarks. The town of Weston should be close, if his estimate of how far they'd come was correct. A moment later, the road passed over an empty I-95, followed by a green road sign that confirmed his suspicion.

Weston was small compared to Cambridge, or even Waltham, which they had just left behind, but had been one of the wealthiest townships in Massachusetts, before. It was set back in a heavily forested area, with a rugged elevation change to the north. A low cliff hugged the edge of the road to his right, atop which sat affluent neighborhoods nestled among winding and looping side roads. Peter never had much reason to come to the area, but he knew where the important points of interest were, or had been.

"Hey, make a right here," he suggested, pointing to an alternate route forking off the main road just ahead. "It'll take us through the business district. I think there are a pharmacy and a grocery store, if I remember right."

Olivia glanced his way, then carefully guided the truck onto the turnoff without a word. The snow ahead was smooth and featureless. A decrepit brick wall followed the road on the right, and an even more ancient wall of natural rock covered in moss sat on the left. The wall looked older than time, and Peter wondered if it had been there since the colonial days. Ahead, a church steeple rose among the treetops, along with angled roofs belonging to homes that had once sold for numbers with seven digits. It was a cozy area, picturesque. The sort of place where nothing ever happened except good things, and tragedy was a dip in the stock market. On the surface, at least. Experience told him that there had undoubtedly been a dark underbelly, and probably with higher stakes than its less wealthy counterparts.

An arched portal to nowhere with a black iron gate stood forth from the wall on his right, beyond which a herd of infected stood in a tight group among the trees. At a glance, he estimated there was at least a hundred of them. They stirred to life as the truck rolled past, then headed en masse for the wall, shuffling and stumbling through the snowy underbrush.

Peter watched in his mirror as they spilled over the low wall, dropping face first into a ditch beside the road. They might have posed a threat, eventually, but the two of them would be long gone before then. The road swept to the left and the town center came into view. Oddly, the main thoroughfare was utterly empty, with not a single parked or abandoned vehicle anywhere in sight. Every other neighborhood they'd passed through had left-behind vehicles and belongings everywhere. It was as if the entire town had up and left before the outbreak had become widespread.

Olivia drove slowly, creeping between another church and a barn-shaped fire station on the left, and a long retail plaza with an out-of-place stucco roof on the right. On the near end of the plaza was the pharmacy he'd spoken of, a tiny _Walgreens_ store with paned-glass windows. The pharmacy's entrance was wide open, propped in place by something buried by a mound of snow blown up against the open door.

"Should we check it out?" Olivia asked, leaning toward him to get a closer look out his window as she let the truck come to a stop. "There might be something useful left in there."

Peter checked his mirror again, then nodded and pushed open his door. He slipped out into the cold—it was definitely chillier out than it had been—and his boots sunk into a crust of snow up to the bottom of his calves. Tepid wind blew in from the west, bringing with it veiled threats of worsening weather. With a sigh, he opened the back door as Olivia did the same on her side of the truck. Their eyes met when they both reached for the crowbar lying across the back seat, and despite his disposition, he couldn't help but grin. Olivia smiled shyly as he picked up the tire iron instead. The sight sent a surge of warmth through his insides. Tearing his gaze from her, he forced himself to breath as his personal hell descended once again, more powerful than before.

_I have to tell her. I have to_. It would be betrayal not to. Betrayal.

Forcing a grin back into place as she came around the truck, they moved together toward the pharmacy's shadowed entrance. Peter rattled the metal door frame with the tire iron, and when nothing stirred, they moved inside. The pharmacy's interior was a wreck. Product shelves leaned against one wall like a row of partially fallen dominoes. The ceiling gaped where a pipe had burst, spilling out discolored insulation that hung down in limp fashion. Like nearly everywhere, a pungent cloud of mold and mildew lay heavily in the air.

Shining a flashlight ahead of her, Olivia moved straight for the shelving along the back wall. Peter watched her poke through the debris beneath a feminine hygiene sign for a moment before turning away. The pharmacist's counter ran the length of one wall, front to back. He ducked beneath an opening in the counter and came close to stepping on the head of a desiccated corpse as he did so. It was an old woman. She wore a flowered dress, and lay on her side amid more trash and empty pill bottles. From the massive trauma done to the back of her head, the body was certainly in no danger of rising. On the floor within reach of the corpse was a long and rusted double-barreled shotgun. He picked the heavy shotgun up and cracked open the barrels. Both shells been discharged. A dark stain splattered the wall of cabinets behind the counter. Peter swallowed, eyeing the bits of gore inside the stain, then checked the few drawers and cabinets still intact and found them all empty. As were the pair of stainless steel refrigerators. The place had been well and truly picked over.

"Is that thing loaded?" Olivia asked behind him.

He shook his head and let the gun drop to the floor with a dull thunk. "Not anymore. I think its owner decided to take the easy way out, or maybe the smarter way, depending on your point of view. Somebody cleaned the place out though. There's nothing here. You find anything?"

"A few things," she replied, but didn't elaborate.

Peter didn't press her on the subject and they left the pharmacy behind, eager for the warmth of the truck's cabin. Down the street from the Walgreens, they found another sign of survivors in the form of a heavy padlock and chain closing off the only grocery store in town's entrance. Someone had spray painted a large yellow circle across the double doors, with a solid red dot in the center.

"What the hell is that supposed to be?" he asked, peering at the strange symbol. "Looks like a deranged eyeball."

"I don't know," Olivia replied thoughtfully, narrowing her eyes on the door. "They should hire a new marketer, though."

"You're right," Peter said, chuckling at her deadpan. "Clearly, it isn't drawing the customers in like it's supposed to."

Their eyes met, and a smile ghosted across her lips. Then she stepped forward and cupped her eyes to the glass beside the yellow circle, shining her flashlight inside. "I don't see anything," she said after a moment and shrugged, glancing back at him over her shoulder. "Looks like the shelves are still stocked though. We should try to get this cha—"

Without warning, the double doors leapt outward as a wall of bodies slammed into the glass.

Olivia gasped, backpedaling and stumbling in surprise, and Peter managed to catch her by the shoulders before she could fall. Undead faces pressed up against the glass, biting and gnawing at the air. Grayish fingers with protruding bones and blackened nails squeezed outward through the narrow gap between the doors, curling around the aluminum door frame. The heavy chain looped through the door handles pulled taut with a creak as a chorus of snarls and rasping groans issued forth through the narrow opening. Several of the faces pressed up against the glass had the pale white of freshness about them, skin still smooth, unblemished by decay. Eyes like burnished gold regarded them through the glass. There was hunger in those eyes, and animal rage, unfeeling.

"Fuck me...," Peter said hoarsely, and released Olivia once he was sure she'd found her footing. They each took involuntary steps backward, away from the straining doors. "Fucking freshes in there. Somebody did this fairly recently, within the last couple of weeks or so."

"So that's supposed to be some kind of calling card, do you think?" Olivia mused, gesturing toward the yellow circle. The undead seemed oblivious to its presence on the glass, but then they would be. "What's the point of this?"

"Other than to say, 'We were here'? Not a clue," Peter shrugged, eyeing the infected through the glass. "Maybe they just have high opinions of themselves." He spoke in jest, but the truth was that the painted symbol made him feel uneasy. As did the freshes staring at them through the glass like he and Olivia were dinner. How many were trapped in there? And why were they in there at all? Had they been lured in there? If so, for what purpose? Why not just kill them all, burn the building down around them? More and more of the creatures were throwing themselves against the stout chain. He had no doubt it would hold, though he was less certain about the glass doors, which he had no problems envisioning exploding outward at any moment.

Olivia reached out and took his hand, giving him a tug. "Let's get out of here, Peter," she said, inclining her head toward the truck. "I think we've seen all there is to see, and I don't like the look of that."

Peter could only agree.

#

On the far side of Weston and just before the business route rejoined the main road, Olivia slowed the truck to a crawl. Tall evergreens overshadowed the street on either side, limbs drooping under the weight of snow and ice. Just ahead, a wide stretch of the previously undisturbed snow covering the road was in disarray, where a chaotic flurry of footprints and tracks had crossed over. Peter's first thought was that there had been a stampede in the area. And recently. The tracks were disquieting; still crisp, still sharp around the edges, like they had been formed an hour ago. Or minutes. But whether they were heading north or south—or if they were even from infected—was impossible to guess.

He scanned the sagging trees on his side of the road as the truck idled slowly past and noticed Olivia doing the same on her side of the street, all the while massaging the hard ridge of the automatic in the holster at her waist. When nothing moved or showed itself, he relaxed back in his seat; if the tracks were from a roving horde of infected, they had already moved on. Olivia pressed the accelerator, and soon the tracks and Weston faded from his mind, replaced by the voice of his father, retelling his sick and twisted story.

Strong emotions were the trigger.

Peter tried to wrap his head around the idea, but found it too vague, too broad. Which emotion? And how? Walter hadn't been able to answer. Apparently it had been different for each child, as different as they were from one another.

_We were trying to protect our world, son._

Protect it from what? he wondered, watching the lifeless forest and empty house drift past outside his window. From the fucking Commies? Mostly, it had sounded like an excuse, a self-proclaimed license to whatever they'd wanted back then. He couldn't forgive him for it, not ever.

A muscle in his neck began to cramp, and he forced his jaw to relax, taking in a deep breath. On the periphery, the question had appeared again on Olivia's face, whose lips pressed together, quirked to one side. Her eyes were now tinged with a shade of hurt as well as confusion, and he again cursed his father for being a monster, for hurting her, for doing this to them both. Part of him wished he had never sought Walter out, and instead had let the man give the information away in mysterious dribbles, as he no doubt would have. Would not knowing the truth have been preferable for all involved? He glanced at Olivia and she shifted her eyes away, avoiding his gaze.

No. It was better to know than to live a lie. He just had to figure out a way to tell her. _And god damn you to hell for this, Walter, you ego-maniacal son of a bitch._

By the time they reached Wayland, the next town down the road, the atmosphere in the truck's cabin vibrated with mounting tension. Olivia's face was dark, exuding irritation. But still she remained silent. Peter wasn't sure how much longer it could last; her impatience and temper were quicksilver at best, and lighting in a fragile bottle at worst. And then would come the inevitable confrontation, and whatever was going to happen, would happen.

There was no stopping this time around. The truck churned down the center of Route 20, guided by Olivia's careful hand straight through the center of town. In stark contrast to Weston, which had been strangely empty of everything, Wayland was a town caught in a moment. Cars and trucks buried beneath the snow dotted both sides of the street, the parking lots they passed by, and many of the driveways off the main road. Yet there was no sense of life—or even un-life—in the vicinity, no tracks in the snow, no infected walking in the distance, nothing at all that gave the impression that a single soul had been there, possibly ever, though he himself had driven through the town before. He spied a station wagon parked in a driveway with its trunk hatch open, interior overflowing with snow. It felt as if time had chosen a random moment to stand still, and had simply never started up again.

A ghost town.

"Okay... is it just me or does this place feel kinda weird?" Peter muttered, twisting in his seat to follow the station wagon as it retreated around a corner.

Olivia glanced in the mirror and nodded. "It does seem off, somehow," she agreed. "If everyone left, why are all the cars still here? And if they're still here, where are they?"

She took a detour down a few side streets and they saw more of the same; cars and trucks parked in driveways, on the side of the road, and all unmolested, all untouched by signs of looting, by having fallen prey to an invasion of undead. After returning to the main road, they came to another pharmacy—a modern-looking _CVS_ —on the west edge of town. Its parking lot had a smattering of cars, just as it might have been on any average day. Olivia drove past without even slowing down.

"Maybe they were bussed out?" he wondered out loud, trying to make sense of it all. "But then why this town, and not the other just a few miles up the road? Kinda reminds me of Roanoke Island."

"You mean when all the colonists vanished without a trace?" she said, lifting her eyebrows. "Somehow I think the explanation is a little more mundane."

"You're probably right," he said with a chuckle, "though there's nothing mundane about anything that's happening right now. It could have been the military, I guess. Back in the early days of the outbreak. Maybe they shipped everyone to some kind of... I dunno, a refuge or something. Like a bunker. Though after what we saw in the city, I can't really see that turning out very well for all parties involved."

Olivia snorted delicately, then grinned, fingertips thrumming allegro on the leather steering wheel. Peter found himself smiling also. They were talking again, and he could breathe easier. Like a massive weight had been lifted off his chest, even if only for a little while. Leaning back, he covertly admired her profile, the light sprinkle of freckles across the ridge of her cheek, and the way she tended to pull her ponytail forward over one shoulder. _Maybe I can tell her after all_ , he thought, watching the tip of her tongue peek out between her lips as she concentrated on navigating a sharp bend in the icy road. Maybe everything would be okay. She could handle it—they could both handle it. Couldn't they?

After a few moments, she seemed to sense his appraisal. She turned toward him, mouth opening to speak. But he never found out what she'd been about to say, as all at once her eyes widened, and she stomped on the brakes.

Peter whipped forward in his seat. The world outside spun about, first one way, then the other as the SUV skidded through the snow, rear end flinging from side to side in a fish tail as the tires fought for traction. He braced himself, feet pressing hard against the floor board as his seatbelt locked against his chest. Eyes wide, Olivia spun the steering wheel frantically, doing her best to keep them on the road. A towering telephone pole swung into view on his right for an instant, then disappeared, replaced by a wall of pine trees and shrubs for a moment, and then the pole was back, looming close right outside his window. He leaned away reflexively, turning his eyes from the window and readying for the impact, for the shatter of glass inches from his head.

But the expected collision never happened. Instead, the truck came to a shuddering halt amid a great splash of snow, and then tilted downward on his side.

Peter exhaled a long, careful breath and glanced wide-eyed between the telephone pole outside his door and Olivia, whose face was a white sheet. For several heartbeats, neither of them spoke, or even moved. Other than the low hum of the engine and the blast of the heater, there was only silence.

Finally, Olivia stirred, wiping a hand across her mouth. "Sorry...," she murmured, shifting the gear lever into park. She took in a huge gulp of air, and then her cheeks turned red. "I'm sorry. I may have... overreacted there, just a bit."

"What was that?" Peter said. He pried his fingers away from the arm rest, where they'd been locked in a death grip. He looked around, searching for the source of her distress but found nothing alarming, certainly nothing worth locking up the brakes for. "What's the matter? Why did you stop like that?"

"Look, Peter. That sign." She leaned over the center console, pointing out his window.

It was sitting up high on an embankment beside the road, and he would have noticed it sooner, if not for the power pole directly outside his window. The sign was decorative, a welcome or city limit sign, with a pair of carved wings resting atop a white, molded border. Or it had been. The sign's original message was painted over, and replaced with another, written in red paint.

"Find sanctuary in the light," Peter read slowly, leaning forward in his seat to get a better view. And there was more. Beneath the strange message was a yellow circle with a red dot in the center. "Hey, that's the same thing we saw back in Weston."

"Yeah. That's what made me stop."

"But what does it even mean? If anything, it sounds like religious propaganda." He squinted at the road ahead. They had come to a stop on an incline, and there was nothing to see but trees and gray sky. "I don't like it," he said, glancing at Olivia. "I mean, who writes a sign like that?"

Twisting in her seat, Olivia frowned, peering into the trees on either side of the road. "I don't know...," she said shortly, and put the truck back in gear. "But we have to start being more careful. We're gonna go even slower, but I don't see any other way. Do you?"

"No." Peter shook his head in agreement, then reached behind him for the binoculars in the back seat. She was right, of course. They hadn't been careful at all so far, and could have easily blundered into someone's camp unaware. And then where would they be? The whole point was to observe any survivors they came across from afar before even thinking about approaching.

Olivia pressed on the gas and the truck rocked forward for a moment, then slid back, accompanied by the high-pitched whine of spinning tires. "Fuck...," she muttered under her breath, turning the wheel from side to side, searching for traction. Glancing worriedly over at him, she tried to back them out of the rut they were stuck in, with the same result.

"Fuck!" she hissed again, smacking the steering wheel with palms. Frustration poured off her in tangible waves.

Peter had no doubt she was blaming herself for getting them stuck, and whether or not that was true, he wasn't about to bring it up. He was no fool. Instead, he reached for the door latch. "Don't worry, I got it," he told her, shoving open his door.

As he ducked outside, the door rebounded off the power pole and smacked him hard in the face. Nose and forehead ringing, he fell back into his seat with a grunt, amid a stifled guffaw from the driver's seat. Rubbing his forehead, he cast Olivia a dark glance. "I'm glad I could provide the comic relief," he said, checking his nose for blood.

Olivia's eyes danced with mirth. "You're doing a fine job of it, Peter," she murmured from under the hand covering her lips. "...If that's any consolation."

Peter grunted, but was unable to maintain any sort of irritation with her. He was certain she was grinning beneath her hand, and that was better than the alternative. He pushed the door open again, and managed to slip out the narrow gap the power pole allowed. His boots sank into snow well up thighs as he stepped backwards, surveying the damage.

The truck was buried all right. All the way up to the undercarriage, with both passenger side tires covered almost in their entirety. And from the angle of the truck's tilt, they had left the road behind, possibly for a ditch. Behind the truck were zigzagging tracks that started shallow, but then grew into progressively deeper canyons as they veered toward the embankment. It was a shame; if they had stayed in the center of the road, the truck would have likely passed by the deeper snow without incident.

He shoved his head back inside the warm cabin. "Well, you managed to get us stuck in the only snow drift in the area," he said with grin to take the bite out of his words. "Congratulations."

Olivia winced and gave him an apologetic smile. "Shit. I'm sorry, Peter. Can you dig us out again?" She raised her eyebrows hopefully.

"I'll see what I can do," he said, finding her imploring eyes impossible to resist.

Peter slogged around to the rear of the truck and retrieved the snow shovel. It was not the first time they had come across an impassable drift over the road, or even the second. After the first one—at a narrow stretch of road on the outskirts of Cambridge—he had grabbed a wide snow shovel from a nearby garage and thrown it in the back. The problem was that while the SUV was a four-wheel-drive, its tires were far more suited to taking high-speed turns than for off-roading, a complication he'd failed to take into account before they'd left.

Starting at the rear of the truck, he began to dig, tossing shovelfuls of snow over his left shoulder. He dug a wide path behind both sets of tires, then began clearing away the snow from between the front and back. Much to his relief, he discovered that they weren't in a ditch, but only a shallow depression just off the road's shoulder. If he cleared away enough snow, he figured the truck would have no problem pulling itself free. After clearing the undercarriage on Olivia's side, he moved around the deepest snow on his side. He was just getting started when the passenger window slid down beside him.

"Peter! Behind you!" Olivia's hiss was urgent and captured his attention at once.

He turned his head and found an infected in a filthy t-shirt and khaki shorts struggling out of the tree line atop the embankment, fighting its way through heavy evergreen branches decked in ice and snow.

"No, I got it," he said when Olivia started to get out, waving her back inside. "Just get ready to go."

To Peter's surprise, she actually listened to him and shut her door. Working quickly, he cleared a few more shovelfuls, keeping one eye on the infected. It soon broke free of the trees and stumbled toward him down the embankment, passing by the repurposed welcome sign with unwavering yellow eyes locked on his face.

He turned to meet it, holding the shovel at the ready. The blade was heavy-duty steel, made for breaking through the thick ice of the frigid Boston winters, and had a slight curve at the center. He wielded the shovel like a quarterstaff, hands spread apart. When the dead man came within reach, he knocked it to the ground, then buried the blade in the back of its head. As he yanked the shovel free in a shower of blood, Olivia shouted out another warning.

"Peter!"

He looked and saw the dead pouring out of the trees, swarming down the embankment. Peter's mouth went dry at their numbers; at least twenty at a glance. There was no time to count, and they kept coming. Turning back to the truck, he shoveled with abandon, throwing snow and ice in all directions. His shoulder began to ache but it barely registered as a plethora of shadows appeared in his peripheral vision. Their mumbling groans grew closer, measuring the distance.

Suddenly gunshots thundered, seemingly over Peter's head from inside the truck. He ducked out of instinct, and looking back saw a pair of infected he'd never noticed collapse in the snow directly behind him. He dimly noted their tracks coming from another direction as the larger group neared the bottom of the embankment. A gust of rank wind preceded their arrival. He wasn't done clearing away the snow, but it would have to do. Time had run out.

A decrepit woman was the first to reach him, and he batted it aside with a vicious swing that nearly took the top of its head off. "Go! Try it now!" he told Olivia through the open window, wrenching the shovel blade free and bringing it down on top of another infected that followed close behind the first, splitting its skull down the middle to the bridge of its decomposing nose. Another followed and he put it down also.

She gunned the engine and the truck rocked forward, throwing up snow and slush up from all four tires, but hardly moved. Peter saw what was stopping it and cursed. Of course it wouldn't move; the front end was still buried in the snowdrift.

"No! The other way!" he shouted, shaking his head. "Back up. Back up!"

Olivia nodded and threw the black SUV in reverse. Engine roaring, the truck lurched backward. The tires whined and spattered snow across the front of his coat as the truck began to move, then stopped again. He glanced at the rest of the infected writhing toward him on the embankment, then dropped the shovel and moved around to the front end and began to push.

The engine screamed in his ear and the hood burned hot against his cheek. To his left, the undead were struggling through the deepest part of the drift, snow up to their scrawny waists. Under other circumstances, he might have found the sight of them bumbling over one another humorous, but now was not that time. They were close enough for their stink to waft over him, for him to see the exploded veins striating the luster of their irises. Fire traced along his palms where he gripped the front bumper, and up his forearms. He lifted and pushed simultaneously, throwing his weight against the truck's grill as he eyed Olivia's panicked shape through the windshield.

Slowly, the truck began to move. An inch, then two. The spinning tires whining grew louder, more desperate. Then it was a foot, and then two, and then the tires found their grip and the truck flew backwards, tearing itself from his grip. Peter's momentum carried him forward, and he crashed face first into snow deeper than he was thick. He gasped at icy stings on his bare hands, his face, then rolled over, and looming infected with bared teeth filled his vision.

Without thought, he ripped his pistol free and blasted a hole beneath a dead woman's left eye, then fired three more shots from his back into the next few in line; two men, and what some distant part of him registers as a young boy no older than Ella. Their bodies collapsed, revealing more closing in, plowing toward him through the snow. Many more than he could deal with. Escape was the priority.

He climbed to his knees and saw the truck's grill rushing straight at him. For a terrifying heartbeat, he thought Olivia was going to run him down, right along with the infected. He threw his arms up, but she turned aside at the last moment and smashed through the low side of the snowdrift, spraying a fine mist of snow out to the side.

"Get in, Peter!" Olivia's shout carried though the open passenger door window as the truck rolled past. "Hurry!"

Peter scrambled to his feet. The undead were closing in around him again. What might have been a young woman reared up in front of him, blocking his path to the truck. He shot it through the eye, then leapt over its falling body, and shot another mid-leap. Ahead of him, the truck had cleared the drift and was back in the shallower snow that just reached the bottom of its rims. He sprinted after it, plunging through snow that grew less resistant with every step. Brake lights flashed as he neared the rear end and the SUV slowed down, but never stopped. The passenger door swung open, and he raced alongside for a moment before diving inside. His feet dragged along in the snow for a split second, and then Olivia grabbed his coat and hauled him the rest of the way in.

Chest heaving and shaking from the chill, Peter slammed the door shut and fell back into the seat, watching the trailing infected fall back in the mirror. It had been a close call. Way too close. He dropped his gun in a cup holder and tried to work some feeling back into his fingers that suddenly seemed made of ice.

"You okay?" Olivia asked after a moment. Her wide eyes darted between him and road and her voice shook. "For a second there, I couldn't see you...and I thought that you'd been..."

"I'm okay," he assured her, reaching across and putting a hand over hers on the gear shift. "Not a scratch on me. Though I could do without ever doing that again, what about you?"

Nodding fervently, Olivia took in several even breaths, then turned her hand over in his. She squeezed hard, and Peter returned the sentiment.

They were both okay.

#

A mile or two outside of Marlborough, they came across another cryptic message, along with the now familiar yellow circle. It was painted on the side of a white FedEx truck parked innocently on the side of the road with a flat front tire. The truck's rear doors hung open, swinging in the wind. Peter had spotted the writing in the corner of his eye as they'd passed it by.

"There, that wasn't so difficult, was it?" He couldn't help but tease her gently as the truck came to a stop just down the road from the maligned delivery truck without incident.

She eyed him narrowly over the cup holder between the seats, lips pursed in dour fashion. "You're gonna give me a hard time about this, aren't you?" she asked, pulling on her black beanie.

He shook his head and grinned, showing her all his teeth. "No. Just the one."

"Good...," she said, lifting her chin haughtily, though there was a glint of amusement in her green eyes. "'Cause for a second there, I thought I might have to remind you about the time you crashed into a parked car, Peter. Remember that? The evidence is still on the front end."

Peter chuckled as she shoved her door open and got out. He could remember the parked car incident quite well—vividly, in fact. Olivia could not, though, unless she'd been faking unconsciousness at the time. Pulling on his gloves and hat, he followed her outside into the cold and found her standing alongside the FedEx truck, arms crossed beneath her breasts, staring at the painted message with an intent expression. She shot him a look as he crunched toward her through the snow. There was no humor in her eyes now, only pure focus. She was again Agent Dunham, and all business.

"This one's older, I think," Olivia said as he stepped up beside her. "See how the paint is stripping away there, and there?" She pointed out two spots where the paint was flecking away inside the yellow circle. "I think it was done a while ago, maybe months. Long before the one at the super market. Which means whoever did it is still in the area."

Peter nodded, but it was the message painted in jagged, red letters on the side of the track that held his attention. "Okay...," he said. "This is getting weirder and weirder. I think I like this one even less than the last."

"Help us and help yourself...," Olivia intoned, then shook her head. "I wonder what they're talking about. Sounds almost like an add in the back of a newspaper."

Peter grunted. "Yeah, and one written by a bad motivational speaker," he said, turning away from the truck. The messages were unsettling for some reason that he couldn't put his finger on. And he wasn't sure he wanted to meet whoever had written them.

He looked around, scanning the skeletal trees for movement while Olivia peered into the back of the delivery truck. It was a barren stretch of roadway, or so it appeared at a glance. Thick forest hugged the road on either side, but there were homes and neighborhoods about, hidden out of sight. They had passed enough driveways and side roads to make it a certainty. The area had been sold and parceled out long ago, dating back hundreds of years. The delivery truck had stopped half-way down a slight incline with a sweeping curve at the bottom, and could have passed for a beginners ski slope at a glance. The sun beamed down brightly through a break in the clouds, and from its angle above the leafless treetops to the west, he estimated they had about two hours of daylight, possibly three.

Something red and white and familiar in the trees to the southwest caught his attention. Squinting, he shielded his eyes with a gloved hand, then hurried back to the truck for the binoculars. He pressed them to his eyes, shivering at the sudden gust of frigid wind. Ignoring the stinging cold, he searched again for the patches of red and white. It took a moment, but then it was there, hanging in front of him, almost close enough to touch; the angular struts of a radio tower, painted in alternating stripes of red a white.

"The truck's been cleaned out," Olivia reported, stepping up beside him. "And I think a wild animal's been living in it recently. What are you looking at?"

Peter lowered the binoculars. "Another radio tower. Fairly close, maybe a mile or two away from here. I was thinking we'd use it tomorrow to make contact with Astrid."

Olivia nodded, then moved around the truck's front end, dragging a hand over the hood. "Let's go a little farther," she said, slipping into the driver's seat. "And then we'll find a place to crash. We'll double back for the tower in the morning."

They continued west on Route 20, but only a few minutes passed before Olivia stopped the truck again, this time at the apex of a long, gradual hill. Far at the bottom, the terrain flattened out at an intersection with a wire hung traffic light overhead. On the embankment to Olivia's left was another welcome sign—this one with no signs of vandalism—announcing the city limits of Marlborough.

"We're here," Peter said softly, eyeing the road ahead.

By his estimate, Marlborough was the furthest away the beam of light they'd seen from Olivia's apartment could have been. Knowing how far they'd come, it seemed all the more implausible, but with a powerful enough light source, it was certainly possible. How anyone would power such a light was another question. A portable generator? It seemed the only way.

"Let me see those," Olivia said suddenly, then snatched the binoculars from his lap before he could reply. She lifted them to her eyes, then gasped. "Oh my god, Peter. Tire tracks. I see tire tracks in the snow!"

"What?" Peter leaned forward in his seat, but the road ahead was just an indistinct blur of white, stark and featureless. "Where?"

She handed back the binoculars and he saw what had excited her at once; a pair of tire tracks, just as she'd said. They rounded the corner at the intersection at the bottom of the hill and continued straight down Route 20 before disappearing around a bend after what looked like a row of small businesses. Lowering the binoculars, he met Olivia's gaze.

"What now?"

"There's someone here," she replied, then put the SUV in reverse, twisting in her seat to look out the back window as she turned the truck around carefully. "Now we find a place to crash."

The nearest turn off was a few miles back behind them down Route 20, just past the graffitied delivery truck. Peter read the odd message again as they passed the truck by, and felt the same sense of disquiet that he'd felt upon reading it before. Whoever had written it was the same person—or part of the same group, at the very least—that had locked a grocery store full of infected up for safekeeping when there was no logical reason for anyone do so. No reason he could think of, at least, or any reason a sane person would want to. The thought was troubling, and he dwelt on it as Olivia navigated a narrow roadway deeper into the Massachusetts back country. She drove until the road came to an end at a small cul-de-sac, then pulled into the driveway of the last of three homes surrounded on all sides by dense forest. The house she'd chosen was all brick, with tall roofs and gabled windows. Before the end, it had no doubt been worth a small fortune, considering the property that came with it. But now it was just shelter, and that was all it was.

After prying open the front door, Olivia secured the home's interior while Peter made a circuit around the property to the encircling tree line and found nothing, not even a single animal track in the snow. There was a cedar playhouse with an attached swing set, however, complete with toy trucks and tractors in a sandbox beneath. And a huge stack of wood beneath a snow-covered tarp. Returning to the front yard, he met Olivia on her way outside.

"It's clear in there," she said, shutting the door, and then checking the knob to make sure it was still open. Satisfied, her eyes lingered on the forest to the west. "You up for a little reconnaissance?"

Peter flexed his fingers inside his gloves, still warm from the truck's interior. "Why not?" he shrugged. "We've still got daylight, and it's not like we've got anything else to do, do we?"

Olivia lips curved into a pleased smile. He followed her back to the truck were she pulled open the rear door, then grabbed the pair of matching assault rifles salvaged from the Federal Building.

"You really think we need these?" he asked as she held one out for him, strap attached to stock and barrel swinging in the wind.

"Probably not," she admitted. She drew back her rifle's bolt and peered into the chamber. "But I'm not willing to take a chance that we might. Not after what happened in Allston, or in Brookline." She jammed the bolt back in place with a sharp click and met his gaze. "Are you?"

At mention of Allston, Peter became aware of the faint tingles in his left arm and shoulder. The pins and needles of nerve damage were always there to some degree or another, though they would fade a bit if he was distracted. At other times they were maddening, like an itch he could never quite scratch. Maybe she was right. He slipped his arm through the strap and slung the rifle over his right shoulder. "Well, when you put it like that," he said with a grin. "I suppose not. Lead the way, Agent Dunham."

#

Peter and Olivia ghosted westward through dense thickets of snow-wreathed pines and cedars, between groves of towering oak and hickory trees, and the occasional birch, smaller and narrower than its larger cousins, with peeling bark curling like reams of wet paper in the cold. Underbrush and brambles hidden beneath the snow crackled beneath their boots and pulled at them as if trying to deny passage. They crossed over a frozen creek, through a vacant neighborhood, past singular homes nestled between the trees, over narrow streets and through backyards with climbers and toys buried beneath the snow and ice. The forest was quiet, but not empty of life. A startled buck with only a half rack of antlers bolted from a copse of evergreens as they approached, making its escape in long graceful leaps. The occasional bird song broke the silence, chirps and whistles from near and far, calls and answers.

And while there was life in the forest, there was also un-life. The dead stalked the forest along with them, groaning their long, drawn out mumbles, their hissing voices asking questions with no answer.

Peter watched shapes moving through the tree trunks off to their left and wondered how many were local to the area, and how many had migrated west from the city, only to become lost in the back country of Massachusetts, doomed to wander in never-ending circles, forever chasing their tails. Unless they posed an imminent threat, they were to be avoided, which proved fairly effortless. Whether it was the cold or the intervening brush and chaparral, most of the infected never even sensed their passing. Most, but not all; at least five bodies that lay across their back trail were put down by his hand. He'd lost track of how many had fallen prey to Olivia's knife.

After traveling close to two miles by Peter's estimate, they reached the edge of the forest. Olivia slowed the torrid pace she'd set and parted the tree branches to reveal a wide, u-shaped lake. Or more accurately, a pond. It was frozen over, a flat sheet of white interrupted only by a small island crowned with tightly bunched evergreens in its center. Rising above the island's treetops was a wide brick structure on the western shore. To the north, where Route 20 hugged the shoreline, were a number of peaked rooftops stood in a row.

"Looks deserted from here," Olivia said, peering through the binoculars. She swept them from north to south, chewing on the inside of her lip as she did so. "Peter, how familiar are you with this town? What's there around here?"

"I know it about as well as anyone from Boston," he shrugged, and moved beside her for a closer look. Marlborough was the largest town they'd come to since leaving Cambridge by a wide margin, and more or less a small city in its own right. "Which is to say that unless I had a specific reason to come here, I usually bypassed it entirely on my way to Worcester. That being said, I knew a guy here who ran a bootleg record shop out of his basement back in the nineties, so I came out here occasionally. I think that's a business campus across the lake...defense contractor, I think. And I remember there being a few restaurants to the north, and I think a...a country store kind of place. But we're still on the outskirts. Further in it's not much different than Cambridge, albeit with bigger yards and much cheaper housing."

"Bootleg records...?" Olivia snorted and lowered the binoculars, flashing an amused grin. "Why does that not surprise me?" Her eyes twinkled as she turned away, then stomped northward through the underbrush.

Peter gazed after her for a moment, and watched her ponytail sway from side to side, struggling with conflicting emotions. She seemed happy. Content with their arrangement; she led, and he followed. And for the most part so was he. If only he'd never cornered his father, never learned the truth. Fighting off a rising hopelessness, he crunched after her, sinking up to his shins through several layers of refreezing snow.

He shivered as he walked, and alternated flexing his fingers and toes inside his gloves and boots. As the day had worn on, the temperature had grown uncomfortably cold. And now the chill was seeping into to him, working its way into his bone marrow. He hoped Olivia didn't plan on venturing too much farther.

Staying just inside the tree line, they crept northward, stepping over another frozen creek that cracked underfoot—possibly the outlet of the same creek they had crossed earlier. They followed the shoreline around until they were directly behind the peaked rooftops, which belonged to several interconnected buildings. A narrow service road blanketed in undisturbed snow ran behind them, ending in a small parking lot that was empty, except for a delivery truck with elegantly written cursive script across the back panel.

Olivia studied the buildings with narrowed eyes for a full minute before stepping out of the trees and onto the snow-covered access road. "We can get a view of Route 20 from inside one of those," she decided, glancing back over her shoulder. "C'mon."

They hurried across the street to the nearest building's rear entrance, a solid metal door painted a dull gray. When Peter reached for the knob it turned easily in his hand, unlocked. "Hey, we're in luck," he said, glancing at Olivia. "Let's see if anyone's home."

He gave the door several hard whacks with the edge of his fist, then pressed his ear against the freezing metal and listened. When he heard nothing, he turned to Olivia who was waiting impatiently, fingering the long edge of her knife blade. She'd set her rifle aside, leaning it against the bricks, and he followed suit. They had already discussed it; risking a gunshot now, without any idea who was in the area was a bad idea, not unless it was absolutely necessary.

"You ready?" he asked, pulling his own knife free of its sheath.

She nodded and took a step, bouncing on the balls her feet. "Open it."

Peter did as she instructed, then jumped back as a body tumbled out into the snow. Olivia was waiting for it, and drove her knife through one yellow eyeball before it could react. Another undead followed after the first, lurching out of the darkened interior with a grumbling hiss. Peter intercepted the second infected as its eyes greedily zeroed in on Olivia, grabbing the creature by the arm and swinging it around with a grunt. He smashed its ruined face into the bricks beside the door, then slammed his blade home in the base of its skull. As the body toppled to the side, he ripped his knife free, adrenaline surging, and danced backwards. He searched about for another target, but there were none, and he bent over wiping the blade of his knife on the infected's ragged shirt. As the adrenaline fled his system, a wave of exhaustion went through him, but he took in a deep breath and rose to his feet.

Olivia snatched up her rifle, then pulled a red light from her pocket. "I think it was just the two," she said, shining the light into what appeared to be a kitchen, and then stepping inside.

Peter did likewise, removing his own light from his pocket, and followed her inside. It was a kitchen, or more precisely, a bakery, with a long row of commercial ovens against one wall. The air inside was stale, with a hint of decay that grew stronger as they moved further into the interior, passing rows of stainless steel work tables, massive mixers, racks of pots and baking pans, and refrigerators long since gone silent. Greenish lumps, about the size of a loaf of bread dough sitting amid rings of bug-infested flour caught his eye, and he swallowed with distaste. Bread mold was everywhere, over every baking surface. The sharp sting of it tickled his nose unpleasantly. News of the infection had apparently interrupted the work day, and the baking staff had simply up and left, never to return.

Beyond the kitchen was a small dining room veiled in shadow with a few tables and chairs, and a wide counter with a cash register one end and a glass display case beneath. Olivia headed unwaveringly to the front of the store, stopping at a curtained window next to the entrance. She parted the curtains and peered outside.

The dining room was surprisingly intact, with no signs of violence, or evidence of a struggle having taken place. Peter wondered at the pair of infected, and how they'd come to be there, but it was a dead end case, an unsolvable mystery. When he shined his light in the display case, his stomach heaved violently. The display case was cultivating an impressive colony of black mold, sprouting from rows of breads and pies waiting patiently for customers who would never arrive. Mold was creeping up the sides of the glass, spreading like some slow-moving monstrosity from a B-grade horror flick.

"Look at this, Peter."

Turning away from the display case, he joined Olivia at the window, pulling back the dusty curtain opposite her. Outside was an empty parking lot, and then Route 20 and the intersection they'd seen from the top of the hill. Orange letters from a Home Depot sign peeked over the treetop to the northwest. Suspended alongside the street was a thick power line caked in ice, and hanging almost low enough touch. But none of that was what Olivia wanted him to see.

He lowered his gaze to the pair of wide tire tracks furrowing the snow in the center of Route 20. They turned at the intersection and headed north, then disappeared from sight. The tracks were still firm, edges sharp and defined, hardly touched by the wind yet, or by time. Which meant they were fresh.

"Do you see what I see?" Olivia said, eyeing him between the curtain and window pane. Puffs of her breath rose up,

Peter looked again, closer this time, focusing on the spot where they'd turned north. The snow was pushed to the outside, as if they'd taken the turn at speed. And that wasn't all. "There's only one set," he concluded after a moment. "Which means that whoever it was, they were either just passing through, or they haven't come back yet." He eyed the low hanging clouds that had moved in over the horizon. They were gray and ominous, and the traffic light signal had begun to bob back and forth in rising gusts of wind. He didn't trust that wind, or the clouds. They appeared entirely capable of dumping another foot of snow on them. "Considering the weather though," he added, "I doubt they were just passing through. They might be local."

"They head west along the lake," Olivia said, pressing her cheek to the glass for a better look. "Looks like there's cover almost the entire way."

Peter pulled back sharply from the curtain. "You want to follow them?" he asked, shaking his head. "Olivia, they could have come from the other side of the city. It's miles away from here. We'd run out of daylight long before we got there."

She quirked her lips to one side, thinking silently, breath rising in short puffs. Peter scrunched his toes together in his boots, searching for warmth, but there was none to be had. He suspected he'd be even colder shortly; Olivia had a stubborn look about her, and the impatience rolling off her was corporeal, and possibly even a force of nature.

"Or they could have come from around the corner," she said finally, eyeing him around the edge of the curtain. "Let's take a look, and then we'll go back. Deal? It's not far, Peter."

"All right, fine," he agreed with a nod. Resistance was futile. "But if my toes are frostbit when we get back, it's on you, Dunham. I expect full recompense for any lost digits."

Olivia snorted delicately and let the curtain fall back in place. "Yeah. I'll get right on that," she said with her usual half-grin, then retreated toward the rear of the bakery. She stopped and looked back at him, eyebrows raised. "You coming? The quicker we are, the quicker we'll be back."

With a flick of her hair, she disappeared into the kitchen, the swinging door the only sign of her passage. Peter sighed, watching the door creak back and forth. She was going to be the death of him, but there was no stopping her, or even slowing her down. After a moment, he hurried after her.

She was waiting for him at the rear exit, and he followed her narrow figure out into the cold. The wind burned his cheeks as they heaved the pair of dead infected back inside to cover their tracks. Hiding the bodies was probably unnecessary, but it was better to be safe than dead. Afterward, they retraced their steps back to the lake, then followed Route 20 westward, staying among the trees hugging the shore. Peter kept a grip on his rifle strap as he struggled through the snow, fighting through prying shrubbery that crackled underfoot and low-hanging tree branches fighting for purchase. The terrain was unforgiving, the footing treacherous, as the ground angled steeply down toward the waterline to their left. Ahead of him, he noticed Olivia faring no better, but found little solace in it; he hated watching her struggle, at anything. When they reached a gap in the tree cover, she stopped and waited for him, pulling off her gloves and blowing into her hands. She appeared taller than she should, almost even with himself, and he guessed that she was standing on a fallen log or rock buried beneath the snow. He had tripped over several such already.

"What do you think?" Peter said, squinting at the barren shoreline ahead. Other than a thin group of trees at about the halfway point, there was no cover, no place to hide for near the length of a football field before the forest started up again. Along the same stretch, Route 20 was at its closest to the lake, atop a steep embankment with an iron guardrail peeking out from beneath a layer of snow. "Seen enough? Our tracks will be out in the open if we go any farther."

Olivia frowned and rubbed her bare hands together, then shoved them back into her gloves. A slight shiver ran through her, quivering her lower lip as she gazed ahead of them. The air was perfectly still. There was no wind at that moment, no sound at all from any direction. No birds calling, no animals moving through the underbrush. Nothing, except for the two of them; the slight hiss of Olivia's breath, and the static of blood rushing in his ears. Through the haze of cloud cover, the pale outline of the sun hung just above the distant horizon, seemingly centered on Route 20.

Then, before she could mount a reply, a sharp _crack!_ cut through the silence, followed by an echoing splash. They both startled at the sound, jumping in their boots. Peter grabbed a nearby tree limb, then reached out to steady Olivia, who appeared on the verge of slipping off her perch.

"What the hell was that?" she whispered after finding her footing.

Peter scanned the frozen lake. "There," he said, pointing southward.

Out in the center, were a pair of figures struggling in chest deep water. Whether they were men or women was impossible to say, but the lack of screaming, of shouting, identified them as infected beyond a doubt. Their struggling continued for several moments, then stopped. The two bodies went still, seemingly content to stand still and wait in the frigid water, perhaps forever. Would they continue their journey when the ice thawed? Or would they become permanent residents at the bottom of the lake? The thought stirred something in him, some memory possibly, but he couldn't say why.

"I wonder what drew them out," Olivia said, glancing around.

The infected had left a pair of tracks behind them that originated on the small island of evergreens in the lake's center. "Maybe they heard us," Peter suggested. "We haven't been being exactly quiet."

"Well, I'm pretty sure they're not going anywhere," she shrugged, turning away from the stranded undead. "And as for our tracks being out in the open, if anyone sees them, they'll just think they were from infected. C'mon, let's hurry."

Despite his misgivings, Peter followed her out into the open, staying low along the embankment. The snow grew deeper as they went, where the wind had gathered up the snow on the ice and deposited it in drifts, the largest of which rose up to his waist. When they neared the halfway point, where copse of maple sapling emerged from the snow, Olivia suddenly stopped ahead of him and looked back with alarm.

"What is it?" Peter said, turning to look also.

"For a second, I thought I heard...," she started to say, then cut herself short, eyes widening.

Then he heard it also. An engine. Approaching from the west, back down Route 20. The low rumble rose and fell, but grew louder as a vehicle approached. Peter searched around for a place to hide, but there was nothing. There was no time. Going back was not an option; they would never make it in time, nor would they get to the other side.

They were fucked.

"Shit...," he hissed, crouching down instinctively.

"Run, Peter!" Olivia said in a strangled cry. "Head for that group of trees."

Putting her own words into action, she plowed forward, forcing herself through the snow with powerful strides. Peter followed suit, half jumping over the deeper snow to gain a little distance. His boots landed on ice that cracked threateningly, but he was gone before it could break. Behind them, the engine grew louder, whining as the rpms rose and fell. Whoever it was, they were coming fast.

_Fucking deja vu!_ The thought ricocheted through his mind as the copse of trees grew closer. _Just like what happened in Allston._ His left shoulder began to throb, pulsing with remembered pain.

The truck was close, engine screaming behind them. Surely it was on the road. He risked a glance behind them, but saw nothing, only empty road and gray sky. He turned back in time to see Olivia reach the group of trees and dive headfirst into a deep snow bank, neatly burying herself. With nothing to lose, Peter did the same an instant later, throwing himself down beside her and burrowing downward as deep as possible.

Taking in panicked breaths, they waited silently for the truck to pass by. Pinpricks of ice stung at Peter's cheeks. He blinked into the whiteness of his icy hiding spot and listened. From the engine's deep rumble, it sounded like a V8, and American made, from the occasional clank of a rod knocking. Old American, then. Most likely a full size four-by-four to be moving so quickly, so effortlessly. Was the ground vibrating? Clumps of snow fell into the crevice of his coat collar, and he gasped, stretching his mouth open. Would their tracks be seen? The embankment was steep. Maybe the guardrail was high enough to obscure the view. He breathed in and out through chattering teeth that seemed like drums going off in his ear. Olivia's weight shifted against his side, and he felt himself begin to slip downward, toward the frozen surface of the lake. The toes of his boots slipped over smooth ice when he tried to brace himself.

The racing engine drowned out everything, and for a moment, all that existed was its deafening roar. In his mind's eye, he pictured a massive truck with giant tires, one of those huge monster trucks that could quite literally drive over anything in their path. Surely, they would be seen from such a height. Surely.

Without warning, Peter felt something give way beneath his left leg, and then ice water was seeping through his jeans, filling his boot. In a panic, he gasped through clenched teeth, biting back a scream. Then, to his horror, the truck suddenly skidded to a halt when the roaring engine drew abreast of their hiding spot.

Peter mouthed a silent curse. _Fuck!_ Doing his best to ignore the frigid water creeping up his leg, he dug into the snow, searching for Olivia. He found her coat, then felt her shift again. An instant later, her hand closed over his, squeezing him in an iron grip.

Above them on the embankment, the truck idled for a moment, then turned off with a slight hiccup. A door squeaked open, and then another, and then came the muffled crunch of footsteps. Peter tensed as the footsteps came closer, and at the same time felt his body slipping deeper into the lake. Numbness enveloped his left leg in its entirety, toes, foot, all the way up to his thigh, and then it began creeping up his right leg also. His body screamed for him to move, to get up, yet he could not. Instead he stayed still.

_Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Don't move_ , he commanded himself, willing his muscles to relax, to embrace the icy water. _Fuck. It's so fucking cold. I can't take it. Fuck. Fuck. Don't move. Don't move. Fuck. Fuck._ The curse became a mantra screaming inside his head. There was a good chance he was crushing Olivia's hand, but he couldn't relax his grip.

"Hey, there's two of 'em," a man's deep voice said suddenly. The voice was elevated and disturbingly close, close enough to seem like it was on top of them, and had a New Yorker's accent. "Get me that rifle from the back."

Brooklyn? Peter wondered, thinking of Charlie, and trying to take his mind off the ice-cold agony engulfing his lower half, off the fact that he was slowly sinking into a frozen lake. The water had nearly reached his crotch when the fellow's words registered. _Two of them?_ Had they been spotted already? He didn't see how, but then he didn't know why they had stopped in the first place. Olivia shifted again, tearing her hand free of his. He felt as well as heard her moving deliberately through the snow.

She was going for her pistol. They would see her, and had the high ground. _They'll kill her_. He didn't know it for sure, or even know that these people were dangerous, but something told him it was vital that she not move or make a sound.

Before he could move to stop her, the water reached his waist and buried his face against his forearm, biting down hard on the starchy fabric of his coat. His body vibrated from the cold. The mantra in his head changed on its own. _Don't scream. Don't scream. Don't scream._

"Here. What range is that?" a second man spoke a moment later. "Three hundred yards?" The voice was higher pitched, with a neutral accent that could have been from anywhere, from the Midwest to California.

One of the men let out a wet, bubbly cough, and then Peter caught a whiff of cigarette smoke. The water was over his belt, working its way up his chest. He tried to scrunch his toes, but they had no feeling.

"Eh... I'd say about two-fiftyish," the first voice replied.

The metallic clicks of a gun being loaded rang out, followed by the greasy slide of a bolt being drawn back, then slammed forward into place. Peter registered the sound faintly. His eyes were bulging, teeth tearing into his sleeve. _Don't scream. Don't scream, Peter. Don't scream._

"I got 'em," the first voice continued. "Watch this."

There was a pause filled with harsh silence and numbing pain, and then a booming rifle shot exploded over their heads. The shot was deafening, like a bazooka going off beside him. Another collar-full of snow dumped down Peter's neck, adding to his misery.

One of the men on the street let out an impressed whistle, and then the mid-western voice spoke. "Hey... nice fucking shot, man. And with iron sights. Where'd you learn to shoot like that? You in the army?"

Instead of a reply from the New Yorker, there was only the mechanical click of the rifle's bolt being drawn back again. Not an assault rifle then; a bolt-action deer rifle. The thought came out of nowhere as Peter struggled to contain an intense bout of shivering. His toes were missing. And most of his legs, too. _Don't scream. Don't scream._

The rifle boomed again, louder than a cannon, but it was secondary. There was only the cold, in and out. He was dying.

The second voice let out a crazed whoop as the gunshot rolled across the landscape, followed by a gleeful cackle. "Damn. You blew it's fucking head off! Blew it right the fuck off!"

He heard the man from New York grunt and let out a low chuckle. "Fucking dead bastards," his voice muttered. "My pop taught me to shoot when I was ten years old. He grew up in northern Iowa, and it was his opinion, that to be a man, you had to know how to shoot a gun, know how to kill. When I was eleven I missed this big buck up on our hunting property up in North Dakota, clear shot, not a breath of wind..." The man's voice changed, grew darker. "Well. I didn't do that again. Hey, gimme one of those."

There was a short span of silence, and then the scratch of a lighter being ignited, followed by a sharp inhale of breath.

"Hey, you sticking around after we work the fence tomorrow night?" the mid-westerner asked. "I heard the doc was gonna make an appearance, finally. I heard there was news, that they might have enough power to open up another wing. Man, that'd be sweet. It's getting fucking crowded in there, not like it used to be. I had to wait over two hours this morning just to take a fucking shower. What'd you hear? That guy from Albany that likes to yell, what's his name? Overbeek? He tell you anything?"

"They don't tell me jack shit..." the deep-voiced New Yorker said shortly. "And I don't ask questions, and you shouldn't, either. We should get going. I heard another one of those...things, was spotted to the east. The doc thinks they come from the city."

"What...?" the mid-westerner gasped. "Why the fuck didn't you tell me that earlier, man?"

"Cause I knew you'd react like that if you knew we were going anywhere near one of those things, like your balls suddenly took flight and headed south. Why do you think he sent me with you? Anybody can go hunting. Shit. Fucking deers are everywhere these days, practically begging to be shot. Now let's get out of here. It'd be nice to make it back before the light goes on, for once, wouldn't it?"

"You still should have told me," the second voice muttered.

"I just did. Now shut the hell up and get in."

A door slammed, and a moment the truck started up and roared away. As the racing engine receded, Olivia jumped up, and Peter heard her thrashing through the snow toward the embankment.

He struggled to follow her. _Get up. Get up, Bishop._ But his legs refused to comply, or even acknowledge the command. Taking in deep breath, he reached for the trunk of a maple sapling to his right and slowly pulled himself out of the broken patch of ice, up higher onto the shore. _You have to get up. Get up!_

Concentrating, he reached for a higher branch and managed to lift himself into a kneeling position. Then, gritting his teeth, he staggered to his feet using the tree as an anchor. His boots and jean were soaked through, and his coat too, most of the way up his chest. The cold was intense, like nothing he could recall. It burned, as if needles of ice were pricking his skin everywhere at once. A gust of wind blew in off the lake, and he wanted to die. His wet clothes had to come off. Maintaining a coherent line of thought was impossible, but he knew that much, and something else also: hypothermia would descend in short order.

_Maybe I can make it back,_ came another thought, fuzzy inside his head. _It's not that far, is it?_

There was a distant voice—Olivia's, he supposed dimly—talking to him, but whatever she was saying blew right past him as another gust of wind turned his world into frigid agony. He could see her, however. She was standing halfway up the embankment, ponytail streaming in the wind, black coat covered in layer of snow as she peered westward down the street. _So cold_. Violent shivers racked him all over. Snow showered down from the maple sapling, knocked free by his throes.

Olivia was speaking again. It took a moment for the gist of what she was saying to percolate through the encapsulating chill. She had seen enough, and wanted to head back; he understood that much. She was distracted also, and hadn't noticed how wet he was; some part of him recognized that, too. He nodded mutely in reply, then did his best to follow her. _I can make it back._

For a time, pain and cold, and Olivia's slim figure ahead of him, became the extents of his existence, every passing second a new agony. By some miracle, he managed to keep up with her, forcing one foot in front of the other as they retraced their steps back through the line of trees behind the bakery, and then back south, where they'd first come upon the lake.

When they entered the forest, Peter's head was swimming, each intake of breath hurried and shallow. In front of him, Olivia's black coat slipped between the trees. She seemed smaller than she had, or was she farther away? He wondered why she was walking so fast. He wondered where she was taking him. The shivers had left him behind not long after entering the forest, and a voice in the back of his mind coolly informed him that that wasn't a good thing. But the why of it eluded him. He stumbled along, listless, the passage of time measured in footsteps. The world grew hazy. Something slammed into his right shoulder, spinning him around. He caught himself on a low tree limb, just short of falling on his face. _It's so cold. So cold. So cold._ The thoughts were the only thoughts he could think. His head was empty, full of straw. There was only the cold, and a fathomless, all-encompassing numbness, expanding exponentially. He felt himself sinking, drowning in it. He stumbled again and caught himself on a wide tree trunk with rough bark sticky with sap. He sagged against it, letting his eyes close.

He needed to rest. Just for a few minutes, then he would catch up with her. _With...who?_ he wondered drowsily. His eyelids shuttered open and closed, strobing the forest on and off. Something sticky pulled at face, caught in his beard. The sticky something itched, but the itch was distant. Irrelevant. It was all irrelevant. He was no longer cold, so that was a plus. He was no longer anything, exactly. But at least the itch was gone, replaced by something cool resting against his cheek, and soft like a pillow.

_A pillow?_ Peter forced his eyes open but there was only whiteness, all around. A cocoon of white. And he was inside it. Was he dreaming? But the question was unimportant. Everything was unimportant. Even breathing.

#

* * *

#

Olivia turned around, intending to ask Peter what he thought of what they'd overhead back by the lake. He'd been oddly silent since they'd left, and she wanted to know his opinion, while it was all still fresh in both their minds.

The question died unspoken on her lips.

He was gone. Vanished from the trail of their earlier footprints she'd been following. He'd been right behind her. Hadn't he?

"Peter...?" she said softly, and waited for him to appear from behind a tree or such. When he didn't, she frowned, and took a few steps back down the trail. "Peter?" she called his name again, then took a few more steps, squinting ahead for a glimpse of his black and red coat through the trees. Where was he? Maybe he'd stopped to go to the bathroom, she reasoned, glancing around uncertainly. Or maybe he'd seen something, and had stopped to check it out.

_But then he would have said something. He would have told me._

Olivia started to move then, and a dense knot of dread settled in the pit of her stomach as each step revealed no sign of him. Her heart began to gallop in her chest, and suddenly walking wasn't fast enough. Not nearly fast enough. She burst into a flat out sprint, crashing through tree branches barring her path, and leaping rock formations previously avoided. Near the apex of one such leap, she caught sight of something lying in the snow a little further down the trail at the base of a wide tree trunk. Something black, with a stripe of red on it.

_Oh no...nonono..._ "Peter!" She pounded toward the blackish lump, and it soon resolved into a body. Into Peter.

She found him lying face down in the snow. For an instant, as she arrived on the scene, the only thought in her mind was that he'd been shot, from the unnatural way his arms and legs were splayed. But then she'd heard nothing, and she would have. Fearing the worst, she threw herself down beside his still form.

"Peter!" Her voice was raw as she reached for him, gently rolling him over by his shoulders. When she saw his face, her breath caught, snagged on a sudden, massive lump that formed instantly in the back of her throat, cutting off her airway.

His lips were purple. And his beautiful blue eyes... _Oh god, his eyes!_ she screamed inside her head. They were partially open, staring sightlessly; in the dim light there were a vision of death if she'd ever seen one. And she had seen plenty.

Her head shook, denying the sight before her, pivoting from side to side of its own volition. Her vision blurred, eyes stinging with tears brimming over her eyelids. "No...no...Peter, you can't be... NO!"

Ripping a glove off, she pressed a finger to his neck and felt for his pulse. He had to have one. He had to. She held her breath, not daring to move, lest she miss it. Seconds ticked past as she searched around for the right spot.

And then she felt it; a faint thrumming against her fingertips.

Olivia exhaled, releasing the terrified breath she'd been holding. At the same time, palpable relief filled her to the brim, overflowing. "Okay...okay...," she whispered, scrubbing unshed tears away with her coat sleeve. He was alive, but what the hell was wrong with him? She felt along his head, looking for injuries, but found nothing. Surely he was too young for a heart attack, wasn't he? She didn't know. Then, when she moved on to his body, it all became clear; he was wet.

His coat, his clothes, even his boots. They were all sopping wet, down to the skin. _Down to the bone_ , she thought, from how cold his skin felt beneath his shirt. She could guess at what had happened. The crack she'd heard when they'd been hiding from the truck—it had been the ice breaking beneath him. He had made it as far as he could—and frankly, she was amazed he'd made it as far as he had—but then hypothermia had set in. And he'd never mentioned anything, probably not wanting to hold them up, the idiot.

She bent over, putting her lips close to his ear. "Peter, wake up," she said, giving him a little shake. "You have to wake up, honey. Peter, wake up! Peter. Wake up!" As she spoke, his eyelids began to flutter. "That's it. Wake up, Peter. You have to stay awake." His eyes stayed open for a moment, unfocused, then slid shut again. "Peter, you should have said something," she whispered, touching his face gently. There was no reply.

Struggling against panic, Olivia darted glances around the empty forest. She had to get him somewhere warm, or he would die, for real. They had already passed the other homes by, and there was nothing around, and no place to go but onward, back to the shelter. There had been a wide fireplace, perfect for snuggling in front of. It would have to do.

Carefully, she pulled the rifle from his shoulder and slung it next to her own, then grabbed his arm and pulled him upright. Her heart lurched as his chin lolled limply against his chest, but then he mumbled something unintelligible, and she chose to interpret it as good sign.

Throwing his arm over her shoulder and grabbing at his waist, she lifted, trying to stand them both up from the awkward sitting position he was in. "Peter, you have to help me!" she gasped, straining against his weight. He seemed incredibly heavy, and she wondered if it was his watered down clothing.

Peter mumbled something and seemed to make some effort, slight as it was, to help her. Finally, she managed to stagger them both upright. His wet clothing pressed against hers, and already the moisture was seeping through the fabric of her jeans. It was going to be a long walk.

Olivia set off, struggling back up the trail, half-dragging, half-carrying Peter at her side. The going was slow, and agonizing. Bursts of frigid wind whipped through the forest, spraying snow about like sand in a storm. She grit her teeth and followed their tracks as the tiny particles of ice stung at her cheeks, at her eyes, forcing them shut. Darkness was impending, lying just around the corner, and the house seemed impossibly far away. Silence blanketed the forest, broken by the occasional crackling in the distance, and the swish of weeds and bramble as she forced their way through.

After a while, her toes began to ache from the cold, and then they went numb, her fingers and ears also. She let her mind drift in an effort to distract herself from how heavy Peter was growing, and from winter's icy grasp. Maybe they'd made a mistake, leaving Cambridge when they had. Was Astrid right? Should they have stuck together? Maybe Astrid was. She and Peter were certainly in trouble at the moment. But what about Ella? Rachel? She had to make sure they were safe. Both of them. And Peter, too. She had to keep going. She had to. So she did.

A twig snapped to her right.

She turned her head in time to see the infected crashing through the branches of a pine tree right beside their trail. It lunged at Peter, grabbing at his coat, teeth already opening in anticipation.

"No!" Olivia let out a startled shout.

And then the world...blinked.

...And then they were somewhere else.

In another world. The infected was gone, as was all the snow. Eyes wide, Olivia looked around.

She was back. To that other place, where the other Boston was. And she'd brought Peter with her. The air was cold, but warmer than her world, and it felt just like she remembered. Like nothing could live there, like nothing ever had. It tasted stale, somehow. The forest was the same, but the trees were all dead, limbs dry and brittle. Holding tight to Peter's arm about her shoulder, she reached out and snapped the tip of a small branch off the nearest tree with no effort all. Dead. Holding up the thin branch, she had time to wonder if the entire planet was that way, and then Peter let out a sighing groan, and they were back in their world, like the flipping of a light switch.

The infected was back also, only now it was on her left.

Olivia let go of Peter as it turned, and lunged for her face, both rifles slipping from her shoulder in the process. Groping hands stretched into claws forced her backwards and she tripped over Peter's prostrate body, falling hard on her back. The infected fell on top of her, filling her nose with the stink of death, of decayed flesh. Its skin was tallow, cheeks ripped with cuts and dangling flesh. Maggots had made a home in a deep gash across its throat. They squirmed and writhed. Snapping teeth, black with grime, zoomed toward her face. She grabbed it under its chin with her right hand, holding it away from her, while the left searched for a weapon. The infected's claws scratched at her face and tangled in her hair, pulling and twisting with animal strength. Pawing at her side, she felt the rigid handle of her knife and yanked it free, only for it to slip from the grasp of fumbling fingers chilled to the bone. Fire burned along her scalp as it jerked her head upward, and she found herself staring into the infected's mad eyes. They grew closer and closer as her strength began to falter. Foulness emanated from it in a dense fog of putrescence, turning her stomach. Straining with desperation, her fingers hunted for the knife but came up empty, with only a handful of snow and twigs and leaves. She jammed it all between its gaping teeth, then went back for more. Her hand closed about something hard. A rock, about the size of a softball. She snatched the rock up and smashed it into the side of the infected's head with all the strength she could muster.

The infected fell to the side, maintaining it's grip on her hair, and Olivia rolled over with it, until she was the one on top. Teeth gritted in an outraged snarl of her own, she crashed the rock down on its forehead over and over and over. The angry rush of blood filled her ears, along with the crunchy smack of rock shattering bone, the wet splatter of splitting flesh. Finally, she became aware that the fingers twisted in her hair had gone limp. She couldn't say when it had happened, or how many times she'd struck it.

The rock fell from her hand as she glanced down at her handiwork, shuddering. The infected's face was a ruin, cracked open like the most rancid of eggs. Olivia looked away, chest heaving with adrenaline and shaking all over. She shot darting glances about for any others, but she was alone. Except she wasn't alone.

Her heart lurched and she spun around, searching for Peter. She found him lying not far away, partially buried in snow stirred up by her struggle with the undead. His eyes were closed, mouth draped open.

"Peter!"

Olivia scrambled to his side, calling his name again. There was no response, not even a flicker. She pondered leaving both rifles behind for an instant, then snatched them up, slipping an arm through each strap. When she went to lift Peter again, he was limp, utterly lifeless, and getting him upright was one of the hardest tasks she'd ever accomplished. His skin was ice against her cheek as she started for the house once more. Slowly, she made her way through the trees with Peter in tow, keeping a watchful eye out for more infected. His feet dragged in the snow, making a pair of long, continuous tracks. The sweat poured out of her, turning to ice against her skin. Her feet turned numb, then her hands into blocks of ice. Coupled with a wetness that seemed to have seeped through every layer of her clothing from Peter and from her tussle in the snow, she suspected she'd soon join him in the woes of hypothermia. The trail went on forever. A sharp crosswind whistled through the trees, ripping through her layers like they were a summer dress, but she stumbled onward. By the time they reached the end of the trail and emerged from the forest beside the driveway, she had dropped him twice.

Night had fallen and the black SUV was a dark shape off to the left. Staggering past the dented front end, Olivia noticed a light layer of snow on the windshield. At some point unbeknownst, it had begun to fall again. She dragged Peter into the house, and laid him out on the carpet in front of the fireplace in the wide-open family room. After stripping off his wet clothes, she swaddled him up like a baby inside a bundle of blankets found in a hall closet, then went in search for something to burn. Shortly, she found a stack of wood outside the house, beneath a snow-covered tarp, and managed to carry several armfuls back inside before her strength gave out. She was no expert, but it struck her as she arranged several logs in the fireplace, that she had no way to light them; the long matchsticks on the mantle above would never work, not without something to kindle the flame. Hobbling out to the garage, she found a full can of gasoline sitting near a lawnmower that looked like it was brand new, and a smile broke across her face.

Olivia doused the logs liberally in gasoline, and then after making sure the chimney flue was wide open, tossed a lit match into the fireplace. A great whoosh of flame forced her back a step or two as it spouted toward the ceiling, blasting the room with heat. For a horrifying moment, she was certain the ceiling had caught fire, but the flames subsided, sucked back into the fireplace as if by vacuum. She stepped back, admiring her work. The pungent stink of gasoline burned in her nose, but the fire seemed contained, with its gritty black smoke going up the chimney like it should, so she slid the metal screen that went across the opening shut, then turned her attention back to Peter.

Pulling off her gloves, she dropped down on her knees down beside him. His eyes were closed, his breathing shallow, the rising of his chest almost undetectable. She laid a bare hand across his brow and gasped, shocked at how icy his skin still felt, even with the fire roaring just feet away.

_This is taking too long_ , Olivia decided, unzipping her coat _._ And while she wasn't as wet as he was, her clothing was far more wet than dry.

Without a second thought, she stripped off her own wet clothes, down to her bare skin. Naked now, she tiptoed over the freezing floor tile surrounding the fireplace hearth and laid their clothes out in a ring to dry out, then slipped beneath the layers of blankets and quilts she'd draped over Peter. He was a human ice cube beside her, but she pulled his head against her breast, letting him soak in the length and breadth of her warmth. The fire roared hot beside them, bathing them with glorious heat. After a long while, his breathing evened out and she let herself relax. He was more comfortable, breathing easier.

She ran a hand through his hair absently, and rubbed a palm along the bare ridge of his spine beneath the covers, and sometimes over the thick knot of scar tissue on his left shoulder. She watched the fire, listening to the snaps and pops, and thinking. Her mind refused to stand still, and was stuck in a looping replay of the conversation between the two men.

Who was the doctor they'd mentioned? Some kind of leader? And they had power and running water, even showers. And more than a few people, from the sound of it. Was it some kind of refuge? Who had set it up? The government? The military? She wondered if it had anything to do with those strange symbols they'd come across. One of the men had spoken of not asking questions. That sounded vaguely ominous, but was it merely her paranoia talking, telling her what she wanted to hear? She had to be sure of what they were walking into. Very sure. Which meant that she and Peter would have to go there first, wherever _there_ was, and see what there was to see.

Outside a wide sliding glass door into the backyard, the moon was rising through the trees. She watched it until her eyes grew heavy, and then gave in to exhaustion. With her eyelids drooping shut, she pressed her lips to Peter's temple, then pulled him tighter and settled back on the mound of pillows and cushions she'd dragged over from the couch. The fire burned in bright yellows and oranges, in hints of blue, giving off waves of heat. Her last thought, before sleep took her away was that she'd come close to losing him, again. It was becoming a bad habit. There would come a time when their luck wouldn't hold. She had no illusions that either of them would live forever, but she intended to fight, and make the most of whatever time they had left.

#

Some time later, Olivia came awake to some sound, the fire snapping, perhaps, or maybe it was Peter, stirring in his sleep beside her. Her skin was no longer freezing, and was instead titillatingly warm. She felt his chest rise and fall, heard the now-familiar whisper of his breath and smiled to herself.

He was okay.

The scant light from the fireplace licked at the vaulted ceiling overhead, where a thick piece of timber bisected the room. The fire had burned low, most of the initial logs turned to red coals glowing palely beneath the grate. She disentangled herself from Peter and slipped from beneath the blankets to throw a few more logs on the fire. The wood began to smoke at once, singeing around the edges, and a surge of blessed heat baked over her bare skin. Satisfied, she turned around and found Peter awake. His eyes were wide open, locked on her face.

"Olivia...," he rasped, staring at her in confusion. "What the... what the hell happened?"

"You collapsed in the snow," she said, dropping a hand to her bare hip. "Hypothermia, I guess. Why didn't you tell me your clothes were soaking wet, Peter? That was stupid. I could have...," She trailed off, uncertain what she could have done, but surely there was something.

Peter sighed, lowering his eyes. "The ice cracked beneath when we were hiding from the truck," he replied simply, confirming her version of events. "I guess I thought I could make it back. To be honest, it's all kind of fuzzy."

"Well, you thought wrong," she returned in a dry voice, shaking her and smiling to take the sting out. "You came up about a mile short, Peter."

He glanced around, then picked up a bottle of water she'd left beside their bedding and took a long swallow. "So what, you...carried me all the way back here?" he said, setting the water aside. His voice was full of wonder.

Olivia shrugged. "I wouldn't call it carrying, so much as dragging," she said, gesturing vaguely with a smirk. "You're not exactly light, you know. I think I've mentioned that before." She stared down on him, recalling her panic when she'd come across his limp body lying in the snow, and a burst of affection swelled in her chest for her rash and brave, and more often than not, foolish, genius of conman who had somehow come to mean so much to her. What was she going to do with him?

Peter shook his head slowly, wiping a hand across his brow. "I guess this is how it's going to be then," he said, "taking turns saving each other's lives. I owe you again, Olivia."

"Is that such a bad thing?" she asked softly. "To owe me? I can think of worse things than saving your life."

"No, not at all...," he replied without hesitation, sporting a toothy grin. "Quite the opposite, in fact."

He swallowed, and let his gaze drift downward, raking openly over her pale nakedness for the first time, drinking her in through his eyes like a man dying of thirst. Out of pure instinct more than anything else, she went to cover herself, but then straightened her back, letting her hands drop to her sides, meeting his gaze proudly.

Peter exhaled, mouth opening and closing, eyes worshipful. When he spoke his voice was a rough whisper, almost harsh in its intensity. "My god, Olivia...you're so beautiful."

The longing in his voice filled her insides with heat of a different kind. Her heart careened in her chest, driving the flow of blood southward instantly. For having more or less moved in together back at the lab, they had been taking it slow, physically, by any set of standards. Why that was exactly, she wasn't sure, only that the timing had never seemed quite right, and after they'd been forced into the lab, the lack of privacy had made it a non-issue. It wasn't an issue now. Peter had never seen her so before, nor she him until undressing him earlier. And under the circumstances, sex had been the furthest thought from her mind. There was a sudden gust of warmth on her backside, and the yellow light dancing on the ceiling grew brighter. She experienced another brief bout of self-consciousness when her sister's mocking voice played in her head, but it passed her by. The decision on how to proceed came naturally, and without the slightest reservation. Without breaking eye contact, she slipped beneath the blankets, and then pulled him into her arms.

No more words were spoken, not for a long while. None were needed. Or perhaps, words were too simple, lacking some essential depth of feeling that only physical contact could convey. Their lips mingled, gently at first, and then, with a sudden intensity that bordered on manic. His hands were hot on her skin. They slid slowly up her waist, and upon reaching their destination, rolled and kneaded, lighting her up on the inside with a warm glow that grew brighter with every touch. Her fingers tangled in his hair as his mouth followed suit, trailing along the contour of her jaw, then down the side of her neck and into the valley of her breasts. She inhaled sharply, sighing as his lips closed hungrily over an aching nipple, then the other, sucking, pulling, until she couldn't take any more and lifted him back upward, searching for his lips, his questing tongue, inhaling the scent that was singularly him. Forcing Peter onto his back, she settled on top of him and lost herself in a tantalizing mixture of moisture and heat, of love and lust, and the delicious pressure. And when she finally took him inside her, it was like coming home. Grunting softly, she threw her head back and started to move, rocking forward, rising up and down, muscles deep inside flexing exquisitely.

Their union was not a gentle one, not until the very end. Olivia's fingernails raked across Peter's chest and shoulders, and his hands were like vises gripping her thighs. Violence and death and horror had become their lives, and as such, had seeped into their very being, and was present also, watching over them both from the perimeter. There was an urgency to their lovemaking, a desperateness that was mirrored in the brightness of Peter's eye as she looked down on him. She suspected it might always be so between them; the very real possibility that any given moment together might be their last.

The fire blazed hot beside them, casting their silhouettes on the far wall, and the heat inside her grew hotter still, quickly reaching its boiling point. Peter's face strained beneath her, tendons standing out on the sides of his neck. His eyes flickered with emotion, and then widened suddenly and turned glassy as the tide swept him away. A moment later she slipped over the edge to join him, and their commingled cries echoed through the empty house.

#

Panting, Olivia collapsed on top of Peter, every muscle having turned to jello as the euphoria slowly subsided, replaced by lethargy and exhaustion. Her chest heaved against his, each covered in a fine sheen of sweat. A burning ache pulsed deep in her thighs, an ache not felt in what seemed like years. An ache, she at one point not long ago, had thought she'd never feel again. A hand trailed languidly across her back and down to her buttocks, and then back up again, leaving tingles in its wake. There was love in his touch, she sensed it in every caress, though love had never been spoken of aloud between them, their relationship never openly framed by either.

She snuggled closer to Peter, flattening her breasts against his chest, and listened to the gallop of his heartbeat. The rhythm was reassuring and soothing, almost hypnotizing. Its tempo slowed gradually, before settling on a cool sixty-five beats per minute, by her involuntary count. Her thoughts wandered. Was she in love with him? Such admissions were not easy for her to acknowledge—not even in the quiet of her mind. Nor were they for him, she suspected. Still, she was willing to admit it was a strong possibility. Maybe even more than strong. She thought again of his lifeless eyes and shuddered.

John had told her he loved her, the first time being the day before he'd nearly been killed in the chemical explosion that had ultimately brought Peter Bishop into her life. She hadn't known how to react; his declaration had been an utter surprise. Had John truly meant it? She could only assume so. Eventually, she had even spoken the words back to him, as that was what you did when someone spoke them to you. Wasn't that how it went? Or else what was the point of the relationship? But she wasn't sure that she had meant it, and wasn't going to say the words out loud again, to anyone, until she was sure that she did.

"Well...," Peter murmured into her hair after an indeterminate amount of time had passed. "That was certainly worth the wait, wasn't it?"

Olivia smiled and lifted her head from the hollow his shoulder, then dropped a kiss onto his lower lip, pulling at it delicately before releasing him. "You might say that," she whispered, closing her eyes and nuzzling his face with her nose. "I think I really needed that." It was true, though she hadn't known it beforehand. She had needed it; she had needed him, and badly.

They both had.

With a sigh, she rolled off him and onto her back, already missing the close contact. The carpet was a long shag, but well made, and was silken fur against her bare skin. The fire had burned low again, and Peter climbed to his feet with a groan to throw on another log or two. Olivia rolled onto her side to watch him as he went about stoking the fire back to life, admiring his wiry slenderness. He was altogether different than John, who had been all planes and sharp angles, obsessed with maintaining his chiseled physique. If Peter noticed her frank appraisal, he never mentioned it.

As he went to lie back down beside her, his eyebrows rose at the sight of the gasoline can sitting in plain sight across the room. "Gasoline?" he asked with a slightly mocking grin.

"Hey, I was in a hurry, Bishop," she scolded, swatting at his leg. "And I'd like to see you do better with what I had to work with."

With a chuckle, he dropped down beside her. "Relax, 'Livia, I'm just kidding," he said, rolling her name lazily. "And believe me, I'm grateful that you saved my life, yet again. Please continue making a habit of it for as long as you'd like." He hesitated then, and his gaze turned serious as he continued. "And as much as I...loved, every single second of what we just did, it was stupid of us. We can't do that again. We... you can't take that kind of risk. Not now, not with the world like this. My... father...," He paused, and Olivia heard an odd inflection in his voice. "...Walter's right about that, you know."

Olivia took his hand. "I know Walter's right, Peter," she told him. "That's why I'm on the pill, why I've been on the pill since I moved into your room back at the lab. I've managed to find about six month supply, so far. Between Sonia and me, I think we hit every Pharmacy in Cambridge. They won't last forever though, but until then..." She fell silent, eyeing him through her lashes and rubbing her lip with the edge of her thumb.

Peter blinked. His mouth dropped open, lips forming a perfect circle that slowly transformed into a cheshire smile. "Oh. Well in that case...," he started in a low voice, then reached for her again.

#

Their second encounter was slower infinitely more tender, and despite lacking the same urgency as before, was possibly even more satisfying. Afterward, Olivia stared up at the ceiling, finally sated, and filed with conflicting emotions. Peter was propped up on one elbow beside her. His finger traced a lazy line up and down and around her breasts, and again, she felt something wistful in the simplicity of his touch. Suddenly, her eyes were brimming.

"Olivia, what's wrong?" Peter whispered, ceasing his motion. "Why are you crying?"

Feeling foolish, she shook her head and wiped the tears away. "Nothing's wrong, Peter," she said. "I'm just... I'm just happy, that's all. But it doesn't seem right. Why should I be happy, when everything else is so wrong? When people, my friends, are either dead or outright suffering?"

Peter's eyes narrowed in thought. "I don't have an answer for that," he said shortly, "other than to say that I don't think any of your friends, dead or alive, would object to you being happy, even now. If anyone deserves happiness, Olivia, it's gotta be you."

Olivia picked up his hand and pressed it to her lips. "Thank you. I hope you're right about that."

"I am right. About that, at least," he added, touching her cheek with the edge of his thumb.

"Peter, it happened again," she said after a moment. "On the way back with you."

"What happened?"

"I went to that other world. We both did."

His eyes widened into saucers. "Both of us? How?"

She lifted her shoulders. "I don't know. There was an infected. It came out of nowhere, right beside the trail. There was no way I could stop it. When it reached for you, it vanished, or we did. I guess I took you with me. We crossed over to that other world, just for... a few seconds. Then we were back, and I killed the infected."

"Huh," Peter grunted. "And you didn't pass out?" She shook her head and he grunted again, rubbing at the back of his neck. Abruptly, he hung his head.

Olivia frowned at his sudden change in demeanor. "What's the matter?" she said, reaching out and lifting his chin with one finger. "Peter?" Her frown deepened at the look on his face. When he finally met her gaze, his eyes were filled with a mixture of misery and fear. It was the fear that got her attention, brought her own fear to life, her own terror.

"...There's something I have to tell you, Olivia," he said. "I probably—no, I should, have told you before now, but... I just didn't know how."

"What are you talking about?" she asked through sudden tightness in her throat. "Peter, what have you done?"

Whatever it was, she figured it was awful for him to react this way, for him to believe it might change how she felt about him, after everything they'd been through together. When he didn't answer right away, her imagination began to spin up, churning out all sorts of atrocities he might have committed in his former life. It had to be his former life. Had he been a murderer? A rapist? _Oh god..._ She felt sick all at once, tasting bile.

"It wasn't me," he said, perhaps sensing her distress. "It was my father. It was Walter... and William Bell."

Olivia's frantic mind ground to halt. "What...?"

Peter swallowed, wetting his lips and scrubbing a hand through his hair. "You grew up in Jacksonville, right? On a military base? That's what you said, what you told me."

Blinking, she tried to make sense of what he was getting at. But the question seemed out of the blue, utterly random. What did Jacksonville have to do with anything? She nodded, unable to speak, and the misery only deepened on Peter's face. Was there pity there also? What was happening?

For a second, she couldn't breathe. Her lungs stopped working, so great was the tension running through her—and through Peter too, she saw, watching him struggle. Suddenly, she recalled wondering what was eating at him right after they'd left Cambridge, and the way he had watched her sometimes out of the corner of his eye, seemingly on the verge of speaking but never doing so. She had come close to stopping the truck at one point to force the issue, but something had held her back. She'd wanted to trust him. And then later, the dreadful silence along Route 20 before they'd reached the house. This was the source of his discontent. He'd been holding it in since Cambridge. Why? What happened there?

"Just tell me whatever it is you think you need to tell me, Peter," she implored. "Please."

Peter's nod came with a great reluctance attached. Then, after a moment, he began to speak. "Before we left Cambridge, I cornered Walter about these...things that have been happening to you, these... abilities, to find out what he knew, if he knew anything that could help you. He was... evasive, at first. You know how he's been lately, but I could tell he was holding something back, and now I know why. He finally told me about a drug William Bell invented, called Cortexiphan."

"Cortexiphan?" Olivia shook her head. "I've never heard of it."

"No, you wouldn't have...," he said grimly, massaging the back of his neck again. The misery in his eyes reached its apex. She sensed that whatever he was about to tell her, it was going to change everything, perhaps for all time. He plunged onward, pleading with his eyes. "You wouldn't have heard of it, not unless... unless you lived in Jacksonville, and went to certain day care center, on certain military base in the early nineteen-eighties."

"What? What are you saying?" she whispered harshly. Her eyes bulged. She sat up, fingernails gouging into the nearest object, namely Peter's thigh. "What the hell are you saying, Peter?"

"I'm saying...," he started, then stopped, face tight with anguish. His voice cracked. "I'm saying that my own father, that William Bell—they wanted you to have these abilities. I'm saying they gave them to you. They drugged you, Olivia, when you were just a little girl. I'm saying that they experimented on you."

Olivia gasped, hands flying to her mouth. Her head quaked in denial. He was speaking madness. It couldn't possibly be true. Could it? But why would Peter lie to her? He wouldn't.

"That's not possible," she found her saying, though her mind was racing somewhere else, already moving on to other consequences. "It's not. It can't be."

Because if it was possible, it would mean that her own parents had been complicit, her mother, her father—her real father, if the timeline was correct. They would have known. They would have had to. They would have had to volunteer her, their own daughter, to be experimented on. It meant that everything she believed about her childhood was a lie. The father she'd put on a pedestal—it was all a lie. Her entire life was a lie. A dull numbness washed over. It was too much. Her mind balked at grasping its entirety.

"I'm sorry," Peter's voice intruded sadly. "I wish it wasn't true, believe me I wish it wasn't, but it is. Why would Walter lie about it? Why would he incriminate himself? I saw a videotape in his stuff; it was ancient, dated from 1981. But it had your initials on the label, Olivia. It had Jacksonville on it. You asked me about Walter and a day care center once, from some... dream you'd had. That can't be a coincidence."

"A videotape...?" Olivia mumbled stupidly.

But there was no power in the lab. How could they have watched a video? Her thoughts were jumbled, flicking about. Her drawings with flowers and the boy named Peter from her dream; did he know? Had he put two and two together? Perhaps he had forgotten, just as she had. Her mother had known. Yet she'd said nothing, not even on her deathbed.

Olivia reconsidered, taking in a deep breath. Or had her mother known? It was her father who'd been in the military. Her father. They had lived on the base. His base. He had painted their front door red, just for her. Were all the men in her life monsters? No. Not all. She captured Peter's gaze.

"I don't understand any of this," she said. "Why would they do that? Why would they do that to children? I assume there were more than just me?"

"I don't know...," Peter said, reaching for her.

She went to him willingly, allowing him to enclose her in his arms. They fell back on the pillows with her head coming to rest on his shoulder, arms and legs entangled together. It felt right. It was the only thing that did.

"Walter kept saying something about protecting our world," he continued, "whatever the hell that means. He wouldn't say." Pausing, he held her tighter, fingers moving manically over her bicep. "When he told me what he'd done... Olivia, I almost killed him. I had my gun to his head before I even knew what I was doing, and I was this close to pulling the trigger. But... but then it occurred to me that we're gonna need him still, maybe for a long time."

Olivia lifted her head at his tone. Peter and his father had been growing steadily closer over the last few months, actually forming what might be called a father-son relationship. It was an odd relationship, to be sure, but a relationship all the same. It was more than he'd had for most of his life. He was hurting, too, in pain also. It was in his watery eyes; the jagged sting of betrayal, with barbs that sank in deep and refused to pull free, sometimes forever. It was a sting she knew well; it was an old acquaintance, an old friend. She laid her palm against his cheek, then pressed a tender kiss against his lips. When she pulled away, the hurt was still there, but he gave her a weak smile anyway.

"Thank you for telling me, Peter," she told him quietly, and felt the first tendrils of rage stirring to life. Her lips pressed together into a thin line, jaw clenching tightly. "Now, tell me everything Walter said. Everything you can remember, down to the smallest detail."


	21. Slippage

**-January 2009**

The wind died off as abruptly as it had appeared, without warning.

Glaring silence rushed in to fill the vacuum, silence filled by the harsh rasps of Olivia's seesawing breath as she forced her fingers to relax their death grip on the metal ladder rungs. Taking in even gulps of ice cold air, she counted in her head and waited for the radio tower to cease its infernal swaying. Back and forth and side to side, the tower swung and tilted about, flipping her stomach upside down. Only upon nearing the count of thirty did she judge it safe enough to resume the climb. She pulled herself upward again, keeping her eyes locked forward, focused deliberately on the next rung and nothing else. Certainly not on the ground, far, far below, or on Peter's tiny figure standing at the bottom of the deathtrap in which she found herself.

In the background, beyond the ladder and the triangular, fire-engine red latticework, patches of billowing clouds hung like cotton-balls in an otherwise blue sky. To the east, the red smear of the morning sun hung just above the treetops. Its warming rays were soothing on her left side as she climbed higher and higher up the radio tower's claustrophobic access ladder. The ladder itself was enclosed in a circular cage of thin metal bars, presumably to keep a technician from being ripped free by an erratic gust of wind—such as what she had just experienced. Her eyes drifted upward involuntarily. The other end of the safety cage appeared impossibly far away; a minute, blue dot far above her. Combined with the wide open isolation and the intense height, the view was disorienting on multiple levels, and brought to life a plethora of phobias Olivia had never realized she was even subject to until that moment. She quickly pulled her focus back to the ladder rung in front of her.

 _Why did I insist on doing this again_? Peter had warned her it was bad, of course he had. But had she listened? Her stubbornness and intense competitive streak had gotten the best of her.

How bad could it be? she'd thought, stupidly, in hindsight. _I must have been out of my fucking mind._

She reached for another rung, forcing herself upward with hands that quivered. The height required to make contact with Cambridge was higher than the first tower Peter had climbed. In an effort to distract herself from the knot of fear rising in her chest, she tried to think of something else, anything else, other than the ground rushing toward her as she fell to her death, or being blown from the ladder and twirling like a leaf in the wind.

Like clockwork, her mind went back to the more pleasant happenings of the prior night, and then again that morning as the stars winked out one by one before the coming sunrise. In spite of the precarious situation she'd gotten herself into, her lips curled into an involuntary grin at the memory, recorded in tantalizing precision. It had been worth the wait, at least a thousand times over. She didn't want to place a tag on what had transpired between Peter and her, but the night had seemed special by any measuring stick. No. It _was_ special, maybe even magical, even with the other not-so-happy revelation concerning herself and Walter. Friends of hers—when she'd still had friends, at least, prior to joining the Bureau—had spoken of having such nights. And Olivia thought she had even experienced them herself, but had it ever been quite like that? She thought not. Ravenous was the only word that came to mind when she thought of the great need for him that had come over her, and him for her, if his reaction was anything to go by. It had been different, and she was no lovestruck, starry-eyed girl.

_My name's Peter. Mine's Olivia._

Olivia wondered if he had considered the very real possibility that they had met each other at least once as children, that some variation of her dream had played out in a field of white tulips somewhere outside the military base where she'd lived as a girl. The interaction had left a mark on her younger self, powerful enough for a ghost of him to come through in her drawings, years later, after she'd forgotten—or had been made to forget—everything else. And that somehow, against unimaginable odds, their paths had crossed again, decades after the fact. The sheer luck involved boggled her mind. She might have called it fate, or destiny, if she had ever believed in such things. But she didn't believe in them, which meant that their meeting wasn't fate at all.

Could it have been by design? But whose? She thought of the strange man in the suit. _Or what's?_

What else had the boy named Peter said in her dream? There had been something else. Something about Walter, about his mother and a lake. What was it? She reached for another ladder rung, concentrating, but the dream remained opaque, a vague impression of a shadowy outline. How much of the dream, if any, was a true memory, and how much her imagination at work? She wished she knew. One thing was certain, however; Walter had much to answer for. Much indeed.

Another burst of frigid wind suddenly sheared across the tower. She hugged the ladder with both arms, closing her eyes and taking in even gasps of air when the entire structure began to sway again, sending her stomach off into a series of uneven somersaults. There was nothing to do but wait it out. Eventually, the tower steadied, and she resumed her climb.

She was pulling herself higher when a different memory floated up to the surface. Not of Peter, but of his father. They were in the lab. Peter had just blown up in her face about signing the standard waiver for handling classified documents, and had stormed out of the room.

And then Walter had said something curious, completely out of nowhere and for her ears only. ... _If you've read my file, Agent Dunham, then you know the truth about Peter's medical history..._ She hadn't had the faintest clue what he was talking about, and had told him so. _I was going to ask you to keep it just between the two of us, but...I suppose there's no need, now._

Peter's medical history. What had Walter been hinting at? Whatever it was, it had to have been from when Peter was a boy, or he would have known about it himself. He had mentioned nothing out of the ordinary on his health insurance application, at least, which she had unashamedly looked over. There was a puzzle there, with Peter and herself, along with Walter and William Bell as the main pieces. And she had always been good with puzzles, with finding patterns, and piecing facts together. Could they have given Peter this Cortexiphan also? Could Walter have experimented on his own son? It seemed monstrous, but given what she now knew, what he'd admitted, was anything out of the question with Walter Bishop?

Before she could carry the thought any further, a faint whistle from below caught her ears. Olivia halted in her climb, glancing down at the tiny figure far below moving between her feet. Was he waving? Why? Then she noticed the latticework around her was now painted white. Two other white sections stood out below her, and another red was getting just above, only a few ladder rungs away. She cast Peter a grateful smile. In the midst of her distraction, she had nearly climbed higher than was needed.

Olivia hooked an arm through a ladder rung and pulled the little handheld radio from her coat pocket. Peter had replaced the radio's original antenna with one nearly twice its length, and added a length of thin wire to the antenna's base that she unwound and let dangle loose in the slight breeze. He had explained the concept to her; something about half-waves and dipole antennas. She had just smiled and nodded at his explanation. As long as the radio worked, how it worked didn't concern her. That was his job, though there was something incredibly sexy about him when he went into professor mode. She wondered what he'd been like in his short stint as a university professor. She suspected—with a completely irrational bout of jealousy—that women had thrown themselves at his feet.

Pulling her coat sleeve back, she checked the time on a watch scavenged from a house back in Cambridge. It was just past nine o'clock; Astrid would be waiting.

She thumbed the talk button, lifting the radio to her lips. "Astrid? Come in. Over."

The radio's speaker crackled to life almost at once. "Olivia...?" Astrid's voice was quiet on top of a layer of static, and Olivia raised the volume to compensate.

"It's me," she replied. "Switching channels now. Over." It was possible they were being paranoid, but anyone could be listening to their conversation. In light of that possibility, a simple system had been set up before they'd left Cambridge. It wasn't perfect, but it was certainly better than nothing. She turned the dial to the next agreed upon channel and pressed the talk button once more. "Astrid? Are you there?"

"I'm here," Astrid acknowledged a moment later. "How are you guys doing? What's it like out there? Have you found anyone?"

Olivia hesitated. What was it like? Cold. And desolate. "We're both fine, Astrid," she reported, and considered mentioning Peter's close call with hypothermia, but then decided against it at the last moment. It would only upset Walter. She wondered why she cared. "...and we found people yesterday. Two men in a truck heading west down Route 20."

The radio crackled. "Really? Did they see you? Did you talk to them?"

She quickly gave Astrid a brief outline of the encounter, and of their plan to follow the truck and surveil the refuge the man had spoken of. From a safe distance, of course.

"You guys be careful," Astrid said when she finished her story. "Sounds kind of sketchy if you ask me."

"We will be. How is everything there? Have you seen many more infected around the lab?"

"A few. There were a couple yesterday after I talked to Peter, and I saw three more on my way here this morning. They were just wandering through the streets. I don't know where they came from."

Olivia's mind shrank from the implications. If the infected's numbers were increasing again, it wasn't a good sign at all, especially when she and Peter weren't there to help them. The timing couldn't be worse. "I don't like the sound of that at all, Astrid. Are you sure you guys are okay?"

"We're fine here, Olivia," Astrid insisted. "It was just a few of them. Nothing we can't handle. And we have all kinds of food if we need to hole up for a few days."

Should they head back? The snow might melt in the interim, ruining their chances of ever finding out where the truck had gone. But it was her family, and they were counting on her. If only there were two of her. Surely one more day would be okay. They could follow the truck, then report back to Astrid tomorrow. If conditions in Cambridge appeared to be worsening, then they would head back. It had to be enough. It had to. Her stomach twisted into a hard knot as she made her decision.

"Well... keep a close eye out anyway," she said, swallowing. "And get the truck loaded and ready to go in case things go south. How is everyone doing? Rachel? And Ella? Is she staying out of trouble?"

"They're both fine. Ella's been a sweetheart. She was with me all d—"

Whatever Astrid had been about to say vanished in an icy blast of wind. Olivia gasped, nearly dropping the radio as she scrambled for a better hold on the ladder, hooking her left arm over the nearest rung. The frigid gust—the strongest by far that she had felt yet—whipped the radio tower about like a reed in a tornado. Or that was what it felt like inside her steel cage. The wind grabbed hold of her beanie, ripping it from her head. She saw a black speck go flying far into the forest below as her loose hair slapped her across the face, stinging at her eyes. An invisible fist of air pressed against her chest, shoving her inexorably away from the ladder. The tempest increased to a deafening howl. Pressure increased, and suddenly her feet were no longer on the ladder. She was falling.

A scream tore through her lips. Her boots clanged off the bars of the cage as she scrambled to regain her footing, in vain. Pain bloomed in her shoulder, agony shot through her left arm—still hooked over the ladder rung. Dangling from her elbow, wind yanked at her coat, burned in her eyes. Tears streamed backwards into her hair as she fought to maintain her grip. Then, as abruptly as it had arrived, the gale died out, falling off to a gentle breeze, and then finally frozen stillness.

Olivia's heart pounded out a marathon in her chest. She kicked around for a foothold, then pressed her face against the metal of the ladder, unmindful of its icy sting. Chest heaving, she fought for breath, taking in huge gulps of air.

 _Breathe, Olivia. Just breathe. You're okay_.

"Olivia?" The radio crackled. It was minor miracle that she hadn't lost it, though considering her frozen grip on it, maybe not. "Olivia, are you there? Olivia?"

She pressed the radio to her lips. "I'm here, Astrid...," she said numbly. "Look... I gotta go. We'll talk again tomorrow morning." Or she would talk to Peter, at least. She was done with climbing up radio towers.

"Okay. Astrid out."

Olivia shoved the radio back into her pocket, then gasped when she went to disentangle her arm from the ladder rung. Pain pulsed the length of her left arm, deep into her shoulder and across her back. Had she torn something? For all she knew her shoulder was dislocated, though something told that she would be in much more pain if that was the case. Gingerly, she rotated her shoulder, testing its mobility. It seemed moderately okay, so with a grimace, she pulled her arm free and began her descent.

The going was slow, and painful. Far below, at the bottom of the cage, was a dark spot moving against the snowy background. Peter. He was pacing, she thought, stopping every so often to peer up at her. When the wind threatened, he was her focus, her point of concentration. The dark spot took on a man's shape, and then she could make out the color of his hair, and then his face, and finally his blue eyes as he stared up at her anxiously. When she reached the bottom, her body ached like she'd been put in a blender or had climbed the tallest of mountains, instead of merely going up and down a ladder.

Peter's brow was furrowed when she stepped off, dropping lightly into the snow. "I saw what happened," he said without preamble. "You okay?"

Olivia nodded, swallowed with relief. "Yeah. Mostly. It was a bit more... intense than I thought it'd be. I'll let you handle this from now on," she added, pulling the radio from her pocket and dropping it in his hand. A bone-rattling shiver went through her, emanating from her frozen core. Her arm ached with righteous fury. "And I lost my hat," she said faintly, rubbing at the throb in her elbow. "I loved that hat."

"I saw that, too," he replied, then stepped in close, enfolding her in his arms and pressing his lips against her forehead. "We'll find another hat. Your arm okay?"

She sighed, nodding against his chest. Her eyes fell on the shroud of trees and the drab radio tower facility building behind Peter, back beside the waiting truck. Puffs of condensation rose from its tailpipe. The area had been deserted on their arrival, but was no longer. Two tottering figures wearing rags were pawing at the truck, scratching at its blackened windows. A pair of tracks led out from the trees beside the driveway.

"We've got company," she said, and pulled away from Peter reluctantly.

He gave the infected a single glance, then reached for the crowbar propped against the gate in the chain-link fence surrounding the radio tower base. "What did Astrid say?"

"That everything was fine. No problems," she told him as they advanced on the pair of undead. They had yet to be noticed. "She did mention seeing more infected, though. After she talked to you yesterday, and a few more this morning. I don't like it, Peter."

"I don't like it either." He lifted the crowbar from his shoulder and met her gaze. "Hang back, Olivia. I got these. Don't tell me that arm isn't hurting."

She started to protest, but even reaching for the knife on her left hip was painful. And it was just two. "Fine. Be my guest," she said, resting her hand comfortingly on her pistol's grip, just in case.

Peter approached the nearest of the two infected nonchalantly—a female wearing what have once been a red dress pawing at the passenger door window—and sank the crowbar into the top of its head. He yanked it backward off its feet, ripping the hook free as it fell. The other infected was another woman, with filthy, yellow hair caked across its face as it pawed at a lit headlight. It became aware of him, golden eyes catching the sunlight and face a ruin, then scuffed toward him, bumping along the front end. He met it halfway, lunging forward and greeting it with a mouthful of metal. The infected went limp, sagging to the side against the truck's hood as it collapsed.

"They're gonna be okay, Liv," he said, looking up at her as he wiped the crowbar clean on the infected's shirt.

Olivia stepped over the body in the red dress. "I hope you're right," she said, reaching for the door handle as Peter moved around the truck to the driver's seat. She caught his attention over the hood. "You called me Liv. You've never called me that before." As the words left her mouth, it came to her that that wasn't precisely true. She had heard him shorten her name once before, just that morning. She wasn't sure he'd even been aware of doing so; she herself had barely been cognizant at the time. Her face grew hot at the memory.

Peter stopped opposite her, raising his eyebrows. "Is that a problem?"

Her lips widened into a slow grin, and she shook her head. "Nope."

#

* * *

#

The dead man moved unevenly, with strange hitches and stops, with arms that hung loose, jerking back and forth and from side to side. Each step seemed unconnected to the one that came before it.

 _It's like a puppet_ , Ella thought, watching as it came abreast of the brown van-gate, moving from her right to her left down the street outside the fence. It moved like someone was making it move, like someone had made Kermit and Grover move on _Sesame Street_. Someone out of sight, below the line of her television screen.

Thick ropes of snow and ice were caked in its hair. Its clothes hung stiff in the wind, frozen. She wondered why the infected weren't all frozen stiff like their clothes, like the hamburgers her Daddy had cooked on his grill in their backyard, before. Weren't they made of meat? She thought about asking Walter, but he had been different ever since Aunt Liv and Peter had left. Three days had passed. He was different. Distracted. And he talked to himself, talked to people that weren't there, muttered arguments under his breath. And sometimes he would get up in the night, long after everyone else had gone to sleep. She had woken once to find his blankets beside the furnace empty, and had snuck down to his storage room where she'd spied him rummaging through his junk and reading old papers by candlelight. Ella wished she knew what was bothering him. Did it have to do with Aunt Liv, and what she'd heard him and Peter talking about? She had watched her aunt closely for any signs of magic, but had seen nothing. Maybe she had imagined it all. But then why was Walter whispering in the dark, reading frantically? He was looking for something, but there was no asking him, not without admitting that she had spied on him and Peter outside her aunt's room. She thought he barely saw her anymore, or any of them.

Ella leaned on one hand, returning her gaze to the street. The dead man had moved on, unaware of her presence. None of the others had noticed her, either. She glanced at the spot where Astrid and the red truck had disappeared earlier, but the road was still empty. Her mother and Sonia didn't like her going alone, but Astrid had insisted that she and Peter had made sure it was safe. To her right, beyond the fort that she and Walter had never finished, was the wall of cars and trucks, buried in a thick layer of snow and ice. Outside the wall, the snow appeared even deeper. Hills had built up, mounds of snow like sand in a desert, and tall enough to mostly bury several cars on the outside row. She imagined falling into one of the hills, and an Ella-shaped hole marking her passage.

The door behind her opened, and she looked back, expecting to see her mother returning from the bathroom. Instead, Mister Broyles stepped out onto the top step. His eyes flicked over the yard and then out to the street before he noticed her sitting there by herself on the top step.

"You out here alone?" His voice was deep like her Daddy's had been, though they certainly sounded nothing alike. Sunlight reflected off his bald head, oddly bright. "Where's your mother, Ella?" he asked.

"She had to go to the bathroom," she replied, peering up at him. The two of them had never talked much since he'd come to the lab, and she had wondered before if he didn't like kids. "I think number one. Hopefully." Going number two was the worst, and she would hold it as long as she could before venturing in the classroom where all the poop buckets were. At least she didn't have to empty them.

Mister Broyles lips curved into what might have been a smile, and then he moved to sit down. His face twisted with pain as he dropped onto the step beside her. Then he straightened his leg out with the bad foot, and Ella couldn't help but stare at the way it bent unnaturally at his ankle. It was sort of scary-looking, like gnarled old tree root.

"Don't feel like playing in the snow?" At his question, Ella tore her eyes from his foot. Had he noticed her staring? He waved a hand at her unfinished fort. "After what we went through over the last week or so, I'd have thought you couldn't wait to get back out here after being stuck inside for so long."

Ella shrugged and stared down at her fort. One of the walls was sagging forward, ready to fall at any moment. The square plastic tub she had used peaked out from beneath a mound of snow, lying where she'd dropped it. It had warmed up for a day after Aunt Liv had left but it was cold again. Not like it had been; when they'd been freezing down in the lab, hungry and thirsty all at once — so cold she was worried she might die — but cold. But it wasn't the cold that stopped her. The truth was that she didn't want to play in the snow, or read any of her books, or do any coloring, or build anything with her legos. The few toys she had down in the lab were old and stale. None of it called out to her anymore. It all seemed small somehow. Dimmer, in some indescribable way. Like a shirt that was too tight or socks that didn't fit. Maybe she was growing up, _getting old_ , like grownups always complained about. She didn't feel any taller or older, though her toes were getting cramped in her shoes. She didn't think that was what it meant.

"I just haven't felt like it," she said shortly, and scuffed the letter X in the thin layer of snow on the step with her heel.

Mister Broyles nodded silently. "My kids used to love playing in the snow," he said after a while. "I used to take them to this park near our house in D.C. Had a big hill. It was perfect for sledding." He shook his head. "Or at least I took them when my job let me."

Ella glanced up at him. From how often Aunt Liv went to work when they had visited, she thought it probably wasn't very often. "How many kids did you have?" she asked.

"I have...had two. A boy and a girl." His voice grew quiet. "Christopher was turning eleven this year. And Melissa was just a couple of years older than you. They lived with their...their mom, back in D.C."

From the way his voice had changed, she thought he and his wife must have gotten divorced. Her mother and father had talked about divorce once, late at night, long after they'd thought she was asleep. They had never talked about it around her, like it was one of the _bad words_. She had known what it meant. Divorce was when your mom and dad stopped being married, and you never saw one of them again — or at least, that was what she had heard. Some of the girls in her class had parents who were divorced, and could only live with one of them. For weeks after hearing her mom and dad talk about it, she had lived in terror that it might happen to her, that she might never see one of them again. And although nothing had ever happened she had filed the word and its meaning away, hoping to never hear her parents say it again.

Something else occurred to her then. His children were probably dead. And he knew it.

Ella watched as he rubbed at his ankle, hissing through clenched teeth. Did it hurt very bad? From how ugly it looked, at how his face tightened when he touched it, she could only guess that it must. "What happened to your foot, Mister Broyles? If it's okay for me to ask."

He shook his head, running his fingers over the smooth skin above his ears. "It was a stupid accident," he muttered. "I fell off a ladder."

"Does it hurt very much?"

Mister Broyles nodded. "Yeah, it does. Quite a bit, sometimes."

She peered at his foot again, imagining what the lumpy parts of it looked like under his sock. Were the bones sticking out? Did they press against his skin, turning it white like the knuckles on her hand? She shivered at the image. His foot wasn't going to get better—she'd heard Walter say so when he'd looked at it before, not long after Mister Broyles had arrived.

Movement out in the street caught Ella's eye. She lifted her head and saw more dead people, again moving from her right to her left between the rows of cars. Many, many more. Out of habit, she tried to count them but gave up after reaching twenty. They were still streaming into view from behind a group of trees along the sidewalk, infected of all different sizes and shapes, men and women and boys and girls. Some looked even younger than she was. Their clothes were in tatters, all a similar grayish brown from all the dirt and muck, their faces torn, flaps of skin black with rot.

"Stay quiet," Mister Broyles whispered, putting a hand on her leg. "And they should move past us."

Ella nodded, covering her mouth, just in case. Her heart pounded. She held herself still, suddenly terrified to move, or even breathe. Mister Broyles was tense beside her, chest moving in and out slowly. Then he shifted slightly, dropping a hand to the pistol on his belt.

More and more of the infected shuffled into view. They moved slowly. Unsteady footsteps carried them sideways as much as forward. How many more could there possibly be? And where had they all come from? Some of them came near the iron fence, yellow eyes turned their way. Did they know? Could they hear the thump of her heart? Hear the blood moving inside her? Surely they were the loudest sounds she'd ever heard. Every thud was an explosion inside her head. Could they smell her aliveness? What did they want? She wanted to scream it at them, though it would likely mean her death, if Mister Broyles didn't stop her, which he would.

The dead were too far away for her to hear their voices. But she was sure they were there; they must be. She had heard them in the library. And before that, at her aunt's apartment; day and night through the window, where they walked down in the street below. And then she had heard them from behind the door inside the apartment, from inside the room where her father had locked himself. The mumbles and the groans. Whispers without words. Once, she had pressed her ear to the door and listened.

Ella waited for something to happen. A tremor started up in her belly, a quiver that moved up through her chest, and into her shoulders. Her neck tightened, began to ache. She couldn't stop it. The hand on her leg began to squeeze slightly.

"Easy, Ella," Mister Broyles said just loud enough to hear. "Easy now. You're okay."

His deep voice was calm, and made her feel better at once. She closed her eyes and imagined it was her father's voice, that he was sitting beside her. He wouldn't let anything happen to her; that's what he'd told her when the world had started to end. His voice filled the quiet of her mind. She took in a breath, and then another, and her racing heart began to slow. But then something intruded. Something outside herself, out in the street. Her eyes flew open.

There was a steady rumble, coming the direction in which Astrid had disappeared. An engine. She was back. A mass of infected clogged the spot where the truck had been parked.

"Mister Broyles...," Ella squeaked. "I think that's—"

She broke off as the roof of the maroon truck came into view, far down a cross street to their left. The truck slowed, approaching the intersection where it would meet the street that ran outside the lab, then accelerated around the corner, plowing a path over old tracks in the snow.

Why wasn't she stopping? Ella scanned the road ahead of the oncoming truck and saw the answer. There was no clear path; cars and trucks and vans clogged the street. _Astrid doesn't see them_ , she thought distantly letting out a long gasp of fear, and taking a bite out of her lower lip. The stopped vehicles were a maze, like in one of her fun books. The trucks slowed, swerving back and forth, winding its way closer. Her gaze jerked to the right, ahead of the truck, to the infected.

The dead had heard the truck also. Where before they had been moving slowly, without purpose, now they swarmed between the cars and trucks, surging to meet the truck head on.

"Dear God...," Mister Broyles muttered. He straightened slowly, and then staggered to his feet. When he spoke again his voice was different, harder somehow. "Go find your mother, Ella. Go. Now!" Without waiting to see if she obeyed, he leaned hard on the railing to his left, hopping down the steps on one foot to the sidewalk below, and then limped rapidly toward the fence and the van-gate.

She stood up as the maroon truck suddenly skidded to a stop, crunching into something out of sight. The engine whined as Astrid made it go backwards for a moment, and then there was another bang of metal. A gray minivan rocked in its place, tilted up oddly where it and the truck came together. A shadow in the driver's seat moved about as the truck lurched forward, untangling itself from the van with a mighty roar. Then it flew forward, heading straight for the wall of infected. Snow sprayed up from the tires in chunk-filled arcs.

Her eyes bulged as the first body splattered against a bumper and a headlight, leaving a dark smear behind on the silver trim of the front end. A hollow thud echoed across the yard, and then a flurry of them. Infected crumbled beneath the truck, scattering like bowling pins in the basement hallway.

 _She's going to make it_ , Ella thought, squeezing her fingers into tight fists inside her mittens. Then the truck reached the thickest part of the horde, and a current of fear raced down her spine as it began to lose some of its former speed. It was an island of red in a roiling sea of grayish, squirming black. The infected were in a frenzy, snarling, teeth flashing in the sunlight. She imagined she could hear their rage; a droning mumble, a bee buzzing inside her ear. Or was she hearing it for real? There was something in the air. A vibration.

Her gaze shifted to Mister Broyles. He was almost at the fence, sloshing awkwardly through the snow, bad foot dragging behind him. Outside the fence, Astrid had almost reached the van-gate. The truck's engine revved higher, yet it moved no faster. Infected pressed in from both sides, front and back, pawing and biting with broken teeth at the doors and windows. It was surrounded by an ocean of undead, growing ever larger. The high arcs of snow turned dark red and wet, and chunky. Her stomach heaved. She saw a tumbling hand clearly for a heartbeat, flashing before her eyes, trailing bits of what looked like string from a distance, but surely were something else. The truck came to a slow stop, then rocked back and forth, engine screaming, spitting up snow and blood and flesh.

_"Hey! Over here! Hey!"_

Mister Broyles's voice penetrated the stunned paralysis that stopped her legs. She tore her gaze from the disaster out in the street and found him standing at the iron fence, shouting and waving at the infected on the other side. One of them finally noticed him, and moved his way, then another. They reached through the fence, grabbing uselessly at the air.

Suddenly his pistol was in his fist. It seemed small and tiny compared to the mass of undead between him and the truck. The gun cracked as he shot through the fence, directly into the face of the infected on the other side. The dead man's forehead caved in. At the same instant, its brains exploded out the back of its head, splattering the face of the next infected in line. Ella watched, held in thrall by a kind of sick fascination as a reddish mist rained down.

 _So much blood_. The thought came from somewhere far away. Mister Broyles fired again and again. Accompanying each shot were puffs of red that hung in the air, clouds of crimson against the white. _Geez._

"Ella!" A panicked jolt went through Ella at the sound of her name. She was just standing there, watching it all happen like some stupid kid. Mister Broyles glanced back over his shoulder as he reloaded his gun. His dark eyes glared. "Get inside," he shouted, lining up another shot. "Find your mother!"

Mom!

Ella snapped out of her trance. She spun around, throwing the door open, then dashed inside. A shadow with her mother's shape was moving toward her through the dimness from the other end of the hall.

"Mom!" Her feet carried toward her mother, running as fast as they were able. "Mom!"

Before Ella's first shout had faded, her mother's shadow was already moving forward at a trot. "Ella?" Mom's voice began to rise. "Is Astrid back? Ella!"

Ella crashed into her mother's legs, throwing her arms about her waist. Behind her, in the background of the building's silence, faint pops could be heard, almost like someone was clapping in the distance. She buried her face in her mother's coat.

"Ella. What is going on? Wait. Are those gunshots?"

Ella pulled away, nodding her head and sniffling. Suddenly her eyes were overflowing. "Mommy, Astrid came back," she started as the tears began to flow. Words poured out of her mouth in an unstoppable flood. "...and the monsters are out there too... and they're around the truck, and Mister Broyles is shooting them and he told me to get you and you have to help them, Mommy!"

"What!" Her mother was suddenly crouching in front of her, eyes wide open in alarm. Or was it fear? "Monsters? Do you mean infected? Ella!

"They're gonna get Astrid!" she wailed. Her vision blurred with a river of tears.

Her mother straightened, glancing toward the front of the building. "Stay here," she ordered, starting forward, but then jerked to a stop after a single step. "Oh crap, I left my gun downstairs." Then said a word Ella had never heard her say before, ever, in all her five years. "Fuck! Ella, stay inside. Do not go out there! I'll be right back."

An instant later her mother was gone, vanished into the basement stairwell. Ella stared into the empty doorway. She was alone. She stood still for a moment, tears running down her face, heart thumping in her ears. The building was silent, except for the occasional _pop!_ from outside. She took a step back toward the entrance, and then one toward the stairwell.

Should she wait? Hide? Could they get through the fence? Into the building? Her mind shifted from one thought to the next. She shivered, taking in panicked breaths. Time crept past. She caught a whiff of furnace smoke from the stairwell, then saw a fat bug scurrying across the floor. It glittered darkly in a shaft of light from an open classroom door. When she stepped on it, she could feel its body crunch through the sole of her shoe.

Then stomping footsteps rose from below. She whirled around in time to see her mother vault out of the stairwell without slowing. In her hands was one of the wicked-looking machine guns Aunt Liv had warned her to never touch. _They're loaded, baby girl. You can't touch them, not ever_. Loaded. That meant there were bullets in them. That they were ready to kill.

"Stay here, Ella!" Mom said again on her way past. And then she was gone, sprinting for the outside, shoes echoing in the hallway.

Ella watched her mother's outline grow smaller against the windows in the lobby. Her running footsteps grew quieter, then she slammed the door open and disappeared. A gunshot rang out loudly for an instant, cutting short as the door swung shut with a bang. An eerie silence settled over the lab building. In spite of her mother's order to stay put, the muted pops from outside drew her forward. Before she was even aware of moving, her feet carried her back to the lobby, back to the pair of double doors. She cracked one of them open and pressed her face to the gap.

Out in the street, the maroon truck stood silently where she'd seen it last, engine no longer running. A shadow moved in the front seat. The number of infected surrounding it had not lessened, and if anything, there were more of them. Many more. A hundred? At least that many. Counting them was impossible; their filthy clothes, their gray and black sameness blended them together into a solid mass, squirming and writhing like the tiny worms on the dead body she had found outside the lab. Mister Broyles fired shot after shot into the crowd, only stopping to reload. The dead pressed against the fence. All up and down the street, arms reached through, hands opening and closing on hair. Her stomach somersaulted, then plummeted down into her feet. The iron bars were moving! Bending, flexing like they weren't made out of metal. Her mother raced through the snow to the section of fence beside Mister Broyles. Raising the gun to her shoulder, she tried to fire but nothing happened. Mister Broyles shouted something lost in the furor.

"C'mon, Mom," she whispered as her mother fiddled with something on the side of the gun. "Do something."

As if she'd heard, her mother raised the gun again, and a torrent of deafening gunfire erupted. Ella clapped her hands over ears. Bodies dropped in scores outside the fence. One of the truck's windows rolled down and the head of the infected reaching in exploded in a shower of blood. The body collapsed only to be replaced by another, and then another, in an endless stream.

Movement beyond the truck and the black sea of undead suddenly caught her eye. Ella lifted her gaze and saw someone running outside the fence, out in the street. A live person. Then a sinking horror settled over her instant later as recognition came, in the form of a pink stocking hat.

It was Miss Sonia.

Ella gasped, and the air was sucked from her lungs. Somehow she had completely forgotten that her friend was still outside the fence! Lately she had been going outside every morning, alone, to search for more food and supplies. Usually, if it wasn't too cold out, she would come back late in the day, close to dinner time with a full backpack.

 _She must have heard all the gunshots,_ came the thought _, and come back early to see what was going on._ On the heels of that thought was another. _There's way too many for one person._

Sonia raced closer, staying low and moving along side the parked cars. She approached the mob of dead people encircling the truck from the rear. None of them seemed aware of her as she crept closer. Finally she was there, only visible by the pink of her hat as she was raising the little axe she and Peter had used to chop off all the furniture, and sank it unto the back of the nearest infected's head. She yanked the axe free and hacked down another.

Ella watched, bouncing on her feet as Sonia's axe rose and fell, killing the monsters one after another. Some distant place inside her noted how her friend was careful to take down those only on the outside of the mob, how she refused to let herself be surrounded.

"They don't know she's there!" she whispered excitedly to herself. "She's gonna do it. She's gonna save her!"

"Save whom?" a voice asked loudly behind her.

Spinning around, she released the door and found Walter staring down at her. The door banged shut, slicing off the commotion outside cleanly. He wore his white lab coat over his winter coat, and was leaning on a long piece of metal, or pipe. She had seen it before, propped up against the wall near the weapon table. The end came to a sharp point.

"What on earth is happening out there, child?" Walter said, then let out a series of deep coughs, the wet and rough kind that her mother always said sounded like her lungs were being coughed up. After he recovered, he wiped his mouth. "Your mother shouted something about infected, that I should grab a weapon and come at once."

"They're...they're here," Ella stuttered, and her eyes began to sting again. She didn't want to cry, not again, but the tears came anyway. Part of her hated being young; hated not being brave like her mom and her aunt; like Miss Sonia and Astrid; hated that she didn't know how to be brave. She looked up Walter. "The infected are here."

Walter frowned, then reached down and lifted her up with one arm. "Let's see, shall we?" he said, pushing open the door and letting a chorus of gunfire. Then, grabbing his spear with his free hand, he carried her outside.

Dead bodies blotted out the snow. Fewer were standing than before, but there still seemed an impossible amount. Most had forgotten about the truck and were pushed up against the fence, reaching for her mother and Mister Broyles. She caught a blur with black hair. Astrid was out of the truck, rushing to help Miss Sonia. The dead had finally noticed her, and she was backing away from a group that had broken off from the others. Ella watched, as the two women vanished obscured by the truck as a crowd of undead closed in around them.

"Oh dear...," she heard Walter murmur as he gently set her down. "This does not bode well. Not well at all."

Over at the fence, she saw her mother thrust the big machine gun at Mister Broyles, who took it and continued firing into the crowd. Then, much to Ella's horror, she pulled a long knife from her belt and stepped within reach of the hands straining through the fence. She lunged forward, stabbing with the knife at a face smashed up against the bars. For an instant, time slowed to a crawl and Ella saw with perfect clarity the knife disappear into the right eye socket of a dead woman. Then her mother yanked the blade free, followed by a river of blood. The dead woman's body sagged against the fence as another reached over its shoulder. Gunfire erupted out in the street, and a moment later Astrid and Sonia came back into view, each blasting away at the infected at point-blank range.

"I must help them," Walter said, placing a hand on top of her head. "And you must stay here, my dear, safely out of danger. Unless they get inside the fence, then you must flee." His voiced changed, began to tremble. "If... if the worst happens, and you happen to see my son and Olivia again, tell them both I'm sorry for what I've done."

Before she could ask what he was talking about, he turned and limped down the steps, holding his homemade spear in both hands. Taking up a place on the other side of the sidewalk from her mother and Mister Broyles, he began thrusting the pointed tip through the bars. The spear's point came away stained black.

Alone now, Ella pressed her back against the door behind her. She shivered uncontrollably, and wished it was all over. Her eyes kept drifting to the wide sections of fence where no one was on guard. The metal was bending, buckling inward under the infected's combined weight. What would happen if it broke open? She envisioned the undead coming through the gap in a flood. They would reach Walter first, overwhelming him quickly, then move on to her mom, and Mister Broyles. And then her. Maybe her own mother would be the one to take the first bite.

It took the rattle of the machine gun falling silent to draw her back from the darkness of her thoughts. She looked for Mister Broyles and found him up close the fence, shoving the barrel through an infected's snapping teeth. Beside him, her mother stumbled backward in the snow and something grabbed Ella's heart and squeezed. A wave of dizziness left her legs weak as she watched her mom scramble about in the snow. She was searching for something. A moment later she came up with her knife, surging to her feet. For an instant, Ella saw her face, twisted in a wordless snarl of rage that looked nothing like her mother, before she lunged for the fence again.

Ella groped for a breath. Her mind shrieked at what was happening. A foul wind that reeked of death stung at her face, turned the tears rolling down her cheeks to ice. It struck her then, as it all came to a head; the certainty that they were all going to die. The monsters were going to eat them, and then they would become monsters, too. When Aunt Liv and Peter came back, they would eat them also.

Abruptly, the chorus of gunfire out in the street fell silent. She searched for Astrid and Sonia among the infected, but they were gone. Her legs chose that moment to give out, and she slowly sank into a crouch, settling back on her rear and hugging her knees.

 _They're dead_ , she thought, burying her face in her jeans and squeezing her eyes shut. She held her knees tighter, rocking back and forth. _They're dead... they're dead... they're dead... I don't want to die..._

Inside her head, she listened to her heart beating, thumping steadily without pause. On the outside, there were rings of metal, grunts and groans and frantic shouts, and then a strange squeal that reminded her of the bathroom door opening back in her old house in Chicago. What had happened? Was it the fence? She dared not look. If she did, and saw the infected pouring in, she thought she might go mad, or just die from fear. A loud thump made her jump, and nearly fall over, but she kept her eyes closed. She focused on an odd swirl of changing colors on the back of her eyelids as the sounds of fighting continued unabated.

Then, finally, after what felt like forever, silence fell over the yard.

Was it over? Had they broken through? Were they coming for her? Holding her breath, she opened her eyes and stared at the blurry fabric of her blue jeans, too terrified to find out. She didn't want to find out. If she didn't look, then there was a chance everything was okay.

Noises intruded on the stillness. Footsteps, made softer by the snow. They were coming closer.

"Ella...?"

At the sudden voice, Ella gasped, and lifted her head. "Mom!"

Her mother's face was painted red with blood. It was in her hair, on her coat, dripping from her fingertips. But it was her mom again. She could see it in her eyes, looking out from beneath all the blood. Behind her, Mister Broyles was leaning on the fence. His face sagged with exhaustion. Walter was doing the same, and for a wonder, his white lab coat was still white. Mostly. Smiling, he met her gaze. Ella's heart swelled as she saw more. There was Sonia also, standing beside the open door of the van-gate. She had lost her pink hat. And Astrid also, climbing out of the van into the yard. Both were drenched in blood, in chunky bits of flesh that clung to their hair. Outside the fence, mounds of dead decorated the street, and even more were pressed up against the fence, eyes frozen in death. The iron fence was warped, bent dangerously inward in several places, but still stood.

Ella pushed to her feet. _They're all okay_ , she thought, bursting with indescribable happiness. _We're gonna be okay_. She leapt down the steps and rushed across the sidewalk, throwing her arms about her mother's legs. She smelled terrible, but it didn't matter. Peace could be found there, in the comfort of her mother's arms. And safety. And love.

Ella soaked it in.

"Is... is everyone okay?" Astrid asked in a strange voice, utterly unlike her normal self.

Ella peered past her mother, who turned to look also. Astrid's eyes were bulging and shaking, her cheeks ashen and gray, splattered with blood and flesh. Before anyone could reply, she sank slowly to her knees, unmindful of the snow. And then, raising her hands to her face, she began to cry.

#

* * *

#

Ribs of twisted metal protruded from the featureless snow, like the carcass of some ancient flying beast from a primordial epoch in the ocean of prehistory. Irregular shapes and amorphous mounds dotted the countryside, distributed in a wide arc that extended out of Olivia's view behind a low rise in the snow-covered terrain.

Peter let out a low whistle as the truck glided to a stop. "Holy shit..."

Olivia leaned over the center console to get a better look out his window. The downed plane had come in low from the north, cutting a wide swathe through the vegetation lining either side of the road. Trees were smashed and bent over, or just sheared off cleanly in some instances, and deposited elsewhere. Had the pilot been attempting an emergency landing? How many passengers had been on board? Hundreds? From the size of fuselage's hulking remains, it had not been a small plane, though it was certainly smaller than the ill-fated Flight 627, that had first sent her down the rabbit hole.

"Looks like a seven-sixty-seven," Peter continued, squinting at the scene with a critical eye. "You can tell from the shape of the tail cone, or at least what's left of it. I wonder how it went down."

"Does it really matter?" she said quietly.

The scene was disturbing. From all appearances, no rescue effort of any kind had been mounted. _How far we have fallen_ , she thought sadly. Far across the debris field at the peak of an incline, a lone figure struggled through the snow. A thought struck her, and she glanced at Peter as he pressed the accelerator, leaving the plane crash in their wake.

"You can fly a plane, can't you?" she asked. "I know I read that in your job history. Cargo pilot, wasn't it?"

"For a bit," Peter confirmed with a nod. "Though, to be fair, I was more of a copilot. Didn't stick around long enough to rank up to captain. I guess I got tired of being a glorified delivery man."

"But you do know how to fly a plane, right?"

"Technically. But it's been a while, years since I was last in a pilot's seat." His eyes narrowed. "Why? You want to fly somewhere? Fiji is nice this time of year. And I'm not kidding."

"I don't know," she said, slipping a hand inside her coat and rubbing the ache in her left shoulder. The pain had grown worse since they'd left the radio tower behind. "Just thinking ahead, I guess. Anything's possible."

"In this day and age?" he said with a smirk, eyeing her sideways. "I'll give you that. So what about Fiji? You and me and the rest of us, hopping on a plane and heading south when this is over."

Olivia snorted. When it was over? What made him think it would ever be over? Even if they somehow figured out a way to stop the infection—which according to Walter, sounded like something cosmic in nature, and utterly beyond them—by all accounts, at least ninety-nine percent of the world's population was dead. Nothing would ever be the same. He knew that. And then it came to her; it was Peter's way of dealing with it all. Perhaps believing it might end one day was the only way he could continue to function. The only way to fight off the hopelessness. The despair. She couldn't hold it against him, as she knew that struggle well herself, having fought it nearly every morning when her eyes first opened upon waking.

"We'll see about Fiji," she said, meeting his eyes with a grin, then settled back in her seat.

The truck crunched through the snow, retreading the tire tracks running down the center of Route 20. The tracks had not wavered since leaving Marlborough behind, and Worcester seemed their likely destination. Outside Olivia's window, the dreary countryside slid past slowly. Silence and the low rumble of engine filled the cabin. She felt no urge to talk, which was not to say the silence was empty, or that they weren't communicating.

For they surely were. Entire conversations could pass between them in a single ephemeral look. In a glancing eye contact, the curve of lips into a knowing smile. In the brush of hands coming together on the arm rest, the momentary caress of fingers entwining. It all felt new, and different, and intoxicating. As it was wont to do in her limited experience, sex had changed the nature of their relationship. Oddly enough, Peter's revelation about Walter, and the abuse he'd subjected her to as a child—and it was abuse, a violation in every sense of the word—had not stained their moment, nor tinted it black in any way. That was good.

The two events were entirely separate in her mind. She wondered if Peter had assumed she would be unable to partition off the sins of the father from the son. If so, he should have known better. When she examined her feelings on the matter, she found herself strangely calm about it all, now that her initial rage had diminished. Part of her was still furious, of course, but she had no memory of any of it, not even the slightest hint, or the barest of outlines. And what she had no memory of didn't happen—for her.

Her outrage was clinical, lacking a personal touch. And how could she not remember any of it? What had Walter and William Bell done to make her forget? Some kind of brainwashing? The thought poked and prodded at the anger she'd been holding tightly in check, stoking it to life. She strongly suspected her calm acceptance of what had been done to her would not hold when Walter stood in front of her, trying to explain himself. But he wasn't in front of her now, and raging about it wouldn't accomplish anything.

As the thought died out, another struck that Olivia hadn't considered up until that moment. Walter was with Ella, at that moment. He was likely alone with her; the two of them were fast friends. Ella, who was near the same age she had been back in Jacksonville. They all trusted him—and he _was_ good with her. He had saved her life at great risk to his own. She owed him for that, and she always would. It was a conundrum, a miserable tangle. How could she reconcile that fact with what he and William Bell had done to her? According to Peter, the time spent in the institution had changed his father—greatly, if she were to believe him. And she had no reason not to. Walter had been committed. Judged unfit to stand trial. She thought of their last case before the outbreak, of Roy McComb, who'd heard voices in his head, and been visited by strange compulsions. Another of Walter's victims. He'd been feeble and a confused shell of a man when they'd found him, certain he was on the edge of losing his sanity.

Was that her?

She felt the tenuous brush of Peter's gaze and eyed him askance. He was watching her with narrowed eyes, with a furrowed brow.

"You okay?"

"Sure," she said, smiling weakly. "What makes you ask?"

"You've got that look on your face," he told her. "You do this things with your lips when something's bothering you."

Olivia frowned. She did a thing? What thing? Resisting the urge to pull down the visor and look in the mirror, she tucked a loose lock of hair behind her ear. Outside her window, a blue house set back among the tree caught her eye. The shape of it through the branches reminded her of something that hovered on the edge of recall, but she couldn't quite pinpoint the memory. Something from her childhood? She turned back to Peter.

"I was just thinking," she said, shrugging uncomfortably. "You remember Roy McComb?"

Peter's eyes locked on to her own for an instant before he returned his gaze to the road. His face tightened momentarily. "Yeah, I do," he affirmed, and a hint of wariness entered his voice as he glanced her way again, eyes gleaming. "What about him?"

She lowered her head, killing time by picking at a spot of dirt or blood beneath a fingernail. "I don't know," she replied after an interval. "I was just... thinking about how broken he was when we found him. He was on the verge of losing his mind."

"Olivia...," Peter started, shaking his head flatly. "I know what you're thinking. You're nothing like that guy. Nothing at all."

But what if she was? What if there was something broken inside her, a remnant of what was done to her, just like Roy McComb?

"I've always felt... different, somehow," she admitted. "Ever since I was a girl. It was hard for me to build relationships, or let myself get close to anyone. Like I was waiting for something, but...I didn't know what. And between my stepfather, William Bell, and your father, how much of me is me, and how much is what they made me? You told me Walter said they did what they did because we were supposed to protect our world. Were they trying to make some kind of soldier?"

She paused, as a hard lump developed in the back of her throat. How could her father have allowed it to happen? She shoved her hands back roughly through her hair. "Oh god, Peter... is that why I am the way I am? Am I under some kind of... compulsion, to be like this? Programmed? Emotionless? Driven like some kind of...fucking robot?" All at once, she felt ill, her stomach lined with lead and the taste of acid filled her mouth.

Peter suddenly braked hard, and the seatbelt pressed tight between Olivia's breasts as she jerked forward in her seat. Snow sprayed out in great clumps as the truck skidded to a diagonal stop in the center of Route 20. Just ahead, a dangling traffic light swayed back and forth above an intersection. Letting go of the steering wheel, he twisted in his seat to face her. The engine idled softly in the background as his eyes moved over her face. She waited for him to speak.

"Olivia, listen to me. You're the farthest thing from emotionless that I can think of," he said intently. "If anything you feel too much, for everyone. And no matter what William Bell and my father did to you, you're the way you are 'cause you're a good person. What you're talking about, that kind of mind control—it's not possible. It was all already there, already inside you. They can't have changed you that much, turned you into a different person. It doesn't work that way."

"But how would I even know the difference, Peter?" she asked uselessly. "Somehow they made me forget it all. If they could that, they could probably do any..." She fell silent, exhaling as a voice intruded on her line of thought. A shadowy voice with dreamlike qualities. Or was it a memory? She was still unsure.

 _He brought me here from somewhere else_ , a boy named Peter had told her. _It's all different here_. And then another memory bloomed in her mind. She heard her Peter's voice, the man sitting next to her, from mere weeks ago. _I had this intense...feeling one day, that wouldn't go away, that I'd woken up in another world, where everyone I'd known and loved was just a little different. Even my Mom and Walter..._

What did that even mean? Surely the Peter in her dream hadn't meant an actual somewhere else, as in, a separate reality. That was insane. If it was a memory, it had to have been warped by her dream. Yet on the other hand, it wasn't completely without precedent. In her mind's eye she could see the golden dome enveloping the city, glistening like fresh drops of honey. The air had smelled stale. Empty. Devoid of life. Another world. Another Boston. She hadn't imagined it, and her accidental journey there with Peter proved it was a real place, different from theirs.

"Olivia, what are you thinking about?" Peter said, putting his hand over hers.

His palm felt hot against her skin. She absently wondered if all men were like that, if they all ran hotter than women. She met his gaze.

"Have you ever considered the possibility that you and I had met before I tracked you down in Iraq?" she asked, watching his face. "That the dream I had about a boy wasn't just a dream, but a kind of memory? Something I was supposed to forget, but maybe it was triggered by what happened in that hotel."

"You mean being attacked by a giant lizard-monster?"

"No. What I did. With the fire." _I think I cooled off now._ She felt a tremor of fear. Could it be? It felt like puzzle pieces were falling into place, pieces she hadn't even known were missing. "Maybe I'd done it before."

Peter didn't answer right away. Gears turned methodically deep inside his cobalt gaze. "I hadn't really thought about it," he said, choosing his words carefully, "not until you just said it, at least." A hand crept up to a scab on his cheek, and Olivia repressed an urge to yank the hand away. "It would be an incredible set of coincidences," he continued, "for you, and me, and Walter, to all come together again like we did. Almost too incredible to be chance. It would also mean that whatever was done to you to make you forget, was done to me, too." A muscle in his jaw flexed as he turned back to steering wheel and pressed the accelerator. The truck lurched forward, wheels spinning until the tires found their grip in the snow. "Walter has a lot to answer for," he muttered darkly.

"You know he saved Ella's life, Peter," Olivia reminded him.

"Why the hell are you defending him?" he said with a glare. "After what he admitted doing to you?"

"I'm not" she said, looking away from the fury in his eyes. "I'm just... I owe him for that. Maybe more than I can ever repay."

"One right doesn't fix a wrong, Olivia. Or in his case, decades worth of wrongs."

"Do you believe it's all an act then?" she countered hotly, irritated that he was putting her in a position where she had to defend her abuser. "That being institutionalized hasn't changed Walter at all? You told me he was different then when you knew him as a boy." She took a breath, then reached across and put her hand over his, resting on the gearshift. "Peter I'm not defending what he did to me, or to who knows how many other children, and believe me, when I see him again we're going to have a long, hard talk. But what do you want me to do? Kill him in cold blood? Will that solve anything?"

Peter sighed and shook his head, mouth working silently. Olivia turned away from him, content to let him work it out inside his head.

She relaxed in her seat, letting her head fall back on the rest. Outside her window, a string of brown apartment buildings sat near the street, followed by an L-shaped retail plaza, home to a hardwood flooring outlet store and several restaurants, including an Indian takeout that made her stomach rumble in muscle memory. The glass storefronts were shattered, exuding a vacant darkness. Bullet holes riddled the plaster facades. There had been similar signs of looting all along their route, but nothing like the wanton destruction of the military back in the city. A road sign marking the border of the next township approached, and as it receded in her mirror, Peter began to speak.

"My mother," he started roughly, "I told you that she killed herself. But what I didn't tell you was that for as far back as I can remember, she was...haunted by something, some...secret, that was with her every minute of every day. And I was at the center of it. She used to look at me, sometimes, when she didn't know I was watching, and just start crying, for no reason. Like it hurt just to look at me. And then when I got older, and I confronted her about it, she wouldn't say. Swore up and down that there was nothing wrong, that I was imagining things. Even as she poured herself another drink, even as the tears were running down her face. But there was something. I could see it in her eyes, like she was dying inside, every time she looked at me." He shook his head, eyes glassy. "And after Walter got put away, it only got worse. That's why I had to get out of there. I couldn't stand seeing that look in her eyes. I was hurting her, just by being there. So I left."

Olivia pictured a younger Peter, angry and confused. Hurting. Of course he blamed himself for his mother's death. Why wouldn't he? Walter's cryptic comment about Peter's medical records came back to her. Was that part of it? A secret, centered around Peter?

_I'd woken up in another world..._

"You think it all might be connected, don't you?" she guessed. "What happened to me at this day care center, and this secret your mother was harboring. And Walter knows what it's about."

"It's an explanation," he said, meeting her gaze for an instant.

In that single look, she saw the breadth and width of the raw pain he'd been holding inside. The guilt. It had been pursuing him for years, probably since he'd first walked out his door, leaving his mother first, and then Boston behind. She reached over and squeezed his hand on the steering wheel.

"When the time comes, Peter," she told him gently. "We'll ask Walter together."

#

* * *

#

Ghoulish faces caked with dried blood pressed up against the iron bars, layers deep. All up and down the fence along Cambridge street it was the same. The fence sagged inward in several places, and where the undead were thickest, stacked atop one another like pancakes. The scene could have been straight out of a B-grade horror flick, albeit one with superb special effects. Those faces at the bottom of the stack were squashed and misshapen not unlike potatoes. Skeletal arms sagged through the bars, fingers curled into knobby claws, nails chipped and blackened, or gone altogether and sprouting grayish bones that made tracks in snow splashed a dark red with spilled blood. A ripe cloud of death rose off the bodies in waves, hovering in the vicinity like the foulest of storm clouds.

It was a vision out of Phillip Broyles's nightmares. Or out of his memories, hearkening back to the early days of the outbreak, when mobs of the newly dead numbering in the tens of thousands had overwhelmed downtown Boston and everywhere else with horrifying ease.

One of the hands near the bottom of the pile to his left twitched. He limped over to it, using the length of metal conduit Walter had lent him as a cane. Which head the hand belonged to was impossible to say, so he jabbed the pointed end of the conduit through each of the heads in the vicinity until the hand fell limp. To his right, further down where the barrier of cars and trucks were perpendicular to the fence, Charlie Francis's widow was crouched in the bloody snow, checking bodies and putting her long-bladed knife to work in similar fashion. Out in the street, Astrid and Dunham's sister were searching carefully among the bodies for any that still lived. It was gruesome work, though neither of the women were complaining. Surprisingly, Rachel Dunham had held her own far better than he'd expected any civilian to, she and Sonia both. He supposed it made sense for the former, at least, considering who her big sister was. As he peered around for any other moving bodies, he caught a glimpse of Walter and the girl, waiting on the top step in front of the Kresge Building's wide entrance. The old scientist's face was creased with worry as he scanned the street outside the fence.

Phillip followed his gaze, but saw nothing out of place other than the smorgasbord of dead bodies turning the snow black. None were moving, nor were any more approaching from either direction. Reaching out, he gave one of the sagging iron bars a tug. The fence still felt solid, but he didn't like the look if it, not one bit. It had been a close thing. Near the end of the attack, right as the M-4 had run out of ammo, he'd been sure it was about to give way, but by some miracle it hadn't. He didn't want to think about what might happen if another similarly sized group decided to pay them a visit.

Sonia straightened, pressing a hand against her lower back and stretching out her shoulders with a tired sigh. "I think I've got all of them over here," she said, sounding exhausted. "How is it out there?"

"I think we're good," Rachel Dunham replied, then shoved her long-bladed knife back in its sheathe. "You and Astrid do good work." She glanced around, shading her eyes from the sun. "Where the hell did they all come from? I thought they'd all left the city."

"Apparently not," Astrid said. She glanced down at the pile of bodies at her feet and shook her head.

Turning on his good foot, Phillip wondered the same thing. They had to have come from somewhere. Were there more on the way?

He limped back to the trampled walkway and up to the building as the women climbed back through the van to join them on the inside. Bone-grinding pain lanced through his ankle, shooting up through his knee to his hip as he struggled up the steps. Some days he could set the pain aside, cordoning it off when he had to. But not then. Adrenaline had pushed him far beyond his limits, and now he was paying the piper. Not that he was complaining. He was alive. After the Federal Building, he'd discovered a part of himself even three wars had not brought forth. Whatever could be endured, would be endured. It was that simple. When he reached the landing, Walter still bore the same worried look. He knew something.

"Mister Broyles, are you okay?"

Phillip glanced down and found Ella staring up at him. Her eyes filled with innocent concern as she waited for an answer. She reminded him vaguely of Melissa at that age; inquisitive, with a knack for mischief. His throat tightened inexorably, as thoughts of his daughter inevitably led to his son, Christopher, and then to Diane, and their old house in D.C. He was never going to see any of them again. Something horribly unimaginable had happened to them, and the knowledge broke his heart on an hourly basis, sometimes minutely, or secondly, if he let himself dwell on it. He could not, and still function.

"You, you do look rather tepid, Agent Broyles," Walter commented with a frown. "Are you ill?"

He mopped a hand across the dome of his forehead and found it drenched with beads of sweat. "I'm all right, both of you," he said, relaxing his jar. "Foot hurts like hell, that's all, but there's nothing to be done for it. It'll pass."

"I'm sorry, you guys," Astrid said as she mounted the steps with Sonia following in her shadow. Spots of dried blood speckled their faces and clothes. "This was all my fault. If I'd been paying attention, I wouldn't have driven into them like that. They might have passed us by altogether."

"It's hardly your fault, Astral," Walter told her. He shook his head and eyed the street again. "If it's anyone's fault, I'm afraid it's mine."

"Yours?" Phillip said. "Explain that, Doctor Bishop."

"You see, Agent Broyles, I've been suspecting something like this might happen for months now, even more so after the weather began to change. I should have said something sooner, but... I didn't want to alarm anyone; I might have been wrong, after all."

"What is it you think you know?" he said, leaning on the railing to take the pressure off his foot. "You have some idea where they came from?"

"Across the river most likely, either the Charles or the Mystic or both. Probably both."

"Across the river...?" Sonia started. "But the bridges were all closed off, or just flat out destroyed so that couldn't happen. I heard them talking about it on the news, right before the news went off the air. How could they..." She fell silent, eyes widening. "The rivers froze over when temperatures plummeted. Oh my god..."

"Didn't you guys say there were a lot of them trapped downtown?" Dunham's sister asked in a tone laced with fear. She pulled her daughter into the circle of her arms, glancing out at the street nervously.

"Thousands of them," Phillip said. "Tens of thousands." He recalled his view from the cafeteria window with the sea of dead filling the plaza below, and how ripples of movement would spread between them, like schools of fish.

"More like hundreds of thousands," Sonia corrected in a soft voice. "You couldn't see the worst of it from the Federal Building, Phillip. They were right there on the river bank. Just standing there. Like they were waiting for something."

Phillip nodded slowly. A moment of hushed silence fell between them. He hadn't seen what she had, but he had seen something even worse, up close and personal. He had seen betrayal. He had seen men he'd known—good men, or they had been, before—stab their fellows in the back over a bottle of water and Snickers bar.

"Well, what did Peter and Aunt Liv say, Astrid?" the girl spoke up suddenly.

Astrid blinked, then clapped her hands to her face. "Olivia! Crap. I forgot all about her. Yesterday she and Peter found people! I don't know how, but they overheard some men talking about some place that had power and running water. They were planning on following them today to see if they could find the place."

"Did she say where she and Peter were?" Phillip asked. His mind raced at the possibilities. Was it government? The military? Or just a gaggle of survivors like themselves? There had been talk of such places on official channels before he'd lost contact with everyone. No one had seemed to know where though.

"Did Agent Dunham mention if there were any baths at our new home?" Walter asked, rubbing his palms together. "I would so dearly love to take a bath again."

"Our new home?" Astrid snorted. "Let's not get ahead of ourselves, Walter. And you can get in line behind me for a shower. As for where they were at, I'm not sure. Somewhere west on Route 20. They'll know more when I talk to them tomorrow."

Phillip gazed out at the street beyond the fence. The truck's wheels were invisible, buried beneath mounds of dead bodies. "We should start getting the truck ready," he suggested, pushing away from the railing and testing out his weight on his bad foot. The pain was barely tolerable, and he went on through gritted teeth. "Just in case we have to leave in a hurry. And we need to clear away those bodies, or we're not going anywhere."

The trio of women exchanged silent glances, seemingly condensing an entire conversation down to a single look. Diane and her sisters had frequently done the same back in the day. He wondered absently if it was a skill all women were born with, or something picked up by their mothers, some sort of secret skill passed down through the ages.

"We'll take care of the truck, Phillip," Sonia said in a suspiciously casual tone. "Why don't you and Walter take Ella down for dinner."

At mention of food, Walter started, jerking like he'd been shocked. "Oh dear...," he muttered. "I had a batch of dough in the oven. It's undoubtedly burned to a cinder by now."

"Maybe it's still good, Walter," Ella said, taking his hand and turning him toward the door.

"Do you think so?" he replied as they disappeared inside. "I like your attitude, my dear."

Phillip let the door close behind them. Considering how frequently Walter charred his bread when he was paying attention to it, he didn't have high hopes that the bread had survived. He met Sonia's gaze. "You won't have any arguments from me. We might want to start getting our gear ready also. I can handle that, at least."

"Sir," Astrid started. "You don't have to—"

"I said I can handle it, Agent Farnsworth," he cut in. "Just... get the truck ready."

His voice might appear unduly harsh, but he wasn't an invalid, and he couldn't allow them to make him one. Not while he was still breathing, and standing on his own two feet. He glanced out at the street, over the barricade of cars at the empty university buildings beyond and felt a wave of unease pass through him. A tension in his gut. With all the snow piled around it, the barricade seemed less imposing than it had. Less of a barricade. It wasn't over. He wasn't sure what _it_ was, but similar feelings had struck him before. Usually when a situation was about to go south.

He eyed all three of the women briefly. "There may be more of them on the way," he added, turning for the door. "So be quick about it."

Dunham's sister raised her eyebrows, lips curling into a wry smile. "There's the man Liv described when she first told me about her promotion," she said with a hint of her sister's bluntness. "I was wondering when I would get to meet him."

Phillip snorted, rolling his eye toward the heavens. "I'll see you all later," he said, giving the area a final once over before heading back inside. A burst of wind washed the yard, blowing Rachel Dunham's long ponytail up in her face while icy daggers pierced the layers of his coat. He didn't envy them their task. "The temperature's dropping again," he added, shivering. "Be careful out there."

#

* * *

#

The tire tracks merged together in the distance, just before the road passed over an open bridge spanning a wide body of water. The tracks swerved around several stalled trucks blocking the right lane, then continued onward without deviation, straight into the heard of Worcester, just under a mile away, she judged. The city had no skyline to speak of, with only several office buildings that appeared over ten stories tall poking up above the horizon, and none much more than that.

Olivia lowered the binoculars. "They just keep going," she said, passing them to Peter. "Straight over that river into the city."

Peter scanned the road ahead, chewing on the inside of his cheek as he did so. "Straight into the city," he concurred after a moment. "And it's actually a lake, not a river. Lake Quinsigamond."

"Whatever...," she whispered under her breath, and rolling her eyes. Was he aware that he could be an insufferable know-it-all at times? Probably not, she decided. Most men were oblivious to their own nature. Guiltily, she shoved her sudden flare of irritation aside. It was irrational, after all; he'd meant nothing by it, and was probably unaware he'd even spoken aloud. At other times she'd found his seemingly endless fount of knowledge highly attractive. Perhaps being stuck in the truck all day had left her stir crazy. "You think they went straight through?"

Peter dropped the binoculars in his lap. "Since they turned west on the Boston Turnpike, I'd say this is where they've been heading all along. If they were going somewhere else, staying on Route 20 and going around the city would've been way faster, and probably safer, too," he added, squinting out through the windshield.

Olivia nodded, peering at the road ahead, at the sky above. Gray clouds hung low overhead, blotting out the sun. A short while ago, snow had begun to fall. White specks filled the air, flurries that melted on the windshield. The wipers thwacked back and forth slowly, clearing away their remains. On the dashboard, the outside temperature display read seventeen. It had red twenty just under an hour ago. The trend was not at all encouraging.

They had stopped in the middle of what must have once been a busy retail district. Stores and restaurants, connected plazas with tiny shop after shop surrounded them on all sides. To the left, the blue sloped roof of an I-Hop and an auto repair shop. To the right, a brick oven pizza joint and FedEx store; the sort of places one would expect to find in any small town in New England, or anywhere else for that matter.

Something moved in the corner of her eye, and she turned to find several infected wearing summer clothes coming around the side of burned-out McDonald's on her side of the truck. The snow was up to their shins, hindering their lurching footsteps as they advanced slowly toward her window.

"We have visitors," she said, taking in their numbers in a single glance. Only five, and easily taken care of between the two of them.

Peter looked over, furrowing his brow. "We should just leave them," he said with a shrug as she twisted around in her seat for the crowbar. "We'll be long gone before they get here."

Olivia shook her head. "We're not crossing that bridge, Peter. Not yet, at least. Not without doing a little surveillance first. There's no cover at all. And if I was setting up base here, I'd keep an eye out." She curled her lips into a sweet smile and met his gaze as she continued. "So, we can either take care of them now, or later, after they follow us down the street."

"Now, how can I refuse that logic?" he said. For an instant, a hunger burned in his eyes, setting her heart to racing, but then he turned away, pushing open his door.

Taking in a deep breath, she followed him out into the snow, leaving the crisp warmth of the truck behind. A hiss escaped her lips as wind stung her face and ears, and she made a mental note to find a new stocking hat sooner than later. She waited for Peter to join her with the Louisville slugger he'd nabbed from the garage of the house before they'd left that morning, then moved toward the McDonald's with him at her side.

Snow crunched softly beneath their boots. Out of habit, she dropped a hand to her pistol. It shouldn't be necessary, but its presence was still reassuring. Part of her still mourned the loss of the suppressed pistols they'd found in the Federal Building, but she couldn't exactly blame Peter for not attempting to recover them, not in the aftermath of her... explosion. She could picture herself becoming too dependent on them anyway, and as ammo was limited, perhaps it was for the best. But they would have been great for their current situation.

The infected had reached the end of the drive-thru lane, veering toward herself and Peter through a mess of abandoned cars. She caught a waft of their stench ahead of them, sweetly putrescent, like shoving her head in a coffin. From the t-shirts and shorts the bodies were draped in, they had been teenagers once upon a time. She wondered how they came to be grouped together as they were after so much time had passed, but there was no way to know. Their eyes, dully yellow, striated and bloodshot, came alive as they drew near.

Olivia circled around behind the ragtag group as they emerged from the grid of parked cars, approaching them from the rear as Peter held their attention. His baseball bat flashed in a wide arc, followed by a sickening crunch as he buried it in the first infected's forehead. For some reason the sound reminded her of stomping on a sheet of bubble wrap, a favorite activity of hers as a girl. Then there was no more time for thinking. Another dull crunch thudded in front of her, and she was on them.

The infected were oblivious of her presence behind them, and she had two of them down with a pair of quick thrusts through the base of their skulls before they could react. She ripped the crowbar free of a dead girl's head, then hooked a third with a savage overhand swing into a mop of matted black hair. The infected seemed to jerk on its feet before it muscles turned to jelly. She tore the hook free, showering blood and gore across the window of a parked car as it dropped face first on top of its companions.

"There. That wasn't so bad was it?" She lifted her gaze from the pile of bodies, and blinked. Peter was gone. Then she saw his black coat racing away from her, streaking toward the truck. Snow scattered in his wake. _What the hell is he doing?_ she thought with a frown. Then a thought struck. _Oh god, was he bitten?_ Icy fingers clamped around her heart and began to squeeze. "Peter...?" she called after him. "Peter!"

"Olivia!" he shouted hoarsely, throwing a glance over his shoulder. "C'mon!"

The panic in his voice was bewildering. Olivia searched around for its source, and then saw it. Her eyes bulged in surprise. Lumbering toward them through the snow was a battered blue pickup truck. They were caught, out in the open with no place or time to hide. The icy grip around her heart relaxed, but was replaced instantly by a deep dread that settled in the bottom her gut. Putting her fear aside, she leapt over the pile of bodies and charged across the parking lot.

When she reached the truck, Peter was half inside one of the rear doors, reaching for one of the assault rifles sitting across the back seat. She tossed the crowbar in and yanked her sidearm free, eying the approaching truck. Behind the windshield wipers swinging back and forth were a pair of human-shaped silhouettes in the front seat. The truck came closer, moving slowly, almost carefully. She could hear it now, the low rumble of its engine.

"Find some cover, Olivia," Peter said harshly as he emerged from the truck with one of the M-4s, equipped with a short range scope mounted on its rails. "We can't be too careful."

He raised it to his shoulder, taking careful aim. As he did so, the oncoming truck skidded to a stop, pushing an avalanche of snow ahead of it. It came to stop less than block away, close enough for Olivia to make out its rams head hood ornament. The dark shapes inside the cab began to move, with sharp gestures reminiscent of an argument.

Olivia hesitated. There was something odd about the shadows moving inside the other truck. Between the figures in the driver and passenger seat, was something smaller, a dark shape with indistinct lines. The shape moved, turned its head. Three people. She inhaled sharply, cold air filled her lungs. "Lower your gun, Peter," she said softly, letting her pistol fall back into its holster.

"What...?" Peter's brow furrowed in confusion as he glanced between her and the truck. "Olivia we don't know who they are or what they want."

"They have a child with them," she said, capturing his gaze. "A child, Peter. Don't get rid of the gun, just lower it. I don't want to scare them."

"You're worried about us scaring them?" he muttered, but complied with her order, letting the rifle barrel dip toward the ground.

"Just stay ready and cover me if you see anything out of place," she told him, then stepped out into the open, away from the cover of their truck. Raising both hands, she stared in through the windshield, focusing on the silhouette in the driver's seat.

A moment later, the blue truck's passenger door swung open with a groan, and woman stepped out into the snow. She was black, with long straight hair held back in a thick ponytail and wearing a weather-beaten brown coat with a furred hood and blue jeans with a hole in the right knee. Flurries of snow fell between them, obscuring the woman's features. She appeared unarmed, though it was not a certainty. The driver, who remained a blur behind the windshield could have a gun trained on her at that moment. Olivia prayed Peter was faster if it went south. She took a step forward, keeping her hands raised, palms flat and open.

A fierce whisper followed behind her. "Be careful, Olivia."

"Follow my lead," she replied back, keeping her gaze on the other woman.

She took another step forward, and the woman moved also, hesitantly. Olivia noticed a bulge in her coat and revised her opinion. So she wasn't unarmed, after all. Peter's gaze boring into her back was comforting. He would cover her retreat, if necessary. She prayed it wasn't. The woman paused, glancing back at her truck and shaking her head slightly before starting forward again through the snow.

The other woman's face was clear now through the parting snowfall. She was older, perhaps in her late forties or early fifties, that much was clear as the distance between them narrowed. They came to a stop, not quite within arm's reach of each other, puffs of breath rising between them. The stranger's eyes were the color of brown satin. Within them were horrors witnessed, atrocities lived through, and uncertainty. But there was also a kind of strength, of will and character. She was a survivor. The woman's wide nose was pitted with dark spots, flaring in and out as they regarded each other in silence.

Olivia spoke first. "Hi there," she said. "I'm...sorry if we startled you. You can't be too safe these days, you know?"

The black woman stared back silently for a heartbeat, then seemed to relax inside herself, shoulders slumping wearily. "You ain't kidding, honey," she said, and her smile brought her face to life. "Not in these days of revelation, anyway, when creatures of the night walk the earth, dead and alive." Her voice was a trumpet, clear and high-pitched, with more than a hint of southern twang no doubt refined in her youth somewhere in the deep South. The woman squinted over Olivia's shoulder at Peter, who was hopefully not making any threatening moves; he could appear quite menacing when his dander was up. "We saw you puttin' those down that needed killing," she continued, "and would've even offered to help, but it looked like you two had things well in hand. That your man back there?"

Olivia blinked at the directness of the question, and the hint of ownership it implied. She had never thought of him that way, not precisely. She supposed it fit as well as anything. "He is," she replied with a nod, and at the same time wondered with some amusement what Peter would think of the question and her answer. It was probably better he hadn't heard.

"My, did he give us a fright, what with all his runnin' for his rifle. For a second I thought he was about to open fire, but I guess it's like you said; you can't be too safe these days. To be sure, we've certainly encountered our share of trouble."

"I'm sorry about that," Olivia said. "Some of the other survivors we've come across... well, they haven't been too interested in talking." She held out her hand. "I'm Olivia."

The woman's smile widened. "And I'm Charlene." She stepped closer, completing the handshake. Her grip was firm and unwavering. "My mother's name was Olivia, God bless her soul. I choose to take it as a sign."

A sign of what, she didn't elaborate, as the plodding crunch of footsteps announced Peter's arrival on the scene. He stopped beside Olivia, rifle hooked over his forearm, barrel slouched toward the ground and fingers far away from the trigger. The woman named Charlene's gaze shifted toward him, and Olivia grinned faintly at her blatant appraisal.

"Well now," she said, looking Peter up and down. "Aren't you a sight for these eyes?"

Peter flashed her a grin and took the woman's proffered hand. "Peter King," he voiced without hesitation. "Nice to meet a friendly face for once."

"Charlene Watson," Charlene replied, then peered at him curiously. "King, eh? Any relation to the former congressman of New York of the same name?"

Peter snorted, as if he'd heard the question a thousand times. Olivia watched him closely, seeing hints of the other Peter Bishop emerging, the man she'd met in Iraq. He was smooth, a natural at this sort of subterfuge. "No ma'am," he said with an affable shake of his head. "Just an unfortunate coincidence on my end. I tell you, it's been a curse."

Charlene's eye lit up, dancing with mirth. "Oh, I like him already," she said, meeting Olivia's gaze. "He's a funny one, isn't he?"

"He certainly likes to think so," Olivia murmured. She kept her face clean of surprise. King? She hadn't offered her full name, but had seen no reason to hide her identity.

The woman glanced between them. "You two from around here?" she questioned. "Or are you on your way to the sanctuary, too? We've been following the signs down from Peterborough. I tell you, it's good to see God-fearing people again. I was starting to think they might have left this world behind."

Signs? Olivia exchanged an uneasy glance with Peter. "Did you say a... sanctuary?"

Behind the southerner, the blue Dodge's driver's door swung open with a creak of un-oiled hinges. A man in a tan coat climbed out into the cold. He was younger, perhaps in his early twenties, with a head covered in short, spiky black hair. From the shape of his wide nose and tilt around his dark eyes—which were staring at her and Peter with mistrust—he was a close relative to the woman. A son? He turned back to the truck and reached inside for a young girl with black hair curlier than Astrid's. The girl threw her arms about his neck, settling into the protective circle of his arms.

"Christopher!" Charlene whipped her head around, waving her hand. "Come meet our new friends, son."

The young man stomped toward them with the girl, who twisted around in his arms to watch. She took a brief look at them before burying her face in the collar of his coat. Olivia's eyes dipped to an absurdly large revolver hanging low in his hip like an old gunfighter out of the Old West. She wondered if he knew how to use it. He came to a stop beside his mother, and the young girl—near Ella's age, or close enough—leapt into her arms.

"This is my family," Charlene said. "Or what's left of it, at least. This is my boy, Christopher, and the little one is Gina. She's a bit on the shy side these day, though it wasn't always so, was it? Say hi, sugar." The little girl shook her head and refused to look at either Olivia or Peter. "Well, you can't say I didn't try," she sighed.

"Nice to meet you, Christopher." Peter offered his hand. "I'm Peter."

The younger man took the hand grudgingly. "Just Chris," he said in a voice that was still stiff with suspicion.

"And the pretty one's name is Olivia," Charlene told her son. "Just like your Gram's."

"So you're from Peterborough?" Peter asked. "Up in New Hampshire? What's it like up there? Was it just you guys alone?"

The mother and son's faces tightened, eyes filling with remnants of memories best left forgotten. The older woman's shoulder slumped. "We don't talk about it much anymore," she said. Her voice shook as she told her story. "There was a group of us, about twenty in all, holed up on a farm outside of town. It was a nice place, tall fence and big house with plenty of room. And even some commercial greenhouses we could use most of the year... but that's all ended now."

Olivia nodded slowly. "What happened? If...you don't mind my asking."

Charlene sighed. "Few weeks ago, the dead ones came in the night, in numbers. More than I've ever seen. Must've been ten thousand if it wasn't a hundred. They came out of nowhere, and somehow they got inside the fence. All I can think of was that somebody left the gate open."

"The gate was shut, Mom," her son grated. From the fury in his voice, it was an old argument between them. His eyes glistened with anger and tears, and he wiped them away with this sleeve. "I saw it closed from my window, me and Shawna both saw it."

"Well it hardly matters now, does it? Once the dead got inside, it was over. Me and my boy here, and little Gina, we're the only ones that made it out, and just barely at that. We lost a lot of friends, loved ones. Since then we've been heading south."

"Have you met any other people besides us?" Peter said.

The woman's eyes hardened into granite. "None that I want to speak of. Suffice to say you're the first we've come across that weren't animals since we started south."

Olivia sensed there were entire volumes left unsaid in her explanation, but left the subject alone. "Before, you mentioned something about a... a sanctuary? Do you think it's nearby? And how did you hear about it?"

"There was a man. Showed up at our gate about a month and half ago." Charlie replied, shifting her grip on the little girl. "He said he'd heard of a place of sanctuary, of safety. A refuge with power and lights, running water, just like things used to be. That to find it, you had to go south. There would be a sign in the sky. He'd thought it might be our group, I guess, but we didn't have no power or running water or signs shinin' in the sky."

"You got that right," Christopher muttered.

"So after the farm we've been making our way south, the way the fella said we should go, keeping our eyes on the heavens. Two nights ago, we saw it, though we was miles away, and then again last night. Y'all see the light too? That why you're here?"

Olivia spoke up before Peter could, shaking her head. "We haven't seen anything. What kind of light was it?"

"The light of our Lord God, of course," Charlene said firmly and without hesitation. "A pillar of fire by night from the heavens to lead the way to the promised land."

Was she being serious? Olivia blinked at the odd statement, unsure of how to respond.

"The light of...God?" Peter uttered after a heartbeat of silence.

"It wasn't no pillar of fire," Christopher said with a snort and rolled his eyes. "It looked like one them theater spotlights, only way bigger."

"You mean a searchlight?"

"Yeah, a search light. It blinked a few times, then turned off, then come on again. Went on for about an hour. But we saw it. Came from this way."

"Where'd you all come from if you didn't come for the Lord?" Charlene asked, glancing between them. "Just passin' though?"

"We came from back east," Olivia replied cautiously. "Near Boston."

"Near Boston?" Charlene's eyes widened into saucers. "We thought the city was gone, bombed to hell and back and near burned to the ground. We had a guy in our group who made it out. Before everything stopped working, the radio said to stay away from all the big cities, that they were thicker than snot with the dead ones. How close were you?"

"We came from Brighton," she said. Peter shifted beside her, but remained silent.

"Brighton." The woman's eyes pushed together. "That south of the city?"

"More west."

"And it's just you two?"

"There's a few other's in our group," Olivia said vaguely. "We're getting low on food though. That's why Peter and I left, to see what it was like on the outside."

Charlene nodded. "Yeah, I can see that. You both look like you've seen hard times. Hunting's good out this way, even better now that there ain't no people around. I imagine there's not much in the way of God's creatures in close to the city." She shook her head. "You should have left it behind long ago." She glanced at her son, then back to them. "Why don't you two come with us?"

"Oh. We couldn't possibly," Olivia said quickly. "We still have to get back to our people, and...to be honest, I'm not quite ready to join up with another group just yet. But good luck, though."

The woman's eyebrows climbed to her forehead. "You sure? I'm sure you'd be more than welcome, the rest of your group, too. I have a knack for these things, you see. Y'all are good people. I can see that at a glance."

Olivia gave her a noncommittal smile. It wasn't that she didn't trust them; she didn't trust _anyone_. Not on a rumor, and not after the story they'd told about the fate of their farm, _after_ they'd been visited by a stranger. The story felt off to her, set off alarms in her head.

"We're sure," Peter said, and pulled Olivia in close with an arm about her waist. "You guys go on ahead. Maybe we'll see each other again."

Charlene lifted her shoulders. "Well, I tried. But I can't see there's no convincing you. So suit yourselves then, and we wish y'all the best of luck." Her son gave them both a nod older than his years, then turned and strode back to the truck." Charlene started to follow, then looked back at them with a smile. "It's good to see some things haven't changed. Not many husbands and wives left in this world. You all take care of each other." Without another word, she turned and slogged back to the truck.

"Husband and wife?" Peter whispered as the woman named Charlene handed off the little girl to her waiting son, then climbed in after them. "Why didn't you say something?"

Doors groaned and slammed shut, and a moment later, the truck was on the move. The woman waved and smiled at them through the window as it passed them by. The blue Dodge swerved around the still idling SUV, then continued onward, heading for the bridge over the lake.

"I didn't want to disappoint her. And it seemed easier not to." She glanced at Peter, lifting an eyebrow. "Why? You got a problem with that, Bishop?"

Peter chuckled and grinned crookedly. "Never been married before. How was the proposal?"

"Completely over the top and unoriginal," Olivia deadpanned, matching his grin. "I'm not sure what possessed me to say yes."

The blue truck was nearly over the bridge. At some point during their meeting with the strangers, the flurries had become their larger counterparts, thick and fluffy like cottonballs, and the truck soon disappeared into a swirling vortex of white.

"What did you think of their story?" she asked on the way back to their truck.

"I'd say it was true, or at least she thinks it is. Some of it though...," Peter paused, shaking his head. "A guy shows up out of the blue, and not long after he leaves, their safehouse is overrun. I'm no crack FBI Agent like yourself, but commercial greenhouses? Sounds like a good motive to me."

Olivia pulled open her door and shook the snow out of her hair as Peter tossed the assault rifle in the back seat. "Could be," she said, sliding into the passenger seat and slamming the door closed behind her. "But it's just conjecture, circumstantial at best." She held her fingers up to the vent, relishing the hot stream of air. "Why did you give her an alias?"

Peter shrugged, fingering his beard. "Habit, I guess. Too many people know the name Bishop, and if they do find this place, who knows who they'll be talking too." He gave her a look. "I don't remember seeing any lights in the sky last night. Do you?"

"Lights in the sky?" She met his gaze, lips curling faintly. "No. But then I had other things on my mind last night. Didn't you?"

For an instant, his eyes smoldered in remembrance. "You might say that." He grinned, showing her all his teeth. "Where to, Mrs. Bishop?"

Olivia snorted, then arched an eyebrow. "Bishop? Nope, I kept my name. Made for less paperwork at work."

Peter winced and she laughed out loud at his wounded look, then reached for his hand and gripped it tightly. They would never know what may or may not have happened between them, if not for the apocalypse, if not for John's death. Maybe it would have been nothing, and she would have stayed with John. Or perhaps she might have met someone new, outside of work—though the chances of that seemed slimmer than none—or ended up with no one at all, the possibilities were limitless, but in this here and now, he belonged with her. "So maybe I added a hyphen," she added softly.

Her heart fluttered at the raw emotion burning in his gaze. She longed to pull him into her arms, to taste his lips again, but forced herself to look away before the moment could turn into something more. It wasn't the time or the place. _Stay focused, Olivia. There's plenty of time for that later._ Taking in a deep breath, she pulled away from him.

Snow fell in thick swirls ahead of them, obscuring the far side of the lake in the distance, and what little there was to see of the Worcester skyline. Her internal clock predicted it would be dark in a few hours. And then they would see what there was to see.

"C'mon. We need a place with a good view of the lake, with cover."

"Another stake out?" Peter said.

Olivia chuckled at the wariness in his voice. "Don't worry, Bishop, I promise there won't be any frozen lakes for you to fall into this time."


	22. The Kirkbride Plan

**-January 2009**

The house was an old cottage with white wooden siding. It was dreary with age, and had a tall angled tin roof topped by a twirling wind vane. More importantly, the cottage had a chimney. Across the street from the cottage was an apartment building of brick and glass. Sleek and modern, the apartment building appeared to have been a recent development compared to the structures surrounding it, but had suffered a far worse fate. Nearly one half of the building was charred black by smoke and fire damage, and what remained was open to the weather, glass entrance door and windows shattered and gaping. If anything, Olivia suspected, its contemporary newness was what had made it stand out as a target for looting.

She looked away from the burned apartment building, eyeing the cottage's chimney. They might need its warmth yet, if they stayed the night outside of Worcester instead of heading back to the house near Marlborough. The decision would be made for her by whatever happened in the span of time between.

Undisturbed snow covered the tiny front yard and the sidewalk up to the front door. She glanced up the cottage itself, through curtained windows parted to reveal a shadowed dining room of high-backed chairs. Something told her the house was empty, though describing how she knew that would have been like describing a particular color, or the taste of fresh air, or love felt. They defied description—or they had none that made sense to any but to the observer.

"You ready, Liv?" Peter asked, coming around the rear of the truck to join her.

"Yep. We may be staying here tonight. Maybe. I haven't decided yet."

Frowning up at the cottage, Peter shrugged. "It's got a fireplace," he said. "And at the moment, that's pretty much my only requirement for a living space."

Without any further discussion they started southward, back toward the main road for a short while before turning westward toward the lake, making use of a narrow alley Olivia had spotted as they had driven past. Running parallel to Route 9—also known as the Boston Turnpike—the alley ran behind a row businesses, all the while descending gradually toward the lake shore beyond a line of tall, skeletal trees. A covered walkway on the corner as they turned down the alley led up to an abandoned dental practice, which Olivia noted as a possible source of medication as they passed it by. Then came a vacant parking lot on their left, beyond which was the rear of the McDonald's where they had taken out the infected teenagers, and the woman named Charlene Watson and her family had appeared out of nowhere. The otherwise pristine layer of snow covering the parking lot was pocked by footprints leading from the former fast-food joint, over the curb into the lot, then turning south down the alley ahead of them until they reached the next street and disappeared. A drab housing complex that had seen better days rose up on the other side of an overgrown chain-link fence to their right. More infected walked the complex's grounds, but they were oblivious to her and Peter's passage.

Did the snowfall affect their perception? Or was it the line of brush, thin as it was? Suddenly Olivia recalled being in the rain with Charlie, hiding beneath a truck as infected had filed past on either side while rain thundered down, having similar thoughts. It had been a simpler time, if living on after the fall of civilization could ever be called simple. Part of her longed for those days, just as she longed for Charlie to still be alive, to still be her friend. It had been the same day that John had died, throat ripped open by an infected old enough to be his mother. It struck her that she rarely thought of him anymore, rarely missed him. She could remember her feelings for him though, could remember thinking that she might love him. But they felt like someone else's memories, someone else's thoughts. Was that awful of her? His final words still haunted her, all too like an admission of some kind, in hindsight. What had he been trying to tell her? Was it something to do with the infection? With strangeness surrounding Agent Rodriguez? Or something completely unrelated? Not knowing—and knowing that she would never know—was infuriating.

Irritated with the direction of her thoughts, she ground her teeth together and stared up toward the clouds overhead, with not a hint of pale sunlight behind the gray veil. Despite her wishes otherwise, snow continued to fall. It was not so deep as it had been back Cambridge, but that could change quickly, and would, if it didn't let up soon. The tracks of the infected were filling in, slowly but surely. Winter couldn't end soon enough.

Her internal clock chimed in with the hour; sunset would be upon them soon, no more than an hour or two away. She glanced at Peter, striding stolidly beside her. Snowflakes were collecting in his hair, growing curly in its wild length. He was in dire need of a haircut, she noticed. Reaching up, she adjusted the stocking hat on her head absently. Despite her insistence that he wear it—it was his, after all—he'd left it on the driver's seat when she'd refused to take it from his hand. And the man had the gall to call _her_ the stubborn one! The hat was warm though, warmer than her beanie had been. Still, she was determined to return it to him just as soon as she found another.

She snuck another glance at the man beside her, heart swelling in her chest. He had started out as an irritant, a sharp thorn in her side. And then that irritation had turned into friendship, once she'd gotten to know him better—once he'd let her inside his walls—before finally blossoming into something more, something she was in desperate need of. Every once in a while, his jaw clenched, then relaxed, then clenched again.

He was thinking of his father, she was sure of it. There was little in Peter's life that angered him more than Walter and she supposed it had always been that way, hence their dysfunctional relationship. She shivered as an image of Peter holding a gun to his father's head formed in her mind. Some things should never go together.

Despite doing her best to not think about what had been done to her, the subject kept cropping up in the back of her mind, unbidden. Not thinking about it was as impossible as not breathing. How could her father have allowed it? To his own daughter? Olivia had tried to imagine a scenario, some version of events where he didn't know, where her father was unaware of what was happening at this supposed day care center, but it was equally impossible. Walter and William Bell could not have done what they'd done without some form of parent approval; for it to be otherwise was unthinkable, in her mind. Children talked, to each other, to teachers, and especially to their parents; at least one of them would have given it all away, and Walter and Bell would have been put behind bars long ago. Wouldn't they? Her father at the very least, had known. Her mother's culpability was more nebulous, though given her track record with asshole number two, it certainly wasn't out of the question.

A change in Peter's long strides drew her from the darkness of her thoughts and back to the present. They had reached the point where the infecteds' tracks crossed into the parking lot behind the McDonalds. Where had they come from? Retracing their steps, she thought for a moment that their stink still lingered in the air, but surely that was her imagination. The trail of footprints led past the dingy apartment building, then continued on down the hill to a row of homes that were little more than shanties backing up to the shoreline.

"Did that really happen back there?" she said, breaking the silence.

Peter looked her way, brow furrowed. "Did what happen?"

"That woman. Charlene Watson, and her family. Just showing up like that out of the blue. How long do you think they were following us?"

"So you think it was a setup?" He straightened, shifting his grip on the assault rifle and casting darting glances all around.

Olivia laid a hand on his arm, shaking her head. "No. I still think she was telling the truth, or at least she thought she was. It was just... strange timing, that's all."

Peter grunted. "There's a lot of that going around these days," he muttered, then raised his hand, pointing southwest across several more vacant parking lots. "What about that over there? Looks like a restaurant. I bet it's got a nice view across the lake, and it's elevated."

The building was a dark maroon structure, with a tall, pyramid-shaped roof wreathed in a thin layer of snow over black shingles and punctured by a plethora of exhaust vents. Green and white striped awnings hung low over each window, and unreadable lettering in red was mounted above a wide entrance facing east, also covered by an awning. It would do.

Crossing over patchwork stretches of asphalt and gravel beneath the snow, they trudged up an incline to the building. The red lettering above the entrance resolved into a name as they crossed into the parking lot. _Karma._ Peter frowned up at the sign as they stopped beneath it.

"What? Were you expecting something different?" Olivia said.

"I don't know. Maybe." He eyed the sign for another heartbeat, then shrugged and reached for the door handle.

The door swung open without a squeak, and Olivia followed him inside. Beyond was a tiny vestibule with another glass door, and then a wide open space filled with a mess of overturned tables and chairs surrounding a rectangular bar. Behind the bar top were remnants of shattered mirrors and shelves of glass canting downward, empty of their burdens. Directly to the right of the entrance was a short corridor with red-painted walls and a pair of restrooms, and then a stairwell to the floor above.

"You sure you weren't expecting a bar?" she asked as Peter directed the thin beam of his pen light around the darkened interior. "Cause this is definitely a bar."

"Scout's honor," he said with a straight face. "I could have sworn it was an Italian joint."

Olivia let out a low chuckle. "Sure you did," she murmured, moving further inside.

They made a sweep of the lower level, including a kitchen barren of anything even remotely edible. Upstairs was another space similar to the space below, the differences being the location of the bar—a great wooden monstrosity running the length of one wall—and a tiled area that must have been a dance floor prior to the world's end, along with a grid of green-topped pool tables in the back corner.

A pair of bodies lay sprawled among a jumble of upset tables and chairs. Olivia only spared them a passing glance and the nudge of her foot. They were truly dead, not infected, and of no interest to her either way. What did interest her was the wide window that ran the length of the far wall. The window faced the lake, and had a clear view of Worcester beyond.

It was perfect.

Olivia slung her backpack onto an empty table. Some were still laden with plates and glasses, dinners partially eaten, long since decayed to nothing or devoured by rodents. There was no point in waiting. Reaching inside for the binoculars, she glanced back in time to see Peter ducking beneath the wide bar's countertop. Her lips curled into a grin. Considering the state of the kitchen, it seemed unlikely that there was any alcohol still available, but he was certainly welcome to look; a bottle of whiskey was perfect for a stakeout in the cold. Turning back to the window, she lifted the binoculars.

The view across the lake was serene and unthreatening. An ice shelf creeping out over the water ended abruptly in a sinuous drop off for the daring, or the unwary. Sparse copses of evergreens populated the far shore, along with a wide quay of concrete and wooden dock after dock jutting out into water. Beaches of rock and sand filled the spaces between, before giving way to a solid line of trees hugging the shore as it wound its way northward. Beyond the shoreline was an incline topped with a smattering of squat office buildings. She read the lettering atop of the tallest and her eyebrows lifted. They weren't office buildings at all, but hospitals, a medical school. Had it been ground zero for an outbreak here also?

She scanned to the left, over the Route 9 bridge. There was no sign of the blue Dodge, but its tracks were still visible, though they wouldn't be for much longer with the falling snow. They continued straight down the main road before disappearing over a rise into the heart of Worcester. On the other side of the bridge to the south, tall apartment buildings sat near the shore. Eastward facing balconies overlooked the lake. Black smears marred the exterior where old fires had shot through gaping windows to scorch the masonry. On one of balconies, movement caught her eye. Inside the vertical bars of the banister, she saw a ragged figure pawing at a closed sliding glass door. She inhaled sharply.

It was a child. A girl, from the mop of its flowing black hair.

"Fuck...," Olivia whispered aloud, mind recoiling in horror. How long had it been standing there like that, scratching at the glass like a cat wanting entrance? Since the beginning? How had it come to be there? Several possible scenarios presented themselves and all of them were appalling.

Deep in the recesses of her mind, something red began to grow and pulse, bursting with life. It had to stop. Someone had to end it, to fix it. No matter the cost to herself; that was what she'd told herself before, when she'd decided to accept that she might just be a freak. That the abilities emerging from somewhere inside her mind had been forced upon her made no difference. She could do more than the half-effort she'd given so far. Much more. No matter the cost.

"Peter," she said, lowering the binoculars.

When he didn't answer, she turned around and found herself alone. It came to her that she hadn't heard him for some time. "Peter?" she called again, louder than before.

She took an uncertain step toward the stairwell. The pair of dead bodies on the floor passed through her peripheral vision, but she ignored them as she had before. Her heart began to beat faster in her chest, picking up speed like a galloping racehorse.

Then Peter's head popped up above the half-wall that served as a banister. "Hey," he said with a grin that vanished almost instantly. "What's the matter?"

Olivia let out her breath. "Nothing. Where did you go?"

Shrugging, he continued up the steps. "I was just taking another look at the kitchen. Whoever cleaned this place out, they took everything—pots, pans, hell, even the spice rack. But I did find this." Holding up an oblong glass bottle full of clear, silvery liquid and topped with a bulbous black cap, he gave her a broad smile that was all teeth. "How do you feel about tequila?"

At mention of tequila, a shiver went down her back that had nothing to with the chill air, hearkening back to an unfortunate night in her dorm room and a bottle of Jose Cuervo, illegally obtained by an older boy down the hall who'd harbored a crush on her roommate. The night had ended with her head in a toilet, and the next day wishing she were among the dead. Eyeing the silvery liquid, she wrinkled her nose in distaste. She could drink whiskey or scotch until the sun came up, but sniff of tequila sent waves of remembered nausea through her gut.

"That bad, huh?" Peter chuckled, moving past her and over to the wide bar. The glass bottle rung as he set it down. "I get it. Which was it, Montezuma, or Cuervo, that ruined tequila for you?"

"It was Cuervo," Olivia replied after a moment, then followed him over to the bar. He stepped behind it, flicking on his flashlight to scan the shelves beneath. After a moment, his eyes lit up, and he emerged with a pair of tall shot glasses and slapped them down on the bar top. She watched as he unscrewed the bottled lid, then continued. "The one with the yellow label. It was my second year at Northwestern. I don't think I've ever been so sick. To be honest, I've always been more of a whiskey girl. Or scotch. Mostly whiskey, though." She left off that whiskey had been her stepfather's drink of choice, and her first taste of alcohol had been stolen from one of his bottles when she'd been a mere eight years old.

Peter nodded as if her story made sense. He poured them each a drink, filling the shot glasses nearly to the rim. From the practiced way he moved behind the bar, it was clearly not his first time playing bartender, though she was certain it wasn't one of the listed occupations in his file.

He looked up, spinning the bottle's cap back in place. "You've been missing out then, Olivia." He carefully lifted one of the shot glasses, holding it up in the scant light. "Bottom shelf tequila, this is not, sweetheart. I found it stashed in the manager's office, in the bottom of the desk."

Olivia eyed the remaining glass skeptically, then shrugged and reached for her glass. It was alcohol, and she could certainly use a drink. The liquid inside seemed shimmery and metallic, like an alchemic potion capable of granting some dark mystery. Meeting Peter's gaze steadily, she raised the glass to her lips and swallowed it down in one gulp.

She waited for the expected peppery fire to scorch her insides—to burn her throat like acid on the way down, then sit in her gut like a ball of molten lead—but it never happened. Instead, the tequila went down smooth, like a shot of high-end scotch. There was a hint of pepper, but also something sweet and tangy, almost fruity. It was, she decided as she set the shot glass down on the bar top, delicious. He was right, she had indeed been missing out.

"That's my girl," Peter said, showing all of his teeth. Tilting his head back, he gulped down his own shot, then poured them each another.

The second shot went down just as smoothly as the first. Olivia felt a warm glow spreading through her belly, out into her limbs. The room began to spin slightly, undulating beneath her feet. Sadly, it seemed her tolerance had left her completely.

Olivia wandered back over to the window and Peter followed, setting the tequila down on a nearby table. She pulled a water bottle from her bag and took a sip, then handed it to Peter as he joined her.

"You see anything out there?" he asked, taking a pull from the water bottle.

"No. But I'm hoping we will once it gets dark."

"You think they'll turn their light on again?"

"Charlene said they'd seen it two nights in a row. If it comes on again tonight..." She fell silent. If the light came on again, they would track it down and see what there was to see.

Her gaze was drawn to the undead girl trapped on the balcony across the lake. Without the binoculars, she had only the barest impression of something moving. But the girl was there. _Someone has to fix it, a voice spoke in the back of her mind._ It was her own.

"Tell me again how this Cortexiphan is supposed to work, Peter," she said softly, keeping her eyes on the balcony. "The part about emotions and perception. Last night I was angry and... distracted. I want to hear it again."

"You want to try right now?"

"It's as good a time as any. We've got nothing to do but wait."

"All right...," Peter said, picking up an overturned chair. He sat down next to tequila bottle, propping his boots up on the table and shoving his hands deep into his coat pockets. "The way Walter explained it—and he was half-babbling at this point, mind you—was that perception, by which I mean how we perceive the world, was reality. And for someone like you—"

"Someone who was experimented on, you mean?" she cut in, enable to stop herself, or keep the bitterness from her voice.

"...Yeah." He sighed, dropping his head in a shame before going on. "Anyway, for someone who was given this...drug, it's supposed to allow you to change your perception, not only for yourself but for other people also, and thereby—"

"And thereby change reality," Olivia finished. She rubbed at her temple where a dull ache was beginning to throb. "And how am I supposed to do this again?"

"By being in a heightened or elevated emotional state, was how he put it."

"Meaning what?"

"Meaning that some emotion, or combination of emotions is what triggers your... abilities. Or whatever you want to call them."

"But which emotions?" she said, throwing her hands up. "And how the hell am I supposed to control what emotion I'm feeling anyway? Last time I checked, it didn't work that way."

Peter reached for the bottle of tequila and stared in at the shimmering liquid as if contemplating another drink. "I don't know," he admitted. "But I don't think Walter knew, either. They were dealing with... children, after all, as disturbing as that sounds. Barely more than toddlers if you were anything to go by. They probably had a hard time explaining what they were doing and feeling, so I imagine much of the experiments were done with trial and error."

"This is so fucked up," Olivia uttered, gazing down at the smooth water on the lake below the window. "Why would they do that to children? I still don't understand that part. I was three years old in 1981. Three years old!"

"I'm sorry, Olivia," he said in a voice so soft she could barely hear him. "I'm guessing you're wishing you'd never found me back in Iraq. Ignorance is bliss, and all that."

Olivia looked up sharply. "Peter, are you the reason Walter did what he did?" she asked, crossing over to him. He climbed to his feet at her approach, setting the tequila down unopened as she continued. "You have nothing to apologize for. Your father's sins are his own."

With a sigh, he nodded reluctantly, and she moved into the circle of his arms, holding him about the waist. His solidness felt good and right. Something real and tangible, something she could hold on to.

"Do you know what the worst part is, Peter?" she whispered.

"Worse than Walter and William Bell conducting experiments on you?"

She nodded against his shoulder. "Yeah. The worst part is that my parents, at least one of them, had to have known something about the experiments, had to have allowed it to happen. They would have had to volunteer me, their own daughter. I'm guessing it was my real father, since it was on his military base."

"Oh shit...," Peter muttered, and his arms tightened about her. "I never thought about that. You're right, though. One of them more than likely would have known something."

"I've... always looked up to my real father," she told him through a lump of pain in her throat. "I'd always imagined him to be everything my stepfather wasn't: a good man. He painted the front door of our house red, just for me, even though it was against base regulations. It's one of the few memories I have of him. Now it turns out I was wrong. He and my stepfather were the same, it was just abuse of a different kind."

"Olivia, you don't know that for sure. Walter and Bell could have lied, could have told them one thing and done another. Like he did with Roy McComb."

"Maybe," she said, pulling away from him. "But I guess I'll never know, will I?"

When he didn't reply, she pulled away from him, grabbing the bottle of tequila on her way back to the window. It was cold in the former bar, and tendrils of ice gripped her fingers and toes through her gloves and boots, her ear lobes through Peter's hat. Maybe the alcohol would warm her up, dull her pain-filled thoughts and blurred memories. She unscrewed the cap and threw her head back, taking in a huge swallow that suffused her insides with pleasant heat.

Outside, the snow had tapered off, the view across the lake clear. A muted blob of light visible through the gray cloud cover sat just above the horizon to the west, above the apartment building with a dead girl trapped on a balcony. It would be dark within the hour.

Behind her came a clatter as Peter shifted the jumbled furniture about, the harsh grind of a table being pushed across the floor. Glancing back, she saw him bending over the pair of dead bodies with his tiny flashlight.

Emotions were the key. Feelings. She'd never been any good at acknowledging any of them, except anger, maybe. _How can you make yourself feel a certain way on demand?_ It was akin to trying not to think about something after being told _not_ to think about it. Nearly impossible.

"Olivia. How close did you look at these bodies?"

The shocked wariness in Peter's tone scattered thoughts of emotions and feelings to the wind. "Not closely at all," she said, turning from the window. He was standing over them, features cast in shadow. But his voice—there'd been something in it she'd never heard before. Her pulse quickened. "I just made sure they were all the way dead. Why? What is it?"

"I...," he started, then stopped, scrubbing his hand through his hair and down the back of his neck. When he finally continued, his voice was hoarse, and current of fear went down her spine. "I'm not sure they're human... or ever were."

#

* * *

#

Huddled deep inside the warmth of his blankets, Phillip Broyles jerked in his sleep. For an instant, he was caught in the middle, hovering in blind confusion on the edge of a dream where creeping horrors slithered toward him in the Federal Building cafeteria. But then the lumps of his mattress intruded, the chill in the air and the weight of his covers across his chest. And then he crossed over, carried out of the dream and back into the waking world.

His eyes snapped open. Near pitch blackness surrounded him. From his spot on the floor near the old furnace, he searched around for the source of his abrupt awakening, but nothing was readily apparent. The pale luminescence outside through the windows set high on two of the four walls, told him it was late, but far too early for the morning sun to make an appearance. And from the amount of fog inside his head, he suspected he hadn't been asleep long, perhaps an hour or two at best. The lab's atmosphere was a pungent mix of burning wood and old ash inside the metal bucket not far away from his pillow.

Sitting up with a yawn, he looked around. Something had woken him, yet nothing seemed out of place. Faint pops from inside the furnace announced its continued survival; close to two days straight. It was a record. Around him in the darkness, inhales and exhales cut through the stillness. From the girl and her mother lying huddled not far away on his left, and from Astrid and Sonia beyond them, though other than the darker shapes of their blankets against concrete floor the two women were mostly invisible in the dimness. Walter's sawtooth snores echoed from the far side of the furnace where he slept alone. No one was willing to get any closer to him than they must, though it seemed distance hardly mattered. Every so often, the old scientist would let out a blast of harsh coughs that would echo throughout the cavernous lab. Perhaps one of them was the source of his slumber's discontent.

There came another flurry of snaps and pops, louder than before. He peered at the furnace's hulking shape, then tossed his blankets aside. As long has he was awake he might as well throw more logs on the fire. He slipped on his boots and staggered to his feet, ankle throbbing with the heat of the sun. With some effort, he managed to make his way over to their dwindling supply of chopped up classroom furniture using nearby stools and countertops as a crutch. Grabbing a few lengths of wood, he gingerly opened the furnace door with a rag and squinted inside, angling his face away from an intense blast of heat.

The pile of smoldering wood was noticeably smaller than when they'd gone to bed, but flames still flickered far to the back. For some reason the heat pouring out of the furnace reminded him of 1987, of his midnight '77 Chevelle, and cruising Route 66. He'd been on his on his honeymoon with Diane. Feeling adventurous—or he had, at least—they had turned north into Nevada and then west into California, intending to make a one-way trek across Death Valley. The old car's air conditioning had given out before long and they'd both been sweating buckets even with the windows rolled down. And then they'd nearly run out of gas, rolling into a dusty service station with the hefty V8 gasping its last hiccups. His new wife had been far from amused, and when the honeymoon was over, the Chevelle had borne the brunt of her wrath.

With a grimace, Phillip forced the memories away and tossed the wood inside the furnace, shoving it as far back as he could manage without singing his fingers. The iron door clanged when he swung it shut, though none of the sleeping figures all around him appeared to notice.

He limped back over to his mattress. As he went to sit down, a sharp pressure building in his bladder made itself apparent. Straightening with a sigh, he glanced at the veiled shadows where the steps led up to the outside corridor and imagined the long, painful walk down the hall to the bucket that served as his chamber pot.

"Damn it," he muttered under his breath. And there was no way he could hold it all night, either.

Phillip turned to begin his long trek, then hesitated, catching sight of the lab's back door. The dark smear of black stood out in the grayish light, calling out to him enticingly. He considered for a moment, and then ignored his ankle's protest and hobbled toward the much closer alternative. He moved deliberately, careful not to wake anyone with an errant bump into Walter's lab equipment or by tripping over a stool or something as equally unpleasant.

A feathery draft of cold air caressed his cheek as he drew near back door. Suddenly uneasy, he became aware of a faint, door-shaped outline in front of him. The door was open. It should have been closed—it had been closed when they'd bedded down for the night. He had checked it himself. But somehow it was open now.

Swallowing, he hurriedly grabbed a pistol and a flashlight off the weapon table, then rushed back to the door as quickly as he could manage. As he reached for the handle, he noticed a block of wood propping the door open. Frowning, he pressed his ear to the gap between door and frame and listened.

Wind was gusting across Harvard Yard. Tree limbs creaked in the distance, rubbing back and forth under insistent pressure. And there was something else, something human: a hoarse choke, the sound of retching, followed by a feminine groan and a low cough. Phillip pulled away from the door, eyes narrowing. One of the women was sick. He peered over at the sleeping bodies but found it impossible to tell who was missing from their bed in the pervading gloom. Though it was certainly either Astrid or Sonia. Outside, there were more sounds of retching, dry heaves from their grittiness.

He pushed open the door and stepped outside. His boots sank into a top layer of powdery snow, then crunched through an older layer beneath. Shivering, he winced at a fetid gust of wind rushing out of the northeast. Overhead, the night sky was a sea of stars streaked with the occasional string of clouds stretched out like thin wisps of cotton. To his right was a waist-high snowdrift, resting against the building. He swung the door all the way open and saw a figure draped in a blanket to his left, bent over, holding her knees. She spit out a mouthful of what could only be bile as the sour tang of vomit burned in his nose.

"You okay out here?" he said, holding the door open with his elbow and thumbing on the flashlight.

The woman started at his voice, nearly falling forward on her face in surprise. "Gah!" she gasped, and caught herself at the last moment. The voice belonged to Sonia, and her face was confirmation when she turned to look back him with her slightly tilted eyes. "You scared the holy bejeezus out of me, Phillip."

"I'm sorry, it wasn't my intention to startle you," he said, holding up his hand and turning off the flashlight. She straightened, gripping her stomach. At her feet was a pinkish-colored stain of vomit in the snow, already melting in. "You sick? Was it something you ate?"

"I... I don't know," Sonia rasped, panting. Her face was pale as he stepped closer. "I don't feel bad, not exactly. I just... suddenly really had to puke."

Her words sparked a memory, bringing it to the forefront in an instant. Suddenly Phillip was somewhere else, long ago, where another vomiting woman had just told him the same thing, nearly word for word. She was in the bathroom, hunched over the toilet and wearing nothing but a sheer nightdress of pale white, with spaghetti thin straps hanging loose over her ebony shoulders.

_Is it morning sickness? I didn't think you got that in your family..._

_My mother didn't, both my sisters didn't. I guess that makes me the exception. If it keeps on, this baby's gonna be the death of me. I hope you're happy, cause you did this to me..._

Phillip blinked and looked Sonia over again, more carefully. She certainly didn't appear any different, but then she might not yet for months. "This ever happened before? Recently?"

She shook her head and spat again in the snow. "No, it just came out of nowhere. You think it was something I ate? How are you feeling? Your stomach okay? I had the beans and canned corn." She was talking in a rush, a constant stream of words one after another, and he wondered if some part of her had already sensed what might be happening. "It's funny, I feel okay, now, although the thought of eating anymore beans makes me want to kill myself."

Wetting his lips, he prayed he was wrong. "I feel fine, I had the beans and corn, too," he replied slowly, then hesitated before plunging onward. "Sonia, do you mind if I ask you a... personal question?"

Sonia frowned, eyes narrowing to slits. "Sure. I guess. What about?"

"...How long has it been since you had your last period?"

Her face went still, lips parted into a circle of confusion. "My... my period?" she said in a stammer. From the bewilderment in her tone, it was clear she wasn't getting his line of questioning. But then an instant later she did, and her face went slack, eyes filling with fear. "My period. I'm not sure. I don't... I don't remember. I mean it's been, uh... a couple of weeks? Maybe?" Then her eyes widened all the way and she stared up at the night. "No. That's wrong. It was longer than that, before Charlie died. I remember cause we... we... Oh god. Oh my god," she whispered, putting a quaking hand to her mouth. "What am I gonna do? I can't be pregnant, not right now, not with world like this." Tears began tumbling down cheeks pulled tight with horror.

"You don't know for sure, Sonia," Phillip said quickly, trying to calm her. "It may be something else. Maybe you are just sick. Were you and Charlie always... safe?"

She wiped her eyes and nodded. "I... I was on the pill. Olivia and I always check for them when we're in a pharmacy. Or at least, I did check for them."

"Do you recall missing any days? Forget to take one, ever that you can remember?"

"Missing any days? I... I don't know. I don't remember. When we were downtown, it was a pretty hectic few days. It's possible I forgot." Her voice picked up speed again, bordering on hysteria. "But if I had, I would have made it up, taken an extra. That's what I've always done. That's how it works, right? Isn't it?"

She was asking him? Phillip rubbed the back of his hand over the crown of his head. He opened his mouth to suggest they head back inside, but then something moved inside the building's shadow directly behind her. He squinted over her shoulder and saw a black shadow moving against the background of white.

Letting go of the door, he brought his gun up, flicking on the flashlight in the same motion. Doing so was pure muscle-memory, with reflexes as quick as they'd always been. The door thudded shut behind him. "Watch out!" he said harshly, ignoring the lance of pain that shot up his leg he shoved her to the side.

An infected dressed in full military gear—minus a helmet—lurched forward into the white beam of his light. Its face was gray and mottled, eyes golden and aware. Firing once, he put a bullet through its forehead, and the dead soldier flopped face down in the snow. The gunshot reverberated across the yard, through the nearby university buildings, seemingly expanding forever in the night's silence.

"You okay?" he asked, glancing Sonia.

She was on her rear, pressed back against the bricks beside the door. Her eyes locked on the dead infected, fallen close enough for her to touch. "Yeah..." she said in a breathy voice, then scrambled to her feet. "Thank you."

Phillip peered about, searching the shadows. In the scant moonlight, shadowy outlines against the starry night sky marked the other buildings in the area, due east of the lab. Lower to the ground was another dark shape, a wide black smear that appeared to hover at eye level, standing out against the snow beyond. The dark smudge resembled a wall, though he knew no wall existed there, only a few copses of tree between the Kresge Building and structures nearby. An alarm began to blare in his gut.

"What is that?" Sonia whispered, both eyes squinting also. "I think there's something moving out there."

Phillip raised his light again, letting it diffuse across the yard, and his heart began to pound like a bass drum. His mouth dried up, suddenly full of ash. _Dear god..._ Splinters of panic shot through him like poison darts. _So many of them_. His mind balked, unable to comprehend the sheer numbers, and the cold mathematical realization that went with them.

The infected stretching across the length and breadth of Harvard Yard numbered immeasurable. Burnished eyes glowed yellow in his light as the infected moved forward as a solid mass, slipping through the trees, crossing the yard in a wide ring that grew smaller with every stilted stutter step. As it drew closer, the dark smear separated into individuals, into men and women and children in rags, in uniforms, in every size and shape imaginable; all different, yet all still the same, burning with furious hunger.

He couldn't look away. A distant voice echoed hollowly inside his head. _There must be ten thousand of them._ It was the Federal Building all over again.

Sonia recovered first. "Turn that thing off!" she hissed, grabbing his arm. "Don't you know white light makes them crazy? You can only use red!"

With a grimace, he hastily shut the flashlight off. Why the hell had no one bothered to him inform him of that little tidbit? When he saw Dunham again, they were going to have words. In any case, the damage was already done. It was done, he suspected, earlier that day when they'd been defending the fence. How many shots had they fired between them? A hundred? Two? Every undead for miles all around would have heard them.

"We have to wake the others," he said, turning for the door. "We have to get out of here. Now, before they have the entire building surrounded."

Phillip reached for the door handle but there was no handle. The heavy metal door was flush against the bricks. In the snow at his feet was the length of wood Sonia had used to prop it open. He stared down at it with stupid dismay.

Sonia clawed at the edge of the door with her fingernails. "Shit." Her whisper was harsh, furious. "Fuck! I can't get it open. Fucking Peter and your brilliant ideas." Pounding on the door, her voice rose to a shout, echoing across the yard. "Astrid! Rachel! Open the door!"

Adding his own fist to the mix, he kept his gaze on the wall of infected closing in. Were they moving faster, or was it an illusion? The space separating them seemed only half of what it was before, and was closing faster than he could believe. How long did they have? Minutes?

Suddenly an infected wearing tan and brown camouflage reared out of the shadows, moving in from the north where the barrier of cars and trucks guarded their eastern flank.

"Get down!"

Sonia's widened as he leveled his pistol overhead. She dropped to her knees as he squeezed a shot off, putting a bullet below the creature's right eye. The dead soldier pitched forward, disappearing into the snow drift.

"Astrid! Rachel!" Sonia's screams grew louder as she pounded on the metal door, rising to a fevered pitch.

Phillip twisted around awkwardly and found two more undead moving in from the south. A female, with half its face dangling in a flap of skin, and another, a former student, from the _Harvard_ emblazoned across its ragged sweatshirt. His first shot took the female through the exposed bone and sinew of its cheek, and the second through the dead student's mouth, disintegrating rotten teeth. As the bodies dropped, he spun back to the door, using the butt of his pistol grip as a knocker. Hollow peals rang across the yard.

"Doctor Bishop!" he shouted, adding his voice to Sonia's. "Astrid! Open the door!"

He glanced back at the moving wall and a spike of terror was driven through his brain. The moon had emerged from behind the clouds, bathing the yard in a pale, silver light. So many of them. Rows and rows without end. He could make out their eyes now, their gaping teeth. His skin crawled as a faint buzz filled his ears, groans and horrid whispers that spoke of insanity and madness. He distantly wondered if he was hearing them, or if his brain was merely filling in the details.

"I think we're out of time, Phillip," Sonia said, glancing back. "We have to go around, over the barricade while we still can. Can you make it?"

Could he make it? Instead of a foot, a ball of molten fury was attached to end of his leg. But anything that could be endured, would be endured. He replied without hesitation. "I'll make it."

Before either of them could move, however, the metal door suddenly cracked open and an exhausted-looking Rachel Dunham stuck her head out through the narrow gap. Glancing between them, she frowned and was about to speak, but then her eyes bulged open. The infected were close now, within throwing distance. Growls and harsh whispers filled the air.

"Oh my god," Rachel said hoarsely. "Where did they come from?"

Ella squirmed into the narrow gap. The young girl's face paled and when she spoke, her voice little more than a squeak. "Mister Broyles? Are we in trouble now?"

#

* * *

#

Olivia sat alone in front of the bar's window, huddled inside her coat. Arms wrapped tightly under her breasts, she fought hard against an intense bout of shivers that had come out of nowhere. It was a wasted effort. The shakes came from deep inside where involuntary responses originate, not unlike the urge to breathe, or the ever-present beating of one's heart. She was powerless to stop it. The temperature inside the bar was not quite as frigid as the miserable week inside the lab, but at least they'd had a fire then, some source of warmth. Here, there was nothing. Muscles tense and rigid, her teeth chattered, clicking loudly inside her head.

Outside the window, the clouds had receded to the west, leaving behind an open expanse of glittering stars. Of the moon there was no sign, and she wondered if it was a new moon, or if it was simply out of sight behind her. The far side of the lake was utterly dark, a blob of black shapes and outlines held not a hint of civilization. Or of a giant searchlight. If the refugee camp or sanctuary were nearby, it was apparently further inside the city limits.

Behind her, came another grotesque tearing sound followed by a disgusted grunt from Peter. She glanced over to where he was performing an impromptu dissection by flashlight behind the bar, out of sight from the window. She heard the snap of a latex glove being removed, and then his face appeared above the bar top, highlighted in bright white for an instant before he extinguished his flashlight.

"You find something?" she asked, rising from her chair.

From the brief glimpse she'd caught of his face, he was not enjoying himself. But somebody had to watch out for the light, and of the two of them, he was the more scientifically inclined—certainly far better suited than she for cutting up a dead body that appeared to have mercury for blood. It made sense, in her mind, at least.

"Our friend here's definitely not a human being," Peter announced, voice filled with distaste. "Or if he is, he ain't from around here. And by around here, I mean this planet as far as I can tell. Some of these organs—they don't look right to me, and anybody with this much mercury in their blood would probably just drop dead on general principles. And I found something inside him, mounted around the base of his spine. Some kind of... well, I don't know what it is."

Olivia joined him behind the bar, crouching down beside the body. Peter flicked his pen light back on, illuminating the strange body in a harsh, clinical glow. It was a man, on the surface, at least, with an oddly unremarkable face. His eyes bulged outward, irises laced with silver, with more silver painting his lips and chin. The man's chest was splayed open by a series of incisions, skin pulled apart like a banana peel, ribs exposed and gaping. On the floor beside the body were a number of familiar organs—the heart, lungs, and stomach—along with other swollen bits of meat she didn't recognize. A liver? Spleen? The organs were coated in a thick layer of liquid silver laced with red streaks. Blood? She could only assume so, though it wasn't as coagulated as should have been, nor did it reek as it should. The lack of smell alone should have given it away when she'd checked the bodies earlier.

"Check this out," Peter said.

He directed the light toward the base of the ribbed spinal column, also coated with enough silver fluid to appear metallic instead of bone. If it was bone at all. Something small was wrapped around the vertebra just above the pelvic bone. The something was round and flat, and similar in size and to a mini compact disk, only thicker. Several thin strands of wire emerged from the device and disappeared into the gaps between vertebrae.

Olivia met his gaze. "What the hell is that?"

"Don't have clue," he shrugged in reply. "Maybe it's standard issue on mercury men, but I don't think that belongs in a normal human being, do you? Also I found this. It was in his hand."

He showed her a black box about the size of a cigarette package, only with a circular dial on one side, and a length of flat wire or cord emerged from another. At the end of the wire was a thin quarter-sized piece of metal with three pointed prongs, barbed at the tip, and arranged in a triangle. Bits of what could only be blood and flesh clung to the barbs, near black with decay. For some reason they turned Olivia's blood cold where the mercury man had not. Taking the box, she turned it over in her hand. It was heavier than she expected, constructed of a dense metal or plastic, and bore no markings or any indication of where it had been manufactured. In a row on one edge where several small buttons she'd missed before. On a whim, she pressed one of them, but nothing happened.

"You ever seen anything like this before?" she asked, passing it back to him.

Peter shook his head. "Nope. He stuck those barbs in something though. On a hunch, I checked out the other guy—who, as it turns out, is just a regular human with regular human blood. Anyway, I found this." He scooted to the other body further down the bar and directed the flashlight between the corpse's gaping teeth. "Check out the roof of his mouth," he suggested, and placed the pen light in her hand.

Olivia shifted over beside him for a closer look. He had been thorough. The second corpse's clothing was cut away, unblemished gray skin exposed. The fellow had been barrel-chested with brown hair and a sharp nose. A yawning hole off center above his left eye revealed the blatant cause of death. In a stroke of luck, the persistent low temperatures over the last month had left the body in fairly good shape. There was still a pungent sour ripeness about it, however, that brought back memories of the old days, hunched over a victim at a crime scene. Holding her breath, she leaned in close, squinting past grayish teeth and above a bloated tongue at the dead man's palate.

"I see what you mean," she said, sitting back on her haunches. Three tiny holes had punctured the flesh of his mouth, arranged in the same pattern as the three prongs. "So what, he attached the device to this guy by that wire?"

"That's my guess. I only noticed because it looked like his mouth was open wider than seemed possible. I think mercury man here shot this guy in the head, then came close to tearing his jaw off so he could do... well, whatever this thing does."

"But then he was killed, too," Olivia said slowly, letting her mind wander over the facts, poking and prodding. There was puzzle here, and one some part of her sensed it might be important in some way, beyond the reality of a man with mercury for blood. "He must have been taken by surprise. What was the cause of the death?"

"Something caved the back of his head in. Something big. A sledgehammer, maybe, or it could have been a baseball bat, I guess, although it seems almost too big for a bat." Peter went to scratch at his face, but then stopped, eyeing the latex glove on his left hand with a grimace. The glove—found in the bar's kitchen on the first floor—was streaked silver and red. He flashed her a smile. "I've never seen anything like it, but then I'm not the expert here."

"Wait. You said it looked like a sledgehammer?" Olivia straightened her shoulders as the description rung a bell in her mind. "Roll him over. I need to see it." She helped Peter roll the dead man over, careful to keep his blood off her skin. Her eyes widened at the massive trauma done to the back of his head, hair coated silver with mercury. She grabbed a latex glove from the box on the bar top and felt around inside the wound. Deeply concave, it was almost perfectly round. And not from the barrel of baseball bat, unless the killer had used it as a spear. And it _was_ familiar. "Huh. I think I've seen a wound like this before."

Peter looked up as he peeled the glove off his left hand, eyebrows climbing up his forehead. "Seriously? Where?"

"The night you were shot," she explained. "That man with no eyebrows and the fedora hat. He had gun, a pistol, only one like I'd never seen. It didn't fire bullets, just made this weird noise, like a... an electric engine or turbine spinning up. I'd never heard anything like it. He shot an infected with it and the wound it left behind was kind of like this. I remember it clearly, cause I went to look at it and when I turned back the guy had vanished into thin air."

"All right...," Peter said. "So we've got a dead man with mercury for blood who killed another guy—a regular human—so he could attach his little tape recorder to the roof of his mouth, only to be killed himself by a teleporting man with no eyebrows in a suit and fedora and armed with some kind of zap gun." He shook his head, rubbing the back of his neck with a sigh. "And just when I thought I'd seen and heard everything, it gets even weirder."

Before Olivia could agree, the lighting in the bar changed, grew brighter. She lifted her head and saw a pale glow on the wall behind the bar. She and Peter exchanged glances, then scrambled to their feet.

Outside the window to the west rose a blue-white beam of light. Pointing straight upward, the light filled the night sky, bright enough to blot out the stars in its vicinity. The light was due west of their position, perhaps a mile away—though the distance was difficult to judge—beyond the shadowy outline of buildings and intervening trees high up on an elevated ridge.

"That's it, Olivia," Peter hissed, gripping the edge of the bar. "That's the same light we saw from your apartment." His eyes narrowed into a squint. "But I don't think it was here when we saw it. We're way too far away. Maybe it was in Marlborough then, but definitely not Worcester. It must be mobile, on a trailer, or something."

Olivia glanced down at the dead thing shaped like a man. Whatever it was and where it had come from, it would have to wait. "C'mon," she said, taking his hand and tugging him toward their gear lying on a table. "We're crossing that bridge, Peter. I want to see this place."

She slung her backpack over one shoulder, then headed for the stairs.

#

They ghosted out onto the Route 9 bridge, slipping between the odd stalled vehicle. Ducking down behind the trunk of a dark sedan halfway across, Olivia studied the far shore line. If anyone was watching their crossing, no warnings were called out, no signs of awareness given. Directly in front of them the blue-white beam split the night in two without flickering, and the snow layer gathered its light, gleaming faintly with a bluish tint. The search light was incredibly bright against the darkness, and she could imagine how a woman like Charlene Watson could see her God in its making.

A harsh roar of wind rose up off the lake, freezing her breath in her throat. She angled her face away, and spied Peter doing the same. A surge of guilt went through her at the sight of his bare head, but before she could offer to return the hat, he was moving again, staying low and sprinting for the next group of cars.

Olivia sprang after him, leaning into the crosswind's bite. There was no stopping this time, and Peter only glanced back to make sure she was with him before racing onward. When they finally reached the far side, the thought struck her that the crossing had gone almost too smooth, been too easy.

 _You're just paranoid, Liv_ , a competing voice spoke up. _If they have a giant light pointed at the sky, they obviously want people to find it._

So why did it feel off then?

She couldn't find a real reason, but the feeling didn't go away as she followed Peter off the main road, and onto a wide and flat snowy area. Windblown tire tracks led up a hill to their right, those of the Watsons' Dodge, along with the older, even less visible tracks belonging to the two men they were following. The tracks continued past a children's hospital adjacent to the medical school campus before disappearing over the hill's crest.

"This way," Peter whispered, motioning her forward. Instead of paralleling the tire tracks and the main road, he angled toward the medical school campus.

"Do you even know where you're going, Peter?" she whispered.

He shook his head, teeth glinting in the blue light. "No. Do you?"

Olivia didn't have a response to that, so all she could was follow him as he struck a path through the maze of hospital buildings. Viewed from across the lake, the structures belonging to the medical school had seemed in fairly good shape, but the view up close told a different story. Gaping shattered windows abounded, brick exteriors streaked black with smoke residue; the same story that had played out in Boston. She wondered if it was like this everywhere, in every town and every city across the country. Maybe across the world.

They made their way to the northwest, slipping through the darkened gaps between university buildings, then crossed over a pair of wide open patches of lawn big enough to contain several football fields, and covered with smooth, undisturbed snow. Beyond the medical school grounds were apartment buildings and squat, nondescript businesses, and an oddly rundown neighborhood of old homes with sagging siding and rusted chain-link fences. There they turned due west down an uneven street, pitted with potholes beneath the snow layer. The shabbiness of the area was at odds with the pristine medical school just a block or two away, but she supposed it was no different than any other city that she had ever seen; they all had unseen borders, lines of demarcation. Finally, they reached a wide roadway jammed with stopped traffic in both directions. Elongated footprints dotted the fresh powder beside the vehicles, tracks made by beings in the habit of dragging their feet.

Olivia ducked down beside Peter at the rear of a gray minivan. She peered westward at the beam of light, rising up from behind a pair of matching office buildings and atop a tree-covered ridge bathed in shadow. The source was there, either among the trees, or just beyond them.

"You have any idea what's up there?" she said, glancing at Peter.

His attention was focused on the converging tracks on the street before them. It was difficult to see his face clearly, but she thought he looked troubled. After a moment, he met her gaze.

"No. But whatever it is," he replied softly, "I'm guessing they chose it 'cause it's the high ground." His eyes slid upward to the blue beam overhead. "You know, that light's gotta be drawing the infected right to them. When Walter and I were testing the different color wavelengths, blue and purple were by far the worst, the most visible—even worse than just plain white light."

Swallowing, Olivia stared up the light. If that was true, then whatever was up there, it had to have walls, or fortifications of some kind, or else they'd have been overrun long ago. She thought it might even be a good sign, a place of safety as Charlene Watson had alluded.

"If that's the case," she said, straightening from her crouch. "then we should probably be careful going up there. Let's go."

Peter nodded, hefting his assault rifle.

They hurried across the street, breaching the space between the pair of office buildings. As they passed them by she noticed the structure on their right had been a Red Cross donation center before the outbreak. From the condition of the building—a gaping, truck-shaped hole stood in place of the entrance—it seemed unlikely any supplies still remained inside. Continuing onward without stopping, they crossed over an empty parking lot and into a wooded area where the ground began to slope upward. Tightly packed evergreens and their leafless counterparts crowd the hillside. Prickly chaparral pulled at their clothes and crackled underfoot as they passed through. Ahead, visible through the trees atop the rise the black outline of a building stood out against the stars. They climbed toward it carefully, pulling themselves upward using tree and branch when the grade began to increase sharply.

"Hold up," Peter hissed suddenly. He stopped beside her and leaned forward against the hill's incline, peering ahead of them in the darkness.

"What is it?" she whispered, scanning the hillside.

A yard or two in front of them, the snow moved. Or rather, something moved beneath it. A hand with with withered fingers poked though the surface, a pair of feet kicked, plowing shifting snow and tearing up leaves as the hand clawed for purchase.

Olivia held her breath as Peter stepped on the infected's back and drove his knife into a thick mop of frozen hair. "With this hill, there may be more of them around," he said, yanking his blade free and wiping it in the snow.

She searched about in the pale dimness. Other shapes were struggling on their bellies, halted in their tracks by the steep grade of the snowy hillside. And behind them she saw more; that they had made it so far without running into one was pure luck. Several of the undead were now aware of them, slithering on their bellies through the underbrush.

"They're all around us," she breathed in a low voice. "But I think they're stuck on the hill. Let's just avoid them unless we can't."

Peter nodded and reached for another tree trunk, pulling himself upward. Olivia followed and they resumed their ascent, albeit at a slower pace. But the infected soon fell away as the hill's grade continued to increase, growing ever sharper. The snow became even more slippery, their footing treacherous and unforgiving. Just before the crest was a head-high overhang where rainwater had washed away a chunk of hillside. Peter risked a light for an instant, exposing a snarled tangle of tree roots, then climbed up ahead of her. Reaching back, he offered her a gloved hand, and Olivia let him haul her up.

As she cleared the rim, she flashed him a smile, recalling times when she had refused Peter's help—back when she had insisted on asserting her independence at every turn, from him or any man. There was no longer any reason to do so, not with him, at least.

She released his hand and peered about, finding her bearings. They had reached the edge of the tree line. The hill continued upward for a short distance, then seemed to level off at a guardrail of thick cable. A wide, block-shaped building sat just beyond, blocking the view to the west. Centered over the nearest corner of the structure, blue-white beam of the search light rose brilliantly overhead.

"You hear that?" Peter whispered, holding up his hand.

Olivia listened. There were voices in the wind, shouts and screaming—orders, perhaps; they had that feel about them. People. She caught Peter's eye. "Let's go. Just up the hill. We're close, Peter. This might be the place we need. I have to see it."

Peter hesitated, but then nodded, exhaling a breath that turned to vapor and hung in the air between them. "All right, fine. But no closer than that. We've got binoculars for a reason, Liv."

"We'll be careful," she said reasonably, then patted his chest lightly and stepped past him and out into the open.

The hill remained steep to the left, but to the right flattened out where several hundred feet away another structure was visible through the trees. She hurried straight up the hill to the cable guardrail and found a narrow, road-shaped depression in the snow. A tall chain-linked fence topped with barbed wire surrounded the backside of the building, that upon closer inspection seemed ancient. The exterior was uneven and somehow lumpy, as if bricks uniform in size and shape hadn't existed in the era of its construction. Narrow windows marked the level each floor—four stories in all—windows that seemed narrower than they should have, almost like those found in a prison. A thick power line draped between a nearby utility pole and the roof, but there were no lights on inside, be it bulb or candlelight, no sign at all of occupancy.

Olivia stepped over the guard rail. It was clear she was not the first to step foot on the drive; other tracks already pocked the snow, heading from right to left. Some were obviously older than others, divots filled in by wind and time, but some were most certainly fresh, possibly only minutes old. She crossed over to the chain-link fence, moving along its perimeter to the left toward the corner of the building. The voices shouting in the distance continued. She could make out other sounds now, sharp rings, peals of metal striking metal.

Frowning, she wondered what was happening. A battle? Were they being overrun? She edged closer to the corner of the fence. The shouting grew more distinct, and it became clear that it was only one voice she was hearing; a man's deep baritone, barking out commands.

_...more minutes, people! Doctor's orders... we're... through. You there! Shore up that left flank! No, no! That flank. Over there, you idiot!_

Gripping the fence, Olivia peered around the corner of building. At first there was nothing but the blinding beam of light, the source of which ruined her night vision in less than an instant. Squinting, she struggled to make sense of what lay before her.

Far across a wide open field, the searchlight blazed toward the sky. Flickers of movement surrounded its base, shadowed bodies stepping in and out of the light. Her vision sharpened, grew clearer. She sucked in a gasp of frigid air, filling her lungs in surprise.

A battle _was_ raging. The bodies resolved into what could only be a tumult of infected, pressing up against a distant fence, not unlike the fence beside her. Inside the fence was another throng of bodies bathed in a blue-white glow; women and men—perhaps thirty in all— pushing back the infected, stabbing through the links with long-handled weapons. In the background, beyond the search light and the battle—which appeared to be wrapping up from the ragged holes appearing in the lines of infected—stood a tall shadowy structure. The structure faced away from them, and was highlighted from below by tiny yellow lights that seemed insignificant beside the powerful searchlight.

Olivia sensed Peter's presence behind her. "You were right," she whispered, glancing back at him in the dimness. His eyes were narrowed, locked on the struggle across the vast field. "The light did draw the infected."

"Should we help them?"

"No." She shook her head without a second thought. "No, I don't think so. Not yet."

"It might be a good way to introduce ourselves, Liv."

"I don't think they need our help," she told him, turning back to the scene before them. "It's nearly over, anyway. Peter, I think they do this every night, every time they turn that light on."

"Then the question is: why do they turn the light on at all?" Peter wondered aloud. "Why the hell would they want to be attacked every night?"

Olivia shrugged. She didn't have an answer for that. Presumably, there was an answer, however. One that she hoped was rational.

Her prediction proved accurate. Less than a minute later, every infected was down, and a voice—the same voice that had been shouting out the earlier orders—announced that it was over. A rumble of cheers arose, echoing across the open field. The silhouettes moved away from the fence, most leaning hard on their weapons for support. They moved toward the searchlight, which appeared mounted on top of something hidden from sight, elevated off the ground.

She retrieved the binoculars from her pack to get a better look, but the angle was all wrong. Whatever happened next, they were viewing the strangers from off to one side, and from the rear. The situation was untenable.

Keeping her voice low, she tugged Peter's coat. "Let's circle around. I want to get a better look."

"Olivia...," Peter sighed.

She looked back sharply and found him raking a hand through his hair. It was a sure sign of his irritation, and in turn ignited her own.

"What...?" she hissed, stepping close to him. He flinched slightly under her sudden glare, which a part of her found pleasing, and then she spelled it out for him. "Peter. We can't see anything from over here. The men from the truck mentioned something about a gathering happening after the fence, something about their leader making an appearance, as if that was rare. Yesterday, I didn't know what that meant, but it seems pretty fucking clear, now. If their leader is going to be out there, I have to see him. Or her."

Peter's jaw tightened, but then he nodded with obvious reluctance. "Fine," he said evenly. "But no closer than we are now, Olivia. If you're hoping to establish good relations with these people, I doubt like hell they'd approve of us spying on them."

Olivia bit back another retort, exhaling slowly. The cold air doused the heat rising in her cheeks. He was right, of course. Whoever these people were, they would not like being under observation—no more than she herself would have, back at the lab.

"You're not wrong, Peter," she admitted softly, reaching out to touch his hand. "...And I get that you're worried." She smiled inwardly as his eyes widened in blatant surprise. "That's why we're not going to get caught. If it'll make you feel any better... you can pick the spot. Okay?"

Peter eyed her askance for a moment, tilting his head in suspicion. When he finally spoke, she heard traces of humor in his tone. "Are you sure you're my Olivia?"

Olivia snorted, arching an eyebrow. "Your Olivia, huh?"

"Yep," he replied with a smug smirk that made her want to hit him. "Now try and keep up, Agent Dunham."

Before she could mount the scathing reply that rose to her lips, he was gone, his long legs carrying him southward. She watched his receding backside for a heartbeat, then grinned to herself and took off in pursuit.

#

They quickly made their way down the snow-covered drive, which Olivia thought might be a loop encircling the property. A thin line of pine trees provided excellent cover, and their footprints blended in nicely with the myriad of others—mostly fresh from the recently defeated infected horde. As they neared the front of the compound, it was apparent that what she had taken for a single building was in fact part of a much larger complex of structures, some interconnected and some not, but all contained within the perimeter of the fence.

 _What is this place?_ she wondered, eyeing the silhouetted outlines of other buildings far across the property. They were all different sizes and shapes, with arches and domes, angled roofs and pointed gables laced with what looked like baroque ironwork. There was easily enough space to house hundreds of people, yet only the largest building near the searchlight appeared occupied. She remembered one of the men talking about another wing opening up. Could he have been referring to one of them? How many people did they have? More than had defended the fence?

"Olivia! Over here."

Olivia blinked at the hushed voice off to her right, and saw Peter standing beside a thick copse of trees and low bushes, waving her back. She joined him, and they crept through the interwoven tree branches toward the search light and the main building dead ahead. A wide parking lot occupied the intervening space, filled with a number of vehicles parked in a row. She scanned the dim shapes for the brown four-by-four or the Watsons' blue Dodge but saw neither in the gloom. Lifting her binoculars, she shifted her gaze to the main building.

Like the one they had first encountered after emerging from the forest, the compound's main structure appeared ancient and weathered, a product of another time, far in the distant past. The uneven brick facade glowed faintly in the blue light, giving it an eerie aspect. A deep set front entryway was hidden in shadow, beneath a pair of balconies with broken spindles and banisters, and centered between a pair of octagonal towers, each with a gabled window set in the pinnacle. One of the pinnacled windows glowed faintly with an orange light. Rows upon rows of narrow windows were mirrored on either side of the entrance, some utterly dark, others radiating dim light from behind thin curtains. Protruding from the roof above the entrance was a massive clock tower, minute and hour hands frozen in place on the ten and twelve.

Olivia's first thought as she took it in was that she was staring at a haunted mansion. _The_ haunted mansion. The original, upon which all stories were surely based. She had seen it before, somewhere. Except she had never been anywhere near this place before in her life, of that she was certain. Looking at it was unpleasant. A current of uneasiness swept through her, followed by a rush of something primal, some fear that had awoken deep inside the forgotten hallways of her childhood.

 _People actually want to live here?_ The thought burst through her mind, incredulous.

Men and women gathered about the searchlight, which was indeed mounted on a wheeled trailer. They milled about, some having animated discussions, others standing alone, arms crossed. _They're waiting for something to happen_ , she realized. _Or for someone_.

"What do you see?" Peter's voice was a barely heard whisper.

Olivia passed him the binoculars without a word, keeping her eyes trained in the dark spot that was the main building's entryway. After a few moments, Peter's abrupt intake of breath drew her attention.

"What? Did something happen?"

Peter shook his head, chewing on the inside of his lip. "No, nothing happened," he said, continuing to stare up at sinister-looking building. "I know what this place is, now. It's a Kirkbride building."

"What the hell is Kirkbride building?" she whispered.

Lowering the binoculars, he frowned, continuing to chew on the flesh of his cheek. "It's an insane asylum." His voice was grim. Clearly she wasn't the only who was disturbed. "Built in the late 1800s. The psychiatrist that designed this style was named Kirkbride. They were supposed to promote health and well being in the patients, if you can believe that. They were built all over the country before the theory was discredited, all using this same plan, or some variation of it. I think most of them have been torn down by now." He nodded toward the imposing structure. "This is the Worcester State Hospital, or the Worcester Lunatic Asylum, as it was called back in the old days when we didn't beat around the bush."

"How do you know that?" she asked, hearing something in his voice.

Peter shrugged, lowering his head. "When Walter got put away, I looked into the nuthouses in the area. I thought he might come here, but they sent him to St. Claire's instead. I think this place shut down not long after that. I thought I remembered hearing it was supposed to be demolished last year. I guess the end of the world put a stop to that," he added with grunt.

Olivia nodded at his explanation. It all made sense. And of course it seemed like she'd seen it before; she probably had at one time or another, if these Kirkbride buildings were all over the country. In a movie perhaps, or news reports, or even an old case file. Still, she wondered why anyone would make it their home with all the newer, more modern buildings in the area to choose from.

She eyed the tall encircling fence, the coils of barb-wire. Perhaps the answer was as simple as that.

Suddenly, a square of light appeared in the entry way. Olivia snatched the binoculars from Peter and raised them to her eyes. People were emerging from inside, moving down a short flight of steps into the crowd, which parted easily before them. She followed their progress over the searchlight trailer, where a man in all black, including a tight-fitting stocking hat, climbed up and faced the crowd. He had a gun on his hip, and an assault rifle strapped on his shoulder. She held her breath. Was it their leader? Instead of addressing the crowd, the man reached down and helped another man up onto the trailer.

The second man wore a white coat, or possibly gray, that went all the way down to his knees. She had seen similar coats before, nearly every day for the last year. A lab coat. Or a doctor's smock. This was their leader, the man she sought, the man the two men had mentioned. He began speaking to the crowd. Olivia wished she could hear him, or read lips, but she could do neither.

The doctor was short, barely up to the first man's shoulder, and balding, with comically larger ears that stuck out from the side of his head. His eyes seemed blank, emotionless, and as he spoke, one hand gesticulated idly, the other absently twisting at his full beard.

A name rose to her lips, then flitted away as her thoughts zeroed in. The doctor was familiar. _I know him, don't I? But from where?_ The name was elusive, vanishing even as she attempted to corner the memory. Before she could ponder the impossibility of her recognition, something dragged her gaze inexorably downward.

A man. A face among the crowd. Instead of listening to the doctor like all the others, he was turned away, staring outward beyond the fence.

Staring at her.

Their eyes met through the binoculars, and she found herself looking on the face of John Scott.

Olivia's heart stalled in her chest. She let out a breathless gasp, struggling to take in air. The corner of John's mouth quirked up in a subtle smirk, half-knowing and more than a little condescending. It was the smile that had so irritated her when they'd first met, and then later, the one she had looked forward to. He wore the black overcoat he'd always favored in the field, and a blue tie with geometric patterns of white that stood out in the dark.

"John...," she mouthed hoarsely, then stumbled as the ground seemed to move beneath her feet. No, it was the world tottering; her world, compressing about her.

A hand closed about her arm, holding her steady. "What did you say?" Peter said in her ear.

Olivia fought for breath, mind racing numbly. "I... I saw John," she whispered, then managed to a take in gulp of refreshing air. "I saw John Scott. In the crowd."

Peter stepped in front of her, eyes bulging, eyebrows the deep ridge of his forehead. "What? You...saw John Scott?" Confusion filled his voice, and something else part of her registered as fear. "Olivia... that's impossible."

 _Of course it's impossible!_ a voice in her head howled. John was dead. She had witnessed his death, had watched as he spat out mouthfuls of blood, listened as he struggled to speak, as the words died on his lips even as the light went out of eyes; and she witnessed his rebirth as something else, something that was no part of him, something that had tried to kill her. He was dead.

_He is dead._

"Olivia...?" Peter hissed, grabbing hold of her arm. When she didn't reply, he plucked the binoculars from her hand. "At least tell me where you saw him."

Blinking at the question, Olivia forcibly took hold of herself, asserting a cold dominance over her shrieking thoughts. It was impossible. "He... uh... he was at the edge of the crowd, facing the fence." She grabbed her head, squeezing as her mind began to edge back toward panic. "Peter. He saw me. He was looking at me, like he could see me through the binoculars! How is that possible?"

Peter's jaw tightened, but he gave no answer. "I don't see him," he said after a moment. "There's no one anywhere near the fence, in either direction. All I see is some bald guy with big ears and a lab coat. They're all listening to him." He paused, then suddenly inhaled.

Olivia grabbed his coat. "What? Did you see him? Did you see John?"

"No. But I see the Watsons. I think the bald doctor's introducing them. Looks like they made it, after all."

Peter's words steadied her, brought her back from the brink of madness. He lowered the binoculars, placing them back in her hand. He met her gaze briefly before turning away, and she felt his worry and fear of John Scott turning up alive. She could tell him that he had nothing to worry about, nothing to fear; John Scott was her past. And he was dead, whatever she had seen, or thought she'd seen. It had to have been her imagination, a trick of the light. Or something. Either that, or she was now insane.

She looked again and saw no one by the fence, no bombardier's eyes fixed upon her. Up on the trailer, the Watsons were standing beside the balding doctor, who was indeed presenting them to the crowd, making introductions. Charlene was smiling wide, and her son was holding the shy little one named Gina, whose face was buried in his shoulder. They had made it. The crowd began to clap, hoots and holler echoed across the field and parking lot separating them.

It all seemed nice. Civilized, in spite of the sinister backdrop of the old asylum. And they had power. The yellow lights mounted low on the building seemed to flicker and pulse oddly, but they were on, and that was all that mattered. Electricity. The people here were making it, a beacon of light, of hope, holding back the all-consuming darkness.

"Come on," she said, turning to Peter. "I think I've seen all I need to see for now."

"You sure?" he asked carefully.

Olivia nodded and took his hand. "Let's head back to Marlborough. Tomorrow morning, we'll see what Astrid thinks."

#

* * *

#

"I... I think we might be screwed, you guys," Astrid said to no one in particular. "I'm pretty sure the entire city is standing outside."

No one replied, and Ella looked up at the strange tone of Astrid's voice. She was standing beside the gun table, checking each one for ammunition. She flipped a little switch on the side of a shiny black pistol and the top sprang back with a _ka-chink,_ that rung loudly throughout the lab. After peering inside a small hole that appeared on the side, she slammed top edge of the pistol forward, then shoved the gun into the waistband of her jeans. Her hands shook as she grabbed another.

The other adults, including her mother, were equally on edge. Ella sat in a stool next to Peter's work table, watching them rush back and forth by the glow of candlelight. She sensed their fear as they readied to leave, gathering anything they could carry. Miss Sonia emerged from the storeroom, shouldering a red bag bulging with cans of food. Her eyes were puffy and gleamed wetly as she heaved the heavy bag up onto a table.

Over near the circle of mattresses around the furnace, her mother was frantically shoving clothes into a backpack. The skin of her face stretched tight as she tried to zip a bulging pocket closed, fingers fumbling over the zipper. It occurred to Ella that she might be able help out. But what could do? She was just a kid, after all. None of the adults—including her mother—seemed to expect her to help, or even to see her.

She glanced over at Mister Broyles, who was standing near the door to the outside corridor, leaning on the handrail. The black machine gun hung from a strap on his shoulder. She had watched him load bullets into it after the first attack, into its magazine, as he had called the rectangular hunk metal, and the four others he had loaded. Why they were called that, a magazine, she didn't know. They certainly had nothing to do with reading, nor were they made from paper.

Mister Broyles shook his head. "We don't have time for this, people," he said again. "We have to leave now, before it's too late."

"I... I just have to get a few more things," Mommy said without looking up as her fingers continued to struggle.

Ella saw that her mother's eyes were bulging out of her head. _She's afraid, and trying to act brave._ Only a few minutes had passed since she'd woken her mother because of the pounding on the door, but it felt like hours.

"They certainly do appear to know we're in here," Walter spoke up from the stool he was perched on, cheek smashed flat against one of the windows facing the big library. Stars shone faintly outside, wisps of clouds streaking past his head. He climbed down slowly and turned to face them, breathing in and out carefully. "I'm afraid they're... they're right outside the door, now."

"That's why we have to go," Mister Broyles said for the third time.

Watching the sad lines on Walter's wrinkled face, Ella suddenly remembered something. Peter had once taken her on a walk outside, after Mister Charlie had died. They had gone around the building, circling it from the wall of cars to the iron fence that wrapped around it on the far side. She remembered stopping in a place where the ground slanted down, looking in a window and seeing Aunt Liv making lunch. She had knocked on the glass and her aunt had seen her and waved. The ground had been wet, putting a mud-spot on the knee of her jeans when she'd bent down.

The window had been almost level with the ground.

She turned her head, staring across the lab. Not at the windows Walter had been looking out, but those set high up on a different wall, in unlit shadows far away from the furnace's heat. There were three of them in a row. Through them, she had watched the stars come out from her mattress, or sometimes the moon rising in the middle window. Always the middle. Why was that? She didn't know, and had never thought to ask anyone.

There were no stars in them now, though, nor the moon, despite the night sky being mostly clear in other windows. There was nothing, only blackness.

Or was there?

Were there shapes moving inside the darkness in the glass? Or was it her imagination, which always worked overtime—whatever that meant—according to her mother? Ella imagined she could hear something, some out of place noise over the commotion happening around her. It was her imagination, wasn't it?

She slipped off Peter's stool. Holding tight to the tiny cross in the neck of her coat, she grabbed a candle and made her way through the tables and countertops, past her mother and the furnace, the big metal tank of salt water, and over to the old piano, pushed up against the wall beneath the trio of windows. The rectangles of glass were directly above her. Gazing up at them, she squinted into their blackened depths. Where were the stars, the sky?

_Tap. Tap._

Ella froze. The sound had been faint, like an echo from another room. She listened hard, ignoring the rush of static inside her head. For a little while there was nothing, but when she made to turn around, it happened again.

_Tap. Tap. Tap._

Shapes began to form in the window beneath the lab's reflection. There _was_ something. She heard a squeak. Then a long scrape that stood the hair up on the back of her neck.

A something was outside the window, pressed up against the glass, squashed flat. Suddenly a boy in another class at her old school popped into her head. She saw him putting his mouth up to the window and making silly faces at her class out on the playground. Lips spread open and smashed flat, the boy's teeth had clicked off the glass. She remembered hearing them, remembered how she'd thought it yucky and gross, that the window was surely coated in germs. That they would get inside him and he would get sick and maybe throw up, cause that was what germs were; tiny bugs that made you sick. Sometimes they made you die. Trembling, she lifted the candle. The orange flame flickered and danced as she held it high, up to the window above.

Fear sucked her breath away. Eyes were staring in at her. Pairs of yellow eyes that didn't blink, couldn't feel. Noses pushed flat against the window, bent to the side above teeth that scraped across the glass, opening and closing.

"Ella...?" Mommy's voice rang out sharply behind her. "What are you doing over there?"

Ella's mouth worked, but no words came out. She couldn't breathe. _Mommy..._ a distant voice whimpered inside her head.

The teeth scraping up against the glass seemed blindingly white. She tried to move, or just look away, but found herself paralyzed, rooted in place. Terror bloomed in chest, pressing down with an impossible weight.

_Tap. Tap. Scrape._

A hand pushed up against the window, then another. Fingertips curled into claws pawed at the glass, leaving wet, grimy streaks behind. A white line appeared in the center of the pane, a white streak accompanied by a sharp snap. The snap reverberated through Ella's bones, quivered her insides. Then another line appeared, shooting off from the first, another crack. Another. The teeth opened and closed, eyes unblinking.

"Ella?" Her mother's voice was louder now. "Come back over he—"

The window exploded.

A scream tore through Ella's lips as she stumbled backwards, falling hard on her rear. Shards of glass rained down, plinking all around her on the concrete. The candle flew from her hand, bouncing and skittering across the floor, still lit. Voices erupted behind her, shouts of panic, of terror.

She screamed again as another window shattered, exploding inward. Hands darted in through the window frame, breaking off more slivers of glass, and then a mop of filthy hair as an infected slithered in through the window like a snake. Faster than Ella could comprehend, it was through, reaching out for her even as it fell, rotting face smashing against the piano lid, and then tumbling onto the floor in front of her with a hollow thud.

"Ella!" Somewhere behind her, her mother's voice was piercing shriek. "Ella!"

"I got her!" another voice shouted as everything began happening at once.

Pounding feet echoed, racing toward her as the infected flopped about, then raised its head. Its face was horrifying mask of blackish blood, and broken bones sticking though the skin of its cheeks. As the creature's gaze settled on her, blackened lips peeled back, revealing splintered teeth. Ella's mind went blank, overwhelmed as she stared into its mustard eyes, into pure hunger and cold emptiness. The dead man slithered forward, reaching for her with gray fingers mottled with black spots. The fingers touched her shoe, and then Ella found she could move again. She scrambled backward, lashing out at the groping hands with both feet, throat burning from a never-ending scream and vision a blur of tears. She fell back as her right hand suddenly went limp, agony blossoming in the center of her palm, then pulsing up her arm.

"Sonia, get down!"

The deep voice preceded a thunderous gunshot that shook the air. Blood and bone—and what could only be brains—splattered as the top of the infected's head disintegrated. Wet and heavy things plopped down all around her; onto her shoes, her jeans, the front of her coat. Another heavy body rebounded off the piano, and something broke loose inside her.

 _Get it off!_ Her voice was a shriek inside her head, repeating endlessly, and out of her control as she wiped at the chunks plastered to her jeans. A part of her noted that her right hand wasn't working like it should, but the thought was distant, unimportant. Then someone yanked her up from behind, lifting beneath her shoulders.

"I got you, honey," Miss Sonia's voice said in her ear. She felt herself being turned around, and then hugged in a tight grip.

Flashes of light filled the lab, star-bursts erupting from the tip of Mister Broyles's machine gun, pressed hard against his shoulder. The gunshots were deafening, booming through the lab. Bouncing in Sonia's arms, she looked back and saw bodies squirming through all three windows. Astrid stood to one side, firing also with the same pistol she had checked just moments ago. Walter rushed past, face pinched with fear or anger, limping furiously toward the weapon table.

"Ella!" Suddenly her mother was there, and Miss Sonia was passing Ella into her arms. "Are you all right? Did it hurt you? Did it bite you?"

Ella registered panic in her mother's voice, hysteria and fear. The arms that held her shook violently. "I'm okay, Mommy," she said, shaking her head. "The... it didn't get me."

A fire burned in the center of her right hand, but nothing had bitten her. She was sure of that. Carefully, she held the hand up behind her mother's head, then gaped at the jagged shard of glass sticking out of her palm. The glass glinted wetly in the candlelight as thick rivulets of blood trickled down her wrist, disappearing into her coat sleeve. Reaching around with her other hand, she pulled out the sliver of glass and let if fall, biting her lip as the fire turned into a white-hot sting.

"Get out of here!" Mister Broyles was shouting between bursts of gunfire. "We have to get out of here, now!"

No one was listening to him. Infected were pushing in through the windows, heads and arms reaching inside, grabbing at the window frame as others made it thought, falling inside the lab, crashing head first on the floor. Before they could rise, Sonia and Astrid were on them, axe rising and falling, splitting heads open, knife flashing, stabbing through yellow eyes. Walter stepped up beside them. His lined face was outraged, and made even harsher by the flashes of gunfire. Raising a pistol, he shouted something unintelligible, then began firing into the terrible faces squeezing in through the center window.

It was all too much. Ella wanted it to be over, one way or another. She screwed her eyes shut, ears ringing from the perpetual gunfire, injured hand clenched into a tight fist. Her mother's terror was palpable, in the rigid arms that enclosed her, in the pounding of her heart that Ella could sense beating in counterpoint to her own.

Eventually, she became aware that the gunfire had stopped, leaving behind a vacuum of silence. Ella peaked out through slitted eyelids, then opened them all the way.

Dead bodies decorated the floor and hung from the windows like wet rags, arms dangling, listing from side to side. Blood splattered over everything; the wall and the floor, and the old piano was drenched by streams of blood dripping in great globules splatting into an ever-growing pool beneath. Undead clogged the window frames, mouths gaping, faces ruined and grotesquely packed together. A wave of dizziness went through Ella as she took it all in. Her stomach heaved and she felt herself being lowered gently to the floor.

"Is everyone okay?" Mister Broyles asked as he removed the magazine from the machine gun and shoved in another. The metallic click echoed loudly.

"Is it over?" Mommy said in a trembling voice. "Is that all of them?"

She followed her mother over to Astrid and Miss Sonia, into a cloud of awful smells rising from the bodies on the floor. The two women's chests heaved, faces speckled with blood and chunk of flesh, eyes bulging and wide open. Sonia bent over suddenly, hand grasping at her stomach as if she were about to throw up, but she didn't, and straightened after a moment, breathing hard and wiping her mouth.

Standing before the blood-drenched piano, Walter stared down at it without emotion. "No... I don't believe it is over," he said, sounding sad and angry at the same time. He lifted his gaze to the infected dangling overhead. "In fact, I'm afraid it's only just begun. This won't hold them long."

Ella saw that he was right. Already the bodies stuffing the window frame were oozing inward. Something was pushing them, like pushing playdough through the toy spaghetti maker among her old toys.

"We are leaving now, people," Mister Broyles said. From the harsh tone of his voice, it wasn't a question. He reached down for a small bag at his feet and slung it over his shoulder. "I know something of being trapped in room with no way out, with no hope, just waiting to die. It's not an experience I'm eager to repeat. Now we have to get out of this building, while we still can. Grab whatever you can carry and leave the rest behind."

#

Ella soon found herself in the darkness of the stairwell, left hand squeezed in her mother's iron grip, her right hand holding Burlap Bear in a choking grip. Red lights flashed on the walls above as Sonia and Astrid led the way up. Walter was just behind her, muttering under his breath. She thought he sounded upset and supposed he might be sad about leaving. The lab had certainly seemed like his home, like he belonged there. But leaving was better than dying. Behind Walter another red light flashed, strapped to Mister Broyles's bald head. He was at the rear, face twisting with pain with every step.

The long hallway to the lobby was dark and silent as they stepped out of the stairwell. At the far end, the doors to the outside were tiny, slightly brighter shades of black. She eyed the darkened classroom doors across the hall. If they could break through the glass down in the lab, why not up here too?

Miss Sonia's head swiveled about. "It seems clear," she whispered. "Hurry."

They rushed toward the entrance, footsteps shattering the silence. Ahead, the exit door grew larger and larger, more distinct with every step. Ella waited for something horrible to leap out at them, teeth bared and ready to tear flesh and bone, but nothing did. There was nothing waiting for them in the darkness, no dead men and women with golden eyes pressed against closed doors, or hiding in the narrow alcoves waiting for them to pass by. The building was quiet and still, like it always had been, ever since she first arrived with her aunt.

 _We're gonna make it_ , she repeated in her head, over and over again. Her right hand pulsed in tune with her heartbeat, wet and sticky with blood, but she kept a tight grip on the golden cross, drawing from its comfort.

They were going to make it to the truck, and then they would find Aunt Liv and Peter. She felt only a tinge of sadness at the thought of leaving all her books behind, her legos, and all the other toys and things she'd gathered, but that was life, now. She'd already lost her home once before, and everything in it. Maybe that was how the world worked now; everything was only for a little while. There was word for it. _Temporarily_.

The doors were just ahead. Stars shone through their vertical windows. A sliver of the moon peeked out through another window to the left of the entrance.

Sonia crashed through double doors first and Astrid an instant later. Then Ella followed her mother outside also, out into the chill air. Gusts of wind burned coldly across her cheeks, howling in fury at their leaving. She came close to crashing into Astrid, who instead of moving down the steps to the sidewalk, was standing still beside Sonia, staring out at the street.

"What's the matter?" Mommy whispered, glancing between them. "Why aren't we going to the truck?"

"We...can't...," Miss Sonia replied softly, then raised her hand, pointing.

The fear in her voice sent a jolt of panic through Ella. She squirmed between the two women for a better look and her heart sank, sliding down into her tummy with the weight of a bowling ball.

Outside the fence was a solid wall of dead people filling the street. The truck was buried in them, as was the fence all along the street, and the barricade of cars. Their eyes glittered, seemed to glow with an inner life whenever the red beams swept over them. Hands and arms reached through the bars, pushing. The fence groaned. Iron bars flexed and bowed inward as if they were no longer made of metal. The sections of the fence damaged by the earlier attacked appeared ready to snap at any moment. More were piling up against the barricade, pressing forward. The wide open space beyond the barricade seethed with dead people, a carpet of blackness that blotted out the snow as far as her eyes could see. The wind died off, and she could hear them; their hisses and growls, rising and falling like gnats buzzing in her ear.

_No, we aren't going to make it._

The realization was like being drowned in freezing water. She was going to die, really die—they all were. Aunt Liv and Peter were far away. No one would come to save them. And after she was dead, she would become one of them, like the other dead girls and boys she had seen before. She wondered if it would hurt very much, dying.

"Oh my god...," Mommy whispered as the door swung open behind them.

Walter stepped outside, followed by Mister Broyles. Astrid looked back at them. "We're too late," she said. "We're too late."

The two men stared out at the street. Walter's face seemed to sag, and his shoulders also. To Ella, it was as if he'd turned into old man before her eyes. He gasped, mouth dropping open, then lowered his head. Beside him, Mister Broyles staggered against the metal railing, holding on for support.

For a short while, no one spoke, and Ella saw the same bleakness mirrored in all the adults' eyes. A look that meant that she was right. Her lips quivered as she contemplated her impending death. _No. But I don't want to die..._ She yanked on her mother's hand. "What do we do now?" she said. "Mommy? What do we do now?"

Her mother looked down. Tears shone on her cheeks. "I... I don't know, sweetheart. I don't know. I... I love you, Ella."

 _I love you, too, Mommy_ , she thought hopelessly as her own eyes began to sting.

Mister Broyles straightened, standing upright on both feet. "There's nothing we can do," he said grimly, shifting his grip on the machine gun. "That fence isn't going to hold them long, and once they're through..." He shook his head. "We'll just...have to fight our way to truck. It's our only chance." From the doubt Ella heard in his voice, he didn't think they would all make it. Or maybe even any of them.

"Fight our way out through that?" Astrid said, throwing her hand toward the street. "Are you crazy, sir?"

"Sometimes, the only options we have left are bad ones, Agent Farnsworth. Our only other choice is to stay here and die."

"Yeah, but... but..."

Sonia spoke up. "I think Phillip is right, Astrid. If we don't get out of here now, we never will."

"No. No! Stop this!" Walter hissed suddenly, holding his hand up. His eyes were wide, and strangely filled with excitement, maybe even joy, as strange as that seemed. "There is no need for any last ditch heroics quite yet, Agent Broyles. I believe... I believe I may know of a solution. A way out of our predicament."

"Walter there is no other way out of this building," Astrid said. "We're trapped in here. And there must be ten thousand of them out there. We're completely surrounded."

Walter shook his head, grinning madly. "Actually, you're wrong, Astral. There _is_ another way out. It's strange how our memories work—I'd forgotten all about them until this very moment."

"Forgot all about what, Doctor Bishop?" Mister Broyles said.

Before Walter could reply, the fence began to groan again, a long and drawn out scream, like it was alive, like it was dying. To Ella, the groan sounded like a creaky door in a haunted house on TV. The kind of door that would slam shut when the kids on the show walked through it. She thought the fence was a kind of door also, only once it was opened there was no closing it. And instead of a monster waiting inside to eat them, the monsters were on the outside. And they were hungry. One of the damaged sections buckled inward, bars popping free as the infected surged forward.

Walter continued on as if nothing had happened. "Why the tunnels, of course, Agent Broyles," he said, nodding with excitement. "They're right beneath us. The old tunnels that house the steam piping used to heat this side of the Harvard campus. Or they did, before the world ended, at least. Belly and I explored them extensively, usually after partaking several doses of a particularly strong blotter acid." His eyebrows rose, lips widened into a huge grin as he let out a chuckle. "Why I remember once in the late seventies, the two of us became quite lost, and to make matters worse, I snagged the hem of my speedos on a—"

"Walter!" Astrid stepped in front of him. She grabbed his coat and moved in close to his face. "We don't have time for a story! How do you get in these tunnels? Where is the entrance and where do they exit? How far away?"

The old scientist's eyes blinked hugely and glanced out at the fence as if he'd only just noticed they were moments away from breaking through. "Oh. Yes. The entrance. It's down in the basement, across the hall from my lab. As for the exit, there are several, the nearest of which is at the Law School across Cambridge Avenue."

"Back in the basement?" Mommy asked, swallowing.

Sonia's face was set as she reached for the door handle. "We'd better hurry."

Then Astrid let out a groan, staring up at the sky and smacking a hand to her forehead. "Oh shit... I left the radio in the truck! How are we supposed contact Olivia and Peter now? And the rest of the guns... I loaded them this afternoon!"

"One problem at a time," Mister Broyles muttered as he limped inside. "We'll worry about that later." He turned to Walter, motioning him forward. "Take us to this tunnel, Doctor Bishop. Quickly."

#

Less than a minute later, Ella found herself back in the stairwell. The flights of steps seemed narrower than they had on the way up, smaller somehow. Foreboding. She held on tight to the back of her mother's coat. Surely the smallness was her imagination. Three red beams stabbed at the darkness, reflecting off pale bricks of white. The lights provided little in the way of illumination and she came close to tripping more than once, but didn't complain. Regular flashlights like the one her mother had in her pocket were bad; a lesson learned in the big library. At the bottom of the steps, they stopped, huddled in the doorway into the corridor.

"Where is this entrance?" Sonia asked Walter softly. "How come I've never seen it before?"

Ella snuck a look out into the hallway. She frowned at the darkness, the lack of any light at all. It was different. They had left candles lit inside the lab, hadn't they? She peered at the spot where the lab doors should have been but there was inky blackness. If the candles were out, it could mean only one thing. Gulping, she looked up at Walter, whose face glowed pink in someone's light.

"It's just past the lab," he replied. "On the other side of the hall. There's a grate on the wall, set low near the floor. We'll have to open it."

"And this leads to a tunnel?" Astrid's quiet voice was doubtful.

Walter nodded. "It's been cleverly disguised as ventilation duct, though that didn't fool Belly and I."

"Who the hell is this Belly person?" Mommy asked in a whisper. "You keep saying that name like we should know it, Walter."

"William Bell, of course. My old lab Partner."

"William Bell. You mean _the_ William Bell?"

"Oh yes. We..."

Ella had already heard all about his old friend and stopped listening. She tugged on the nearest sleeve, and Mister Broyles crouched down beside her. His face twisted like doing so was painful. The beam of the light strapped on his forehead was blinding and she looked away as she spoke. "Look, Mister Broyles," she said, pointing out into the hall. "The lights are all out in the lab. I think that means they're inside."

The bald man switched his light off for a moment, staring out into the gloom. "Ella's right," he said, interrupting Walter. "All the candles are out in the lab. I don't think I need to tell you what that means."

"What should we do?" Sonia asked.

"There's nothing we can do, other than hope they haven't made it into the hall yet. Let's go, people. Stay quiet now."

Turning back on his light, Mister Broyles walked into the corridor. He moved slowly, quietly, with a noticeable limp, but held the machine gun tightly up to his shoulder, swinging the tip from side to side. A circle of red light bobbed in front of him, giving the floor tiles and walls a pinkish tint.

"Go head, Walter," Sonia whispered, waving him onward. She had her gun drawn, a grayish pistol that seemed huge in her hands. "You too, Rach, Ella. Astrid and I will watch your backs."

Mommy's face tightened in the red glow, but she nodded, and pulled out her own gun. "Stay close to me, baby girl," she said. "If anything happens, find a place to hide." Then she reached out, brushing Ella's cheek with her fingertips.

They crept out into the hall, following closely behind Walter, and then Mister Broyles, who had stopped, waiting for them to catch up. Ella curled her fists into tight balls. She told herself to keep breathing, to put one foot in front of the other, and kept her eyes glued on her mother's coat just ahead. Her right hand still stung, but somehow the pain was reassuring; if she could feel it, then she was still alive.

Classroom doors slid past on either side. The patter of their footsteps echoed lightly, like the flutter of birds' wings in the distance. She remembered her first day here, how scared she'd been when Aunt Liv had led her down into the basement. It all seemed so long ago, and that scared girl a different person than she. She remembered the darkness pressing in on her, how ancient and worn it all appeared, the walls and doors, scratched and gouged. She'd been sure it was a monster's doing, something with long claws and sharp teeth. Something out of her nightmares. How certain she had been that she would hate it here, no toys or books or anything. But she had been wrong; there was nothing scary about the lab, or its darkness, and had soon come to see it as a place to explore, to have adventures.

But that was before.

The fear was back now, ten times worse than it had been. Now the corridor was never-ending. The blackness ahead was a bottomless pit. Or maybe it was a throat, and they were crawling down its walls. Like bugs. Crawling into the monster's belly, where grinding gears would mash their bones, squeezing the life and blood out of them.

Ella's breath whistled in her ears. The sharp edges of her fingernails pricked into her skin, digging into the cut across her palm. Pain shot through her hand as fresh blood welled through fingers pressed together. Her arms ached from the pressure.

Suddenly, a rolling thunderclap exploded in the darkness. The crash of glass breaking, glass shattering into a thousand pieces. A million pieces. The sound kept going, cascading like a waterfall.

Biting back a scream, Ella nearly leapt out of her shoes. Mister Broyles froze, aiming down the barrel of the machine gun as the sound died out.

Someone close by whispered in a hoarse voice. "What the hell was that?"

"I... I believe that was all of my glassware," Walter murmured from just ahead. "They're most definitely inside the building."

"There's nothing we can do about it," Mister Broyles hissed. He glanced back, shining his light over them. "Move. We're nearly there."

They made their way down the hall. A door slid into view on Ella's left. The classroom they had shared with Aunt Liv, before she had moved into Peter's room. All her toys were in there, her coloring books, the drawings she'd made, taped to the wall beneath the windows. She tried to look inside as they passed the door by, but saw only blackness and shadows. She told herself that wherever they went, she could find more. She would.

On the right, the wooden door into lab appeared. It stood open, just as they had left it. Mister Broyles hesitated, shining his light all around, then limped over to the door. Ella held her breath as he peered through the open doorway, then reached out slowly for the door knob. What had he seen in there? The old door and its glass window seemed flimsy to her, incapable of stopping or even holding back anything for long. After the door closed with a click, Mister Broyles waved them forward with frantic motions.

"Quickly now." He spoke just loud enough for Ella to hear the urgency in his voice. "We don't have much time."

They rushed forward, footsteps echoing loudly on the tiled floor. Something thumped behind them in the darkness. Then a noise, like a window rattling in its frame. Ella's eyes bulged with burgeoning fear, but she clamped her teeth shut, holding it inside. There was another thump, quieter than before. Another rattle. The cross dug into her palm, slippery with blood. A wooden bench appeared out of the gloom, where Miss Sonia had practiced reading with her.

"There it is!" Walter said excitedly, jabbing his finger at a square of gray metal Ella had never noticed before, on the wall across from the bench. "Right there!"

"Somebody get it open." Mister Broyles took few steps back toward the lab, aiming the rifle into the blackness. "I'll keep watch."

Instead of being solid, the metal had small holes in it, like vents in the floor in Ella's house back in Chicago. It was much larger however, big enough to crawl through. Astrid crouched in front of it, placing her gun down beside her on the floor, then hooked her fingers through the grate and pulled. She leaned back, throwing her weight into it, then gasped in pain, letting go and shaking out her fingers.

"Walter, it's screwed shut!" she hissed, looking up at him with panic in her brown eyes. "You didn't say anything about it being screwed shut!"

Walter threw up his hands. "What? How was I to know? It never was in my day. Someone must have replaced the screws over the last thirty years. Don't you have a... a screwdriver? Peter always carries one."

"No. I don't have a screwdriver," Astrid growled.

"Well, perhaps the point of your knife will suffi—"

"Look out!" Miss Sonia's sudden cry preceded a burst of gunfire.

Ella spun around, holding her ears. Flashes of yellow light lit up the corridor, revealing a wall of infected lurching toward them. Arms extended and teeth bared they moved as a group, yellow eyes gathering the light. Something was wrong. They weren't coming from the lab, but from the opposite end of the hall, where Peter's room lay. She had only instant to ponder what that might mean before the body of a dead woman with whitish hair dropped at Sonia's feet. Blood gushed from one if its eyes, pooling and spreading out on the floor.

"Get that grate open now!" Mister Broyles shouted, hobbling over next to Sonia and raising his gun.

Gunfire filled the corridor, each shot like a bomb going off. Clutching her ears, Ella backed away, until she bumped up against the wooden bench across the hall. Between the booming gunshots were metallic chimes, flashes of gold that bounced and skittered across the floor. One of them rolled to a stop at her feet. It was an empty bullet, with smoke still rising from the open end. She went to reach for it, then froze at a sound off to her left; a heavy thump, followed by the crash of glass shattering on concrete.

Turning her head, she peered back toward the lab but all the flashlights were turned the other way. There was nothing to see, only blackness, so thick it seemed possible to touch. To her right, the gunfire continued. For a horrifying instant, she couldn't find her mother, but then she did see her, standing beside Sonia and blasting away with her pistol.

"Mom!" Ella shouted over the cacophony of gunfire. "Mom!"

But her mother didn't react. None of the adults did. They couldn't hear her! Not that it was surprising; she could barely hear herself. Gunfire was all there was. It rattled her brain, left purple smears hanging in the air before her eyes. In the bright flashes, infected were falling left and right. Astrid and Walter were both kneeling in front of the vent, trying to yank it free. Their faces were desperate, stretched tight with panic, and the sight spurred Ella into action.

She sprang away from the bench, sprinting over to her mother. "Mom!" she shouted again, grabbing at her coat.

Her mother glanced down, eyes opened as wide they could be. "What are you doing! Stay back, Ella! Get back. You can't be up here!"

"But Mom, I heard something!" She pointed back toward the lab, but her mother had already looked away, added to the barrage of gunfire as more and more undead stumbled out of the shadows.

"Where are they coming from?" Sonia cried out as she reloaded her pistol.

"I don't know!" Mister Broyles's voice was hoarse as he aimed down the barrel of his rifle. "Keep firing!"

A shadow moved along the wall, a shadow that turned into an undead boy, no taller than Ella was herself. It was moving faster than the others, and came close to reaching Mister Broyles's feet before he shot it in the face. The dead boy skidded across the floor, leaving a black streak behind. Blood splatters filled the air, painting the walls, turning the floor darkly wet. Bodies were piling up, too many to count. Ella felt something spray across her cheeks and lips, and she backed away, stomach heaving.

Staggering back, Ella turned around in time to see a dead man stumble into the bubble of Astrid's red light. It was big like her Daddy used to be, and dressed like a soldier, wearing army clothes and bulky belt around his waist. Horribly, the dead man's uniform was ripped open and she could see inside him, see the inside of his belly, all ropey and gooey and hanging out of him, stringy flesh swinging between his legs. He had been eaten, chewed on. She couldn't look away from it. The infected soldier hesitated, golden eyes shifting in it sockets, and then it lunged forward, clawing at Astrid's unprotected back.

The dead man moved in slow-motion, but somehow faster than full speed. "Astrid watch out!" Ella managed to scream. Astrid looked up, eyes going wide as it fell on top of her. "Astrid! Astrid!"

"Astro!" Walter shouted, lumbering to his feet.

He started reach for the dead soldier, but another infected careened into the light, grabbing hold of him and forcing him backwards, smashing him into the wall. He cried out as his head thumped against the bricks, and Ella screamed in answer, conscious thought having given way to sheer terror. Walter and the infected man struggled, arms locked together. The dead man's teeth chomped up and down. Then, with a snarl, he pushed it away and they stumbled off into the blackness, spinning in a nightmarish dance.

Ella's throat was raw, her vision a blur of uncontrollable tears. She looked around in daze, viewing the world through a fear-induced fog, arms spasming as she tried to hug herself, tried to make herself as small as possible. Gibbering voices screamed inside her head, buffeting her senseless. Voices that sounded like her own.

Motion was happening all around her, everything at once; flashes of white and red, detonations of gunfire that struck like physical blows. Through the bursts of light, Miss Sonia shoved a dead woman back, then put a bullet through its mouth, blowing out its teeth. In the next instant, she turned and shot a dead man above his ear, splattering its brains out onto the wall beside her Mommy, who was frantic, trying to reload her gun with shaking hands and fingers. The dead man's brains stuck to the wall like bits of pink chewing gum. On the other side of the hall, Mister Broyles batted an infected down, smashing its head with the back of his rifle. Then he fired a burst down the hallway, and three shadowy bodies topped sideways.

Ella's thumb was in her mouth. She sucked hard on it, mind blank, numb with fright. Her gaze fell to the floor in front of the metal grate, to Astrid. She was on her back with the dead man on top of her, holding its teeth at bay with her hands around its throat. Her face was pinched, tight with panic. Beside her friend on the floor was the red headlamp, casting its light against the wall in a broad half-circle. Ella stared at the red circle, bemused by its oblong shape, as Walter and the dead man stumbled back into view. They whirled about, and then Walter slammed it up against the wall, smashing its head over and over until the wall turned dark and stained behind it. The infected fell to the ground, only to be replaced by another.

Something small and dark spun across the floor, kicked about in the struggle. It came to a stop directly in front of Ella, close enough to touch. She gazed down at it, then glanced between it and Astrid and the dead soldier, whose teeth were inches from her throat. In mere moments, her friend would be dead. Astrid would be dead.

 _Then do something!_ A voice inside her head rose above the chorus of other voices, all whimpering in fear. But she was only a kid. What could she do? _But Astrid is going to die!_ The voice was insistent. _She is going to get eaten if you don't do something right now!_

 _But I'm so scared!_ she cried back silently, pulling hard on her thumb, tasting salt on her lips. _I'm so scared._

The conversation inside her head lasted little more than heartbeat. But the teeth were closer, descending slowly for Astrid's cheek. Its fingers tangled in her mouth. She jerked her head away and met Ella's gaze, eyes wide, filled with horrible fear. Tears were streaming down her friend's cheeks, glistening in the light. Ella watched them fall, one after another, and then, she forced the thumb from her mouth as something awoke inside her.

Astrid was afraid too, just like she was. They all were; her mom, and Sonia, even Mister Broyles. They were all scared, all terrified. But they were all fighting. It was either fight to stay alive, or give up and die. She'd heard an adult say that once. Had it been her aunt? She couldn't remember.

Ella took in a shuddering breath. She let her burlap bear fall to the floor, and then, reaching down with hands that shook, she picked up the object lying at her feet.

Astrid's gun was heavier than she expected, and bigger. Or maybe her hand was too small. The trigger had a slight curve, and her pointer finger fit right in it. Gripping it in both hands, she carried it over to the dead man on top of Astrid and pressed the tip against the dead soldier's head, just above its ear, like she had seen Sonia do it. Then she squeezed the trigger.

The pistol exploded, came alive in her hands. Holding on to it was like holding on to a wild animal, but somehow she managed to keep her grip. Blood erupted from the mass of dark hair, showering over the gun and over hands, splashing over her face, and into her mouth. The taste was terrible on her lips. It tasted like ashes. It tasted like death. She froze, gagging and choking, shaking all over. Would she turn into one now? She didn't know. It was possible, wasn't it?

Then a hand closed gently over hers, over the gun. "Here, I'll take that, sister." Astrid was on her knees beside her, the dead man lay face down and leaking blood all over the floor. "You stay... right here," she wheezed, "right up against that wall. Don't you move now."

Ella nodded, and meeting Astrid's kind gaze, let go of the gun.

Astrid smiled, then rushed to Walter's aid, yanking the dead man away from him and firing once into its face. As the body toppled, she scrambled for her red light, then loped off into the darkness, heading back toward the lab. Gunshots exploded in the darkness ahead of her, highlighting more dead people moving in from that way. Then her light vanished, leaving behind only darkness.

"Astrid!" Walter cried after her. He reached down, grabbing at his knee. "Where are you going?" His face twisted with pain and anguish, worry and fear. "Come back! Astrid!"

"Get that grate open, Walter!" Mister Broyles shouted, looking back with fierce eyes. "We're running out of time!"

Ella spat the gunk out of her mouth. She didn't feel any different, so maybe the blood wouldn't hurt her, wouldn't make her change. She looked down at the metal grate. With Astrid and her light missing, it was little more than a darkish square in the dimness. She gave it a light whack with her foot. The grate seemed solid, unmoving, but she kicked it a second time, harder, aiming for what seemed like its center. After a third kick, her big toe rung with pain, shooting up her leg, but she didn't stop. She kept kicking, despite the grate seeming unaffected.

There were screams to her right. Shouts of fury, growls and snarls of infected. Her mother's voice was among them, though hardly recognizable. Instead of looking back, she kept kicking, no matter how much it hurt. Fight or die. That was the way of it.

"Here. Let me, dear," Walter said, suddenly beside her.

Ella glanced down at his knee. "Are you okay?"

"I'm... still breathing... if that's what you're asking, he said hoarsely, in between rough-sounding coughs." He drew back his foot and slammed it forward against the grate, hissing through clenched teeth as he did so. The metal dented inward, but only slightly. "This damnable thing is never going to come loose," he raged, kicking at the metal again and again, until finally, he collapsed mid kick, crying out and clutching at his knee.

"Walter!" Ella dropped down beside him, laying a hand across his shoulder. "Are you sure okay? I don't think you should be doing that."

Walter groaned in response, then let out a string of very bad words that turned Ella's ears red under his breath. She tucked them away, just in case they happened to survive.

Suddenly it dawned on her that the gunfire had stopped, and without it, Ella could herself think again. Her heart was hammering inside her chest. She looked up and saw her mother ripping her knife from under the chin of an infected, then shoving it away from her. Sweat and blood covered her face. Standing beside her, Sonia was down to her knife also, while Mister Broyles beat the dead back with his rifle. From the glimpses she caught of his face, he looked tired, dead on his feet. But the infected kept coming. For every one they killed—and there seemed a massive amount laying in front of them—another replaced it, crawling over the growing mound. And they were closer than before, being driven slowly backward, step by step, body by body. A dead woman's head thudded off the floor between her mother's legs, close enough for her to make out an earring that somehow still sparkled.

It was close now. She felt it, coming closer every second.

_The end._

She wondered again what it would feel like to die. Like falling asleep? Before the infected came, she had tried capturing the exact moment, lying in her bed at night, but it had always slipped away just as she thought she might be close. Would her father be waiting for her? Would there be a heaven? And if there was, would she go there? She had been a good girl, hadn't she? A worrying thought struck her. Sometimes she lied. Mostly to her mom. Mostly. But never about anything bad. Did that count? She wasn't sure—no one seemed to know what happened after you die. And why would God let dead people come back to life anyway?

A red light flashing across the metal grate stifled further thoughts on the afterlife. Ella surged to her feet. She was about to call out, but then Astrid charged out of the darkness. She stopped short of them, turning and firing her pistol back down the hall at a shadowy figure lurching in her wake, before skidding to a stop beside Ella, chest heaving in and out. Her eyes widened as she noticed Walter on the floor.

"He's okay," Ella told her quickly. "Where did you go?"

She held up a long screwdriver. It was painted red with blood, and bits of dark hair clung to the flattened tip. "Back to the lab. I knew I saw one of these on Peter's table."

"That was rather foolish of you, Agent Farnsworth," Walter said, sitting up with a groan of pain. "Ahh... but also... quite brave, my dear." He turned, squinting back toward the lab. "How much time do we have?"

"Not much...," Astrid muttered, kneeling down before the grate. "They're as thick as thieves in the lab, and I've only got four bullets left. The stairs are giving them fits, or else we'd all be dead by now. I barely made it out of there with my skin." She placed her pistol in Walter's hand. "Will you watch my back?"

Walter nodded wearily, then managed to get himself into a kneeling position. He pointed the pistol back into the darkness, holding it with both hands like a policeman on TV. "Now let's get this grate open, shall we?"


	23. Out of Light Into Darkness

**-January 2009**

The noise came from somewhere ahead, reverberating out of the darkness.

Then came a sudden clink, followed by a desperate flurry of scratches that could only be tiny claws groping for purchase on the uneven concrete of the tunnel floor. Always from the front the noises came, always just out of range of their collective halo of white and red lights. The lights blended together, bathing the cracked and pitted tunnel walls in a pinkish aura. Whispers of motion accompanied the unsettling echoes. The rustle of paper, as if some creature fled their approach, leaving the crinkle of disturbed trash in its wake. There were abrupt clanks, and peals and groans of metal that seemed to come from the layers of pipes themselves before falling silent as quickly as they appeared, leaving the tunnel blanketed in harsh quiet.

As it was now.

Ella's nose twitched as she crept forward, following the hazy silhouette that belonged to her mother. A sharp, unpleasant odor that sort of smelled like the inside of her Daddy's boots hung in the air. Since they had first entered the abandoned tunnel the odor had been there, since she had first stepped off the ladder they had found propped up against the opening. And no matter how far through the maze of concrete they traveled, the smell had remained, burning at the inside of her nose.

A loud crash shattered the silence farther down the tunnel, followed by an outraged, animal squeal. She flinched harshly, balling her hands into fists at the sudden sound, and took in a deep breath as the long, drawling clatter of something falling over, then rolling across concrete added to the cacophony. A glass something, from the ring of it. The deep cut in the center of her palm burned all the way up her forearm. She tried to ignore the sting, but it kept intruding.

There was no shortage of bottles—broken and whole—of all manner of sizes and shapes and colors. As her heart resumed its steady beat inside her head, stray flashes of light were captured by glittering shards that crunched underfoot in front of her and behind, where Astrid walked carefully, taking up the rear of their line. Her mother's shadow ducked under a low hanging pipe. There seemed no end to the pipes, rows of them hanging on the walls and ceiling, brown and red with rust and some as big as Ella's leg. Leading the way with Sonia, the tall Mister Broyles had already bopped his head several times. Brackish puddles decorated the tunnel floor, collected from water that dripped from everywhere; from the pipes overhead, and seemingly seeping from the pocked walls of cement.

How long they had actually been in the tunnels, Ella couldn't say, but it seemed like forever. Were they lost? She was starting to wonder. According to Walter they weren't, but all the doors they'd passed by were closed, and none of the side passages were the right ones and they all looked the same to her—just rectangles of darkness. She wondered how much longer it would be. Her feet were tired and there was a giant hole going right through the bottom of her stomach. What felt like wads of crinkled paper lined her throat. No one had spoken of it yet, but most of their packs and supplies had been left behind. Most of them, but not all. Mister Broyles's for one, and her mother's, another. Mom's pack held the only remaining bottles of water and food. Everything else was back in the lab or loaded in the truck, waiting for when word came from Aunt Liv and Peter.

Word that would never come, now.

How were they ever going to find them again? No one had said anything about that, either. Ella fought down a rising tide of fear and panic, forcing it all down until only a dull sadness remained as she trudged along.

"Why are the pipes making those noises, Walter?" Sonia's sudden whisper carried back from the front of the line as another series of soft groans filled the air. "Didn't you say they were steam pipes? There's no way they're still in use. Not now."

Sonia was leading the way with her red headlamp, only one of two that still had working batteries. The other was with Astrid at the rear, who was busy keeping an eye out for infected who had managed to follow them down into the tunnels. So far, none had. Ella prayed that they had escaped them, that they were finally safe. Just behind Sonia and then Mister Broyles, her mother helped Walter over a row of pipes running across the tunnel floor. They were different than the other pipes, a dull silver color without a sign of rust or dripping water. She didn't ask why though, and instead merely stepped over them when it was her turn.

"Of course not, my de-," Walter started to reply, then trailed off into a series of rough coughs. The fit continued for a several moments and they stopped and waited for it to pass. When it finally did, he let out a soft groan, and then continued. "...As I was...saying, my dear..." His voice was breathless in the scant light. "If there were steam in these pipes, you would certainly know it by now. Back in the old days, it used to get so hot down here, Belly and I would wear nothing but our speedos, even in the winter. No, I suspect what we are hearing is simply the expansions and contractions due to temperature differences above and below where some branch lines penetrate or come near the surface, nothing more."

"Speedos?" Astrid said softly from the rear of the line. "Eww...in this filth? What were you guys even doing down here?" She paused, and then added, "Actually on second thought, never mind, I don't think I want to know."

"We were merely exploring our surroundings, Aspirin," Walter replied as if he hadn't heard as he cast about the tunnel walls with a fading yellow flashlight. "Following the trip wherever it led. Some of our best ideas came that way. Of course, I can't rightly say why we did anything back then, other than that it all made perfect sense to us at the time. Belly's special blend had quite a kick, especially in large doses."

"Trip?" Mom questioned in an odd voice. "Wait. You mean you and William Bell were tripping? Like on acid? On LSD?" She grunted, and shook her head. "Well, that takes me back, and explains a few things."

LSD? It wasn't the first time Ella had heard Walter mention something called LSD. What was it? Some kind of medicine? She asked her mom, only to hear Astrid bark out a laugh behind her. She looked back to her friend covering her mouth, face tinted red under the light of the head lamp. What was so funny? And why wasn't anyone telling her? Adults could be so annoying at times.

She noticed her mother giving Walter the _I'm-getting-kind-of-irritated_ look, but before she could say anything, he stopped with a sudden gasp.

"Ah! Wait. Stop. This is the place," he said in an excited tone, throwing a hand toward another dark passage branching off to the right. "You see? There on the column. It's what I've been looking for."

Stepping closer, Ella saw that something was painted on the column's face. A yellow dragon with claws and wings and a pointed tail. A long tongue curled from its mouth that upon closer look was forked at the tip, like a snake, and its eyes seemed to glitter darkly. She wondered who had painted it, and why. Some of the paint was chipped and flecked, like it had been there for centuries. The creature seemed special somehow, a sign that they were on the right path, like on one of the shows she used to watch.

"What is that?" Sonia asked when she and Mister Broyles rejoined the small circle huddled around the column.

"A dragon, East Asian, I believe, and the sign I've been looking for," Walter said. "This passage should lead us to the law school exit."

"Did you make that?" Mister Broyles said. He leaned forward to inspect the painting with one hand on the column. "Why is it here?"

Walter shook his head. "No, Belly and I stumbled upon it. These passages were a secret, but we were certainly not the first to discover them. There are other paintings about, all done in a similar vein as this one. We'd always assumed it was done by the first students to explore the tunnels fully, or... so we told ourselves back then." He paused, and his eyes grew distant. "It was a different era."

Ella caught a hint of sadness in Walter's voice and on the shadowed lines of his wrinkled face. Did he miss his old friend? When he had spoken of him before, he had always sounded mad at him, like his friend had hurt him or done something bad. It was all so complicated. She wondered if it would be like that for her when she grew up.

"How far is it from here, Walter?" Mom asked, peering down the darkened side tunnel.

"Not far, just a few minutes. There should be a ladder, with a hatch at the top. This way, everyone."

Walter led them into the blackness, shining the way ahead with paltry light from his flashlight. He was limping badly, almost dragging one leg behind him. Before he'd gone far another fit of wretched coughing left him sagging against the concrete, gasping for breath. Ella smiled as her mom rushed to his aid, throwing one of his arms over her shoulder. Her mom would make sure he was all right.

"Are you okay, Walter?" she asked. "I don't like the sound of that cough."

"I don't care much for it either myself, Miss Dunham," he replied. "But I'm afraid there's nothing to be done for it. Oh, I'll be all right in a minute or two." He coughed again, and spat out a mouthful of gunk onto the concrete, then wiped his mouth on his sleeve before pushing off the wall.

With assistance from her mother, they were off again, moving down the side tunnel, the narrowest they had come across so far. Walls of pitted concrete pressed in close on either side, and a low ceiling with even lower pipes hung in tightly packed rows. For once, Ella was glad of her smaller height; the adults were all forced to duck their head, and Mister Broyles had particularly tough time, knocking his head repeatedly. For some reason there was more trash in the side tunnel, mostly bits of shiny food wrappers and what looked like faded books with torn out pages. There were wrinkled magazines and a pile of filthy woolen blankets that she suspected was home to mice or rats, or some other kind of creatures that creeped and crawled, or slithered. Why not? What else would live down in the forgotten darkness? Then a tired-looking wooden chair emerged from the blackness, with spindles missing from its back. Clear glass bottles littered the concrete around it, along with innumerable cigarette butts, more brown with age than white.

Ella slowed, gazing down at the chair with widening eyes.

Who had put it there? And how long ago? And why? Were they dead now? Or one of the dead? Had they lived in the tunnel? Had it been their home? It had. Some part of her knew it for a certainty. Suddenly she remembered the old world, how she had seen grownups without homes, living outside on the streets. And sometimes children, too. The poor homeless, or so her mother had called them. They had scared her at first, with their raggedness, the dirt on their faces, the looks ever present in their eyes, of hope and hopelessness. And loneliness. Eyes that could somehow see inside her, or so she'd thought at first, and see her thoughts, her fear. She couldn't help them—and she didn't want to.

And then, after a while, she'd stopped seeing them altogether, though they hadn't disappeared.

It was a horrible thought. But before then, before she stopped seeing them, she remembered wondering why they didn't have a house like she did. Where had they gone when the sun went down? Where had they slept when nights grew cold? Had there been tunnels like this in Chicago? She decided it seemed likely. Glancing behind her as the blackness closed around them once more, it struck her that she was one of them, now.

One of the homeless. Her eyes stretched open wide, and her heart ran faster in her chest. One of the poor homeless.

A hand fell across her shoulder. "You okay, El?"

Ella looked up and found Astrid standing over her, red light beaming down brightly. She gave a weak smile. "I'm okay, Astrid. I was just wondering who used to live down here."

"Whoever it was, they're long gone by now." Astrid, said, then hesitated, crouching down on her heels. The others were moving onward, already a span of blackness separated them. "You know, Ella," she started, reaching out and taking one of Ella's hands, "I never got a chance to thank you. You... you saved my life back there, honey. I know you must have been scared out of your mind, and that it must have been really hard."

"I had to do something," Ella breathed, reliving the moment inside her head. "I couldn't just watch you die. You're my friend, Astrid."

She felt the gun's weight again, the bucking explosion traveling up her arm, and the wet spray of blood. The blood was still there, dried in flakes that gripped her cheeks like a mask. A gross yuckiness still coated her tongue. She wondered if she would ever stop tasting it, or even if it was even there at all. Maybe it was just her imagination.

"Well, thank you, sweetheart," Astrid said with a smile, then straightened, rising to her feet. "I'll never forget it. You're a brave little girl, you know that? And for the record, you're my friend, too. Now c'mon, we should catch up with the others. Before your mom starts to freak out."

Ella could only nod her agreement, already hearing her mother's voice inside her head. She definitely would freak if she noticed the two of them were missing, and their bubble of light had already disappeared around a bend in the tunnel ahead. They hurried after them and soon reached the passage's end, where they found the others huddled beneath a smallish hole in the ceiling overhead. Descending out of the shaded opening was a line of metal steps, set into the wall itself. A ladder, just like Walter had said.

"Everything all right?" Mom asked, turning at their approach. She met Ella's gaze. "You okay, Ella?"

"We're good," Astrid replied before she could. "I guess this is it?"

"Yes, this is the place," Walter said, then squinted up into the blackness with a frown. "We should emerge north of the lab, in an alley near Story Hall on Everett Street."

Ella eyed the darkened opening in the ceiling. It seemed awfully small, maybe too small for them all to fit. And what if there were more dead people waiting for them above? There had been so many of them outside the lab, so many that there had seemed no end to them, not for miles. How far had they even come? When she asked both questions, none of the adults answered right away. She glanced between them, waiting, and noticed how Walter kept wetting his lips, how the muscles on Mister Broyles's face grew tighter and tighter. It came to her then that they didn't know what to do any more than she did. There was no plan, except for what was happening at that moment, and maybe there never had been. All of a sudden an image of her aunt rose in her mind, and her throat began to throb painfully. Would she ever see her again? Or Peter? It all seemed wrong without them there.

"I guess there's no point in waiting to find out," Sonia said finally, grabbing the ladder and stepping up onto a lower step. She swiftly climbed out of view, vanishing into the tunnel ceiling, and the clack of her boots on the metal rungs echoed down long after she disappeared, before those too, fell silent.

The wait seemed to take forever, filled a harsh silence broken only by the hisses of their breaths, and the occasional creaks and groans that came from nowhere. With a frown, Astrid shined her light that way, but the tunnel remained empty. Ella looked up as a series of resounding thuds echoed down from above, followed by a frustrated growl and what sounded like a very bad word.

"That doesn't sound good," Ella heard her mother mutter under her breath.

Ella could only agree. It hadn't been just a bad word, but the worst bad word. Red light flashed down, growing brighter with the rhythmic echo of boots on metal. When Sonia reappeared, the look on her face was not happy.

"The hatch is locked, Walter," she reported with a growl, and hopped down off the ladder. "From the outside. There's no way to open it from down here. And I think it's safe to assume that every other exit like this is gonna be locked also. You got any other ideas?"

Walter cleared his throat, wiping a hand across his forehead as his lips worked silently. "No, I'm afraid I don't," he said shortly. "Let me think on it. Surely there's another way out of here. There must be."

Lowering his head, he turned away, and a cough emanated from deep inside his chest, buckling his shoulders. From the way his head nodded and moved about, Ella thought he might be having a conversation with himself—an occurrence, she had noted before, that was fairly normal, for him.

"Could we shoot the lock out from beneath?" Mister Broyles asked as they waited. He glanced down at the machine gun he'd been carrying, then up into darkened hole.

"I don't think so," Sonia said, eyeing the rifle. "I tried to lift it, but it didn't budge, not even a millimeter. Felt like it was made out of solid steel."

"And in that small space? I can only imagine the ricochets if it didn't work," Astrid added with a cringe. "You couldn't pay me to try that."

Mister Broyles sighed, face tightened as he shifted his weight off his bad foot. "You're probably right, Astrid. Have you got any ideas, Doctor Bishop? Anything at all you can remember from before?"

Walter hung his head. "Nothing is coming to mind, I'm afraid." He shook his head sadly. "I suppose in the old days, the authorities were more lax in permitting access to the steam tunnels, especially given the climate of fear I understand the country had been living under since the horrific nine-eleven attacks. I should have known better. I... I apologize for leading us down here."

Ella frowned at his apology. They were alive, so what else mattered? It was better to be stuck in some old, smelly tunnel than being eaten and turned into a monster, wasn't it? Looking up at him, she reached out and touched Walter's hand. "It's not your fault, Walter," she told him, flashing him a smile. "We're all still alive, right?"

The old scientist stared down at her, lips trembling. After a moment, he nodded. "You're quite right, child. Thank you. That is a rather important detail."

"Well...we certainly can't go back to the lab," her mother stated after an interval. "There has to be another way out, some kind of... I don't know, a...junction somewhere? Like with sewers or a rainwater runoff or something. There has to be something!"

"What about those doors we passed by earlier, Walter?" Sonia questioned. "Back in the main tunnel. Where do those go?"

"I'm afraid I don't know where any of those lead," he said, stroking his chin. "They were always locked, before. I suspect they're mostly for maintenance, however, perhaps containing power panels or ventilation equipment. But...you, may be correct, Miss Dunham. There are certainly other tunnels beneath Cambridge, sewer and rainwater, the subways to name a few, and some of them are far older than these. I believe the Red Line subway tunnel dates back to... to..." His eyes went distant, focused on something only he could see, or as if he were looking back into the past. He let out a long sigh, and then his face brightened, lighting up the tunnel with a broad smile.

"Wait. Yes...Yes!" Raising his hand, thumb and middle fingers pressed together, he glanced between them. "I have it! I believe I may know of another way out. In theory."

"Where?" Astrid said, looking around as if it might be nearby.

Without answering, Walter hobbled out into the darkness beyond their circle of light. He took a few steps, then gasped with pain and looked back, eyebrows lifting hopefully.

#

For the first time since they'd entered the tunnel, the constant creaks and groans had fallen silent and the scuffling of footsteps was the only sound as Ella resumed her place in the middle of the line.

Her eyes remained glued to the back of her mother's coat, flapping just ahead, but only because her mother was directly in front of her. The confines of the steam tunnel hardly registered; the cracked and pitted concrete, the bits of trash and broken glass, the low-hanging pipes that she avoided without thought. Her mind was in another place. Astrid's words of thanks lingered inside her head, and had stirred something awake inside, something different. Since their escape into the tunnels, she had almost forgotten what she'd done. Or maybe she had made herself not think about it. Was that possible? She didn't know.

She had shot someone. Had killed someone. A real person. With a gun. She had blown their brains out, like on one of those shows her Daddy had liked to watch, before, where the red, chunk-filled goop would splatter over a wall or across someone's face, blood dripping down slowly. It had been a dead person, an infected person trying to eat her friend, but they had been alive once. Did that make it better? They had been a person once, with a family, maybe even a little girl or boy. It had to mean something, didn't it? A kind of strangeness fell over her, as if she were wearing someone else's skin. Along with the feeling of strangeness came an odd exhilaration that was neither good nor bad—just different.

The darkness seemed less dark somehow, less oppressive. The rusty pipes and hunks of metal protruding from the tunnel walls looked only like themselves, and not like the inner workings of some long forgotten dungeon buried far beneath the earth. It was all different. Or was it that she was different? She sensed that something had changed inside her. That something had shifted, or expanded. She was still herself, of course, only more. Bigger, maybe.

_Is that what it means to grow up?_

There was more to it than getting taller, or even older, she knew. Or at least, she suspected that was how it was. The thought of dying was still terrifying. Of course it was—it was terrifying for everyone, even the grownups—and that was what she hadn't understood before. And so, too, was the thought of her mother dying, or her aunt, or any of her friends. But her fear had a size now, a shape. It wasn't limitless anymore; she could see its outline, though it was still hard to wrap her head around. Perhaps it was not being afraid to be afraid.

And none of it was as awful as she'd thought it would be.

A shape caught her eye on the passage floor, where the wall met the floor. Ella stopped and reached for it, and came away with a length of L-shaped metal as long as her arm, cut with a sharp angle on one end. She ran her fingertip over the jagged tip. _It can be a weapon, if I want it to be. If I'm brave enough to make it one._ And something told her that she might need a weapon before they found their way back to the surface, and after also.

There was movement at her side and she found Astrid staring down at her. Instead of telling her to drop her newfound weapon, Astrid merely met her gaze, and then nodded silently after a heartbeat and motioned for Ella to follow the others. She knew. She was the only one that did know. Her mother wouldn't understand; she would only see her age, see her daughter in danger. But every one of them was in danger, weren't they? Every minute of every day.

She was different now, whether her mom liked it or not. Maybe it was the taste of the monster's blood in her mouth that had changed her. Or maybe staring death in its stupid face enough times had finally scoured some part of her away, some crucial part. The loss was saddening in some indescribable way, but necessary if she were to survive, so the voice in the back of her mind told her. If she were to survive. Lifting her chin, Ella strode determinedly in her mother's footsteps.

They backtracked to the main tunnel, and Walter led them to the right, deeper into the steam tunnels. The passage widened and narrowed, grew taller and shorter. Now they ventured down the side tunnels, searching for what Ella knew not, only that Walter wasn't finding what he was looking for. But they kept on, until she was sure they were going in circles. At one intersection, after it seemed they'd been walking for hours, the way was nearly impassable, with rows and rows of massive pipes stacked atop one another and almost blocking any further progress. But the adults made it through, barely, turning sideways and sidling through the gap, all the while complaining loudly at the rough pipes and thick clamps scraping across their bellies. Ella, being the smallest of them by far, slipped through with the cramped confines without issue.

And the tunnel never ended.

After a while, Ella's throat began to hurt, seemed coated with bits of sand. She thought about asking for water, but there was little left. That much had been clear when they had last stopped for a rest. Her mother hadn't said anything—not to her, at least—but it had been in her eyes, in all the adults eyes; worry. Just like when they'd been running out of food and water back at the lab during the blizzard. But she had seen it. She knew what the looks meant. So she waited, determined to hold out as long as she could. And she wasn't the only one having problems. At the front of the line, Walter was limping badly, and every once in a while another fit of coughing would strike, leaving him fighting for air. Sonia and her mom took turns helping him, but the going was slow. To make matters worse, one of the flashlights began to grow dimmer, before finally blinking out. Her mother would smack it against her leg, and bring it back to life repeatedly, but each time the light was dimmer than before.

Ella remembered doing the same once, back in the big library. Right before everything had gone wrong. Soon the light wouldn't come back on. She watched Walter struggle along, catching deep lines of pain on his face in an errant flash of light, and suddenly felt a keen awareness of the part she'd played in his injury. How strange it was, how one thing had led to another, and then to another; how everything that had happened went back to the first glimpse she'd had of the majestic library from the street outside the lab. She had been sure it was a castle, with a moat and maybe even alligators. The thought seemed silly now, and the her of back then even more silly. _It's my fault. He's hurt because of me._ Yet it wasn't _that_ long ago, was it? It was hard to tell how much time had passed. The days had blurred together into a long and never-ending nightmare.

Finally, after what seemed like forever, a gray door emerged from the darkness ahead, with a knob of gray metal that reflected their flashlight beams dully. Pipes that had been running straight across the wall on Ella's left angled up and over the door and frame, before turning down again and disappearing in the blackness.

Walter saw the door and let out an excited gasp. "That's it! Through there," he said, pointing his finger. "This door should lead to a way out, eventually."

"You sure, Doctor Bishop?" Mister Broyles asked as they gathered around the closed door.

"I believe so, yes, if my sense of direction is still at all intact."

Ella took a closer look. A large sign stood out on the door's center, with the word DANGER in white letters inside a flattened red oval. Beneath the oval was a yellow bolt of lightning and words HIGH VOLTAGE and MASSACHUSETTS BAY TRANSIT AUTHORITY in black letters against a white background.

"What does it mean?" she said, squinting up at the letters. She knew the word danger, and one or two others, but that was all. The long word that started with the letter M looked familiar, but from where?

"It means this door leads to tunnels owned by the city, Ella," Mom answered, "and hopefully a way out." Reaching out, she tested the doorknob, then let out a huff Ella recognized as a warning sign. Her mother glared at Walter. "It's locked. I don't suppose you have a key?"

"Um...no. I'm afraid not. But surely there must be some way to get the door open. We do have several secret agents here, don't we?" Walter cast hopeful eyes upon Mister Broyles and Astrid.

"Not those kind of agents," Mister Broyles muttered with a grunt. He touched the door's painted surface, pushing on it, before stepping away and moving to the opposite wall. "All of you go back down the tunnel. I'll risk the ricochet to get us out of here. Somebody give me a light."

"Sir, I can..." Astrid started, then stopped at the hard look on Mister Broyles's face. She raised her hands, then passed him her head lamp. "Okay, okay. You win."

"C'mon, Ella," Mom said, turning her by the shoulders.

Ella wondered what was happening as they retreated down the tunnel. They stopped a short distance away, flattening up against the tunnel wall. Holding her ears, she peered around a wide pipe to see Mister Broyles raising his machine gun. A single gunshot boomed down the tunnel, and then another, bathing the passage in bright flashes of yellow light that left purple splotches hanging in front of her eyes. Mister Broyles lowered his gun, and motioned for them to join him.

The doorknob was mostly gone, along with the circular keyhole above, replaced by lumps of twisted metal. Retrieving her headlamp from Mister Broyles, Astrid poked and pried at the remains for several minutes with her screwdriver, before letting out a delighted squeal.

"I think I got it," she said, giving the door a push. "I got it!"

Metal screeched and crunched, and then the door popped open, swinging silently back on its hinges. They moved forward, crowding the opening on either side. Beyond the doorway was more gloom and darkness. Ella had the impression of space, however, of a high ceiling and wide walls. Her mother stepped through, raising both her pistol and flashlight in front of her. Mister Broyles followed closely behind with a limp, machine gun pressed tight against his shoulder.

"It's clear," he hissed back through the doorway, the whites of his eyes glinting in Astrid's light.

Ella stepped through the door after Walter and Sonia. Her shoes crunched loudly on something, like walking on egg shells or candy wrappers. Looking down, she found the tunnel floor covered in rocks and pebbles and a whitish dust. The tunnel _was_ bigger, she saw as her mother swung her light around. Much bigger. Instead of thick pipes there were only thin ones, running in a flat line across the far wall. The concrete walls curved into the ceiling, where bunches of black wire hung down in slight arcs. Running down the center of the graveled floor were a pair of what looked like train tracks, disappearing into the darkness on either side. _Train tracks?_ Except there were three rails on each track instead of two. She wondered where they went, and what kind of train needed three rails.

"Where are we?" Sonia whispered after they had all passed through. She looked around, frowning at the rail lines as Astrid wedged the door shut behind them, fiddling with the ruined lock once more with her screwdriver.

"Why, it's the subway system, my dear!" Walter's delighted response carried, echoing and repeating in diminishing murmurs. "Courtesy of the MBTA. Though, they could have used our tax dollars to clean up the place," he added, peering about with a frown.

"The subway?" Ella heard her mother utter. "Then there should be a way out, shouldn't there? More than one."

"Just so," Walter said, hopping slightly on one leg. He stifled a cough into the sleeve of his coat before continuing. "There are several stations in Cambridge, the nearest of which should be Harvard Square to the south, but there is also Porter station to the north."

Astrid flashed her light out to either side. "Which way then? I don't have the slightest idea how far we've come. Harvard Square should be the closest to the lab, but... I don't know. We've been down here for what seems like hours. It could be morning already."

Each direction looked the same. The tracks curved slightly as they disappeared into the darkness. Trash littered the gravel at Ella's feet; bits of shredded paper and empty food wrappers, unrecognizable soda or beer cans, bent and caked with a grimy something blacker than dirt. She spied a glass bottle partially buried among the rocks. The sight of its worn, blue and gold label stirred loose a memory from her old life.

She was in her kitchen back in Chicago, and Daddy was in his big chair in the family room, watching the football game on TV. It was the Bears against the Packers, and he hated the Packers, even more than he hated the Cardinals. Why he hated them she didn't know, only that he did; they were the enemy, the bad guys in green and yellow. He had called out, asking for another drink from the fridge. The drinks he liked had always been from glass bottles, with the same blue label and gold letters. It had been a game they played, sometimes. A secret between them, never told Mommy. One time he'd let her try a sip after twisting open the lid. There had been puff of smoke when the cap had come free. Surely it was hot to have smoke, she'd thought. But it hadn't been hot. Instead it had tasted like throw-up, and it had ended up on the carpet, much to her father's displeasure.

On a whim, Ella hauled back and kicked at the bottle, sending it and a spray pebbles flying across the tunnel. She couldn't say why she did it, only that the bottle had made her angry for some reason. But she regretted it at once, however, as the bottle glanced loudly off a subway rail. The ringing peal cut harshly through the tunnel's silence, waves of bouncing echoes that receded in the distance.

As the reverberations died out, all of the adults' heads swiveled in her direction, including Mister Broyles, whose eyes glistened whitely as he shook his head with obvious disapproval. Ella swallowed and felt small under the weight of their gazes, shoulders bent, hunching in on herself. When it was clear that no answering noises, groans, or hordes of infected emerging from the shadows were forthcoming, her mother rounded on her, eyes bristling with fury.

"Ella...!" she hissed between her teeth. Her hand lashed out, squeezing Ella's shoulder in a tight grip. "What the hell are you doing? We don't know who or what's in here with us! Are you trying to get us all killed?"

Ella held in the urge to cry, hunch her shoulders. Why _had_ she done it? Why had the bottle made her mad? It was a bottle! So what if it was the same kind her father had liked? She pictured her aunt's face full of quiet disappointment and hung her head. Aunt Liv would have never done anything so stupid. "I'm sorry, Mom." Her voice came out in a whimper. "I... I don't know why I did that. I'm sorry."

"I know you're only five years old, sweetheart, but you've gotta be smarter than that. Don't ever do that again. Ever. Think, Ella. We're not in the lab anymore. It's not safe out here. Do you understand me?"

She nodded quickly, staring down at her shoes, and her mother released her shoulder. There was a long, drawn out silence through which she could hear her heart beat as her face burned hotly in tunnel's cool air, before Sonia finally cleared her throat.

"We should get moving," she suggested, turning away. "I think red lights only from now on. We don't know what's ahead of us, or behind. Which way do you think, Walter?"

Frowning, his head swung from side to side. "I'm afraid I don't have the faintest idea," he shrugged. "I suppose one way is as good as another."

Mister Broyles motioned toward the left-hand side of the tunnel with his machine gun. "I thought I felt a breeze from over here," he said, and they all looked that way. The red headlamps seemed feeble against the overwhelming darkness ahead.

Ella wiped her cheeks, then stuck out her chin, listening and feeling for air on her cheeks. If there was a breeze, she couldn't feel it, or hear it. But no one seemed to have a better idea, so they started off, following the tracks through the darkness. Their single file line reminded her of going to the playground at school, and how she had always made sure to place each footstep on top of the yellow painted line on the floor, all while avoiding the crack in the tile. For a while, she walked atop one of the rails, until a slip earned her a sharp glare of warning from her mother.

She wished she had a flashlight of her own. She wished she could still go to school, and that all her friends back home were still alive—even Jolie, who had never been anything but mean—and that the world would go back to the way it was before; even if her mom and dad had sometimes screamed at each other, or that she'd had to eat all her broccoli even though it tasted like the smell of wet dirt. She wanted it all back—her old life.

But it would never be. She knew that. It was all gone. Every bit of it.

With an effort, Ella forced the sadness far into the back of her mind. Way back where she kept all her secret thoughts. Old fears from half-remembered nightmares dwelt in that faraway place, alongside strange thoughts, ideas she'd accumulated in her short life; things she had noticed about her mom and dad, the way their eyes had filled with what could only have been hatred sometimes when the other's back was turned; the funny way her tummy felt when she'd hear their voices late at night, like the first hill on a tall rollercoaster. Most of them were childish thoughts. Childish ideas.

_I have to be better_ , she thought fiercely, and increased her speed behind Walter and Sonia. Holding her shiv of metal in a tight grip, she glanced about the tunnel, searching for danger. _I can't be a kid anymore_.

#

Instead of remaining flat, the tunnel dipped up and down in gentle hills and valleys, wound through the occasional long and wide curves. But mostly, the tunnel was a simple straight line, and utterly empty of anything that resembled life.

Ella wondered tiredly if it would ever end, if she would ever see the sun shine again, or the stars out at night. Her feet hurt, as the bigger rocks dug through the bottom of her shoes, and the smaller kept getting inside them somehow, and felt like needles against her skin. Her right hand throbbed and burned, but she kept it a secret; her mom would only make a big deal of it, and she had other things to worry about.

Hours seemed to pass, but she had no way of knowing if that were true. There was only the darkness and a kind of silence so harsh that she even missed the clanks and groans of the steam tunnels. The crunch of gravel was ever-present, along with the occasional gasp from Walter, whose face was pale and twisted with pain whenever Ella caught glimpses of him in errant flashes of light. He didn't complain, however, or ask to stop and rest, and no one offered. They were moving faster now, though no one had suggested doing so. It just happened, as if an invisible hand was urging them onward, ever faster.

The air in the subway tunnel was cool, but not cold. Occasionally, a light would flash upon the ceiling overhead, revealing ancient light bulbs on thin stems, with cobwebs strung between them that glowed eerily. Ella shivered, eyeing a particularly thick and intricate strand. She couldn't help but wonder what sort of spider had created it. Her mind conjured images of long legs and plump bodies covered in bristly hair, and images of beady black eyes filled with emotionless hunger, long after the web had receded into the darkness to their rear.

Mounds of trash began to appear. Paper and boxes shoved into nooks in the tunnel walls, bits of shredded newspapers and wrappers, flattened soda cans all disparate piles that reminded Ella of animal nests, like the nests her teacher's pet hamsters had made in their cages, and how they would burrow inside, leaving only their noses sticking out, twitching, sniffing the air. It came to her then that they were nests of a kind—only people had lived in them. Many people, from how many of the burrows they came across. But where were the people? She looked around with a tremor of unease tickling her insides.

Suddenly she heard rustling nearby. Eyes darting, she zeroed in on a shadowed mound off to her right. The mound stood up and became a black person-shaped silhouette. A red light flashed across the shadow, illuminating a rotten face, mangled teeth and gray, mottled skin, and burning yellow eyes.

"Infected!"

"Look out!" someone's voice hissed near the front of the group.

"Ella!" The last voice was her mother's.

Gravel skittered in the darkness, kicked about by rushing feet. Red lights cut swathes across the darkness. Ella retreated as the infected lurched forward, arms outstretched and grasping. Something grabbed her foot and suddenly she was falling, landing hard on her rear. The palm of her right hand blazed as she landed on it also, losing her makeshift weapon at the same time. The cut dug into the rocks, stinging fiercely, stretching her mouth open with pain. For an instant her heart leapt with panicked terror, but then she saw that it was only a subway rail, hidden by the gloom.

A shape blurred in the darkness; Sonia, came the distant thought. She forced the infected backwards with a grunt, slamming it into the tunnel wall. Then her knife flashed, glinting red as she stabbed it through the forehead above its left eye. She watched closely as Sonia shoved the dead man to the side, ripping her knife free in a shower of blood as the body collapsed, seeming to fold in on itself at the knees, then lay still on the rocks.

"Everybody, okay?" Mister Broyles called out softly after a moment.

"Ella? Where are you?" Ella heard her mother's voice moving closer, and then Astrid turned around, finding her with the red beam. Her mother gasped. "Are you all right? What happened?"

Ella sat up on her hands and knees, then climbed to her feet, squeezing the throbbing hand into a balled fist. "Nothing happened, Mom. I just tripped. I'm okay, I promise."

"Are there any others?" Walter's voice whispered loudly. "I can't see a blasted thing in here!"

"Can't I turn a real flashlight on, just for a second?" Mom said. "Just for second?"

"No!" Walter's voice was urgent. "No. We could be nearing a station, where there are likely to be more of them gathered. A white light would surely draw them to us like moths to a flame, even from a distance. We dare not, I'm afraid, Miss Dunham."

Ella heard someone gasp, and then Sonia's voice, sounding more than a little upset. "Oh my god. I just remembered something."

"What is it?" Mister Broyles said, swinging his head lamp around to find her. It seemed dimmer than it had before. Much dimmer.

"Peter told me a story once," Sonia began as they gathered around in a tight circle. "About how he and Olivia had gone down into the subway to test out the red lights on infected. Apparently, Olivia didn't believe they worked as well as he said they did, or something like that. It didn't really make sense to me."

Astrid snorted a small laugh. "What a shocker. Remember when those two used to butt heads all the time?" she muttered, shaking her head. "I don't miss those days."

"I knew Peter and Agent Dunham were destined to be together, Astro," Walter said, and Ella could hear the smile in his voice. "It was obvious to everyone, almost from the very beginning."

Mister Broyles cleared his throat. "I assume you're going somewhere pertinent with this story, Sonia?"

"Oh it's pertinent, all right, Phillip," she nodded. "Peter said that they ran into a huge horde of infected down in the station. Hundreds of them, just waiting down on the platform, like they had missed the train. They had to run for it."

For a moment, there was only silence. Ella gulped, then peered about the tunnel. It suddenly seemed darker than it had. A voice in the back of her mind swore there were eyes looking at her from inside the gloom, hidden inside the blackest of shadows. But surely that was her imagination. Wasn't it? She noticed the grownups looking about also, worry etched their faces.

"Shit...," someone whispered finally.

"Which station was it?" Mister Broyles asked. "Did Peter happen to say?"

"No, but it was when they were on their way to Brighton to find you and Ella, Rachel. Wouldn't that make it the Harvard Square?"

"Or Central, possibly," Walter said, "Though that would be out of the way for Brighton. Therefore we must assume it was the former, which unfortunately, is where I'm certain we are heading right now. The station could be right around the corner."

"What do we do then?" Mom whispered in her angry voice, which Ella suddenly understood wasn't anger at all, but fear. "Should we go back? To that other station you mentioned up north? What was it? Porter?"

"I can't say, Miss Dunham," he replied slowly. "But there's no guarantee that the Porter Station would be any safer. Although, it occurs to me now that if Peter's story was accurate, we may have a better chance where we are now. It is a slim chance, but a chance nonetheless. You see, the infected mind is one-tracked, easily fixated, though its attention span is comparatively short. It is entirely possible that Peter and Agent Dunham's misadventure may prove beneficial to us, perhaps even a boon."

"And how would that be?" Mister Broyles voiced.

Walter twisted around, hopping on one foot, and Sonia reached a hand out to steady him. "Thank you, my dear." He flashed her a grateful smile as she let him rest his weight on her shoulder. "I'm not quite sure yet, Agent Broyles, but I'm eager to find out. We should keep moving. And very quiet all of you, now more than ever."

#

When they started forward again, the invisible hand pushing ever faster was gone. They stayed in a tight group, traveling between the pair of subway tracks with the odd third rail. The floor seemed smoother in the center, the gravel thinner and their footsteps less noisy. Mister Broyles's silhouette led the way with his machine gun, limping on his bad foot, swinging his bald head from side to side. The light of his headlamp was frightfully dim, and Astrid's also at the rear, and Ella tried not to think about what would happen if the light went out—when it went out.

The floor began a gradual slope upward, rising steadily for several minutes before leveling off suddenly in a sharp left-hand turn. They rounded the corner and a figure standing forlornly in the center of the right-hand tracks came into view. Dressed in the tattered and stained clothes, the dead man swayed slightly, fingers opening and closing, golden eyes unaware.

Ella held her breath as her mother stepped out of the line without a word. She pulled a long knife from her belt as she moved forward to approach the infected from the side, crossing over the metal rails carefully without a sound until she was almost within reach of its grasp. Then, in a sudden flurry of motion, she brought the dead man down with a quick thrust up under its chin. The body fell, and her mother grabbed it under its shoulders. Staggering under its weight, she lowered it gently onto its back, then ripped her knife free, wiping the blade on its sleeve.

"Nice work, Dunham," Mister Broyles commented in a whisper. "You ever have any kind of combat training?"

"I was a stay-at-home mom," her mother replied with a soft snort. "Does that count?"

"It might, if my kids are anything to go by...," he said as they started onward once more.

Ella eyed the dead body as they moved past, momentarily highlighted in Astrid's light behind her. Its clothes were an assortment of rags, and a bushy beard that once might have been gray hid most of its face. She wondered why it was alone down in the darkness, and how it had come to be there. Had the subway tunnel been his home? Had he lived there, before? She would never know.

The subway tunnel spread before them, growing taller and wider. The rails—which had been close together up to that point—spread out also, angling away from each other until the track on the right disappeared into the blackness. Hugging the left-hand wall, then moved forward until the tunnel abruptly ended, exiting into an even larger space, cavernous in size. A raised platform taller than Ella's waist appeared, and a wall covered in shiny, yellow tiles, like in a bathroom. The ceiling became ribbed with concrete blocks, like they were traveling through the belly of some gigantic creature, like one of the dinosaurs in the museum back home. She wasn't sure, but she thought the changes could only mean one thing; that they were nearing the exit. Surely that was what it meant.

The air began to change, turning nasty with the smell of rot and dead people. Just ahead, Mister Broyles stopped suddenly, freezing in place. He thrust his hand out behind him, motioning for them to stop also. Ella peered around his thin frame and let out a silent gasp, fear clutching at her chest.

A wall of infected blocked the tracks.

The horde glowed pink on the edge of Mister Broyles's light as he swung his head to the side, traversing their numbers. There were rows and rows of them, packed together, heads bowed, shoulders slumped as if they were asleep on their feet.

Only they weren't asleep.

Ella was sure of it. Their stillness was only pretend. An illusion—she thought that was the right word. It meant it was a trick, like the kind magicians used to do. They weren't still at all, they were moving, swaying ever so slightly, the movement only visible if she looked at them one at a time, instead of as a whole. Their yellow eyes weren't turned her way, but she knew they were wide open. And staring.

Waiting.

For a moment, no one moved. Static filled Ella's ears. Then Mister Broyles took a careful step toward the platform on their left, gravel crunching softly beneath his heels. She tensed at the sound, but the infected remained still. He motioned for them to follow. When they reached the edge, her mother climbed up silently, then reached down and helped Mister Broyles, lifting him beneath his shoulders as he swung his bad foot up first, then the other. After he was up on the ledge, she reached down for Ella, eyes begging for silence.

Ella nodded, and a moment later she was standing on a wide walkway of grayish bricks, packed together with hardly a gap between them. Behind her, the yellowish wall tiles were cut by a stripe of red. She thought there might be words inside the red stripe, but it was too dark to be certain. Wide signs hung overhead, and she caught a glimpse of the word _Outbound_ in a flash of Astrid's light as she helped Walter up onto the platform.

Outbound. Did that mean coming or going? She wasn't sure, or if it even mattered.

After Walter was safely on the platform, Astrid and Sonia pulled themselves up behind him. He pointed ahead of them, where a narrow staircase descended from above. They crept toward the stairs, passing by benches built into the wall and huge pillars coated in a shiny metal.

The space at the top of the steps was massive, with a ceiling so high Ella couldn't even see it when Astrid looked up with her light. There were wide gaps on the walls, places where she thought there might be other levels, other floors above. Like the platform below, the floor was made of the same gray-colored bricks, only there were darkish lumps scattered about all over. When Astrid held her light on one, it looked like a pile of clothes, but then she saw a hand and a foot, only the body they were attached to was all wrong.

_It's too thin._ Inside her head, Ella pictured herself stomping on a bug, on a spider—she hated spiders, a lot—and squashing it flat with her shoe. _Something squashed it flat like a pancake_. A lot of somethings, she guessed.

They formed a tight circle with Ella at the center. Walter spoke, so quiet she could barely hear him.

"There's another flight of steps up to the levels above in the center of this space," he whispered. "From there we need only follow the signs to the surface. It shouldn't be far." He glanced at the nearest of the flattened bodies. "From the look of that poor fellow, I suspect a great many undead once resided here. Yet no longer."

"You think they followed Olivia and Peter?" Sonia mouthed almost silently.

"It's possible. Almost probable. They would have been helpless not to. Now let us go, while we are still able."

They moved away from the staircase, taking a zigzagging path between the trampled bodies. Before long, a wide row of gates appeared out of the blackness, with another wide staircase beyond. The gates were familiar to Ella; she had passed through similar many times before, in the train stations back home. Some stations had spinning doors made of bars, and others had wheels that turned as you went through them, just like the ones before them now. Only these were mostly broken, bent and smashed as if a monster had torn its way through them. Or many monsters. More flattened dead bodies lay between the battered gates, squashed so flat she could hardly tell where one ended and another began. A cloud of awfulness hung in the air, so foul Ella's nose burned of it, her eyes watered, vision shimmering from the fumes.

"Oh my god," Astrid choked roughly into her sleeve. "I think I'm gonna be sick..."

Walter bent over, holding one of the broken gates as he examined the crushed infected. "I do wish I could have witnessed what occurred here," he said with quiet interest. "Did they move as a group, like a school of fish? What spurred them into action, and how did the awareness of live flesh travel between them? How quickly did it spread?"

"Is it important we know that?" Mom murmured. The hand covering her mouth and nose made her voice sound like someone else's.

"Of course it's important!" Walter whispered furiously, rounding on her. "How else can we expect to-"

"We don't have time for this," Mister Broyles cut in, hissing between his teeth. "Just go, people."

They went, following the bald man's order.

Ella felt like throwing up herself as she stepped through one of the broken gates. She could feel them; the trampled bodies through the soles of her shoes—squishy and full of hard lumps, all at the same time. But then she was past, moving toward the wide, rising stairs beyond. More bodies lay at the foot of the steps, and also bits of flattened metal that glittered faintly in the meager light.

"You want to know what made the infected break through the gate, Walter?" Sonia said softly, plucking one of the shiny objects off the ground. "These are bullets. It was your son, and Olivia. They must have been right here."

It was strange, Ella thought, eyeing the empty bullets, that they were following in Aunt Liv and Peter's footsteps from months and months before. Taking the same path they had taken. And at the same time it was reassuring, although it would have been much more so if her aunt were with them now. And Peter, too. She wondered when she would see them again. She wondered _if_ she would see them again.

They crept up the stairs to the next level, where a wide corridor spread out to the right and left. Instead of yellow, the wall was now red, dimly aglow by the light of the two remaining headlamps. Either direction appeared much the same, although to the left, she thought the ground was rising, and curving at the same time.

"The exit is this...," Walter started, then covered his mouth with his sleeve as another fit of furious coughing struck, and he buried his mouth in sleeve. When it was over, he swayed slightly on his feet and gasped. Panting, he raised a hand, pointing out a white sign overhead Ella hadn't noticed. "It's this way...I believe."

Mister Broyles eyes narrowed on the old scientist, but then he nodded. "Stay quiet, now, if you can," he added. "If the infected were following Olivia and Peter up here, they could still be in the tunnel."

"And what if they are?" Astrid whispered.

"Pray that they aren't."

"Great. I'm sure that'll work," she said in a voice that shook.

They stepped out into the darkened corridor, taking the leftward path. Shortly, the tunnel began to climb upward steadily. The floor was made of the same grayish blocks, smooth and featureless. Unlike the levels below, however, there were no dead bodies or empty bullets, no signs of fighting at all that Ella could see, only bits of trash here and there in scattered piles. Passing by several closed doors, something shiny emerged from the darkness overhead; a metal railing, angling downward, descending from above atop a low wall.

Was it the way out? Ella twisted her head, peering upward into the blackness. Far above were angled blocks of shadows, and brighter shades of darkness. Or light. Her heart began to race, an electric thrill traveled down her back. They were almost there. Finally. Excitement moved her feet faster, and the others' also it seemed, even Walter, who was limping furiously and leaning heavily on her mother's shoulder.

The metal railing continued to descend, growing ever closer. Bouncing red beams stabbed at the darkness, passing over posters and pictures mounted on the wall, cables and clocks, even a pair of elevator doors. Then out of the gloom emerged an upright body, standing alone, just before an opening in the wall to the right, where the descending stairs finally came to an end. The procession jerked to a halt.

It was a woman, or had been once, with tangled and filthy hair falling down over its shoulders. Ella's eyes widened. It wasn't wearing any clothes! Bare skin glowed palely pink, skin covered in black splotches, one arm eaten to the bone above its wrist, torn flesh hanging in strips, and part of its butt, also. She stared at the dead woman, then felt a stroke of terror in the pit of her belly. Not far past it, more infected stood waiting, stretching across the corridor and beyond, rows and rows of them, extending farther than their tiny headlamps could see.

Holding in a shaky breath, she watched Astrid creep toward the infected woman. The long, thin blade of Peter's screwdriver flashed in her right hand. She waited until she was directly behind the creature, then sprang forward, grabbing the dead woman by the throat and driving the screwdriver down into the tangled mop of hair. The infected jerked with a bubbly gurgle, then collapsed, twisting as it fell. Ella heard a sharp gasp, and then a loud clatter as the screwdriver went tumbling off into the darkness, bouncing end over end across the bricks. The noise of it trumpeted out into the blackness, echoing without end.

A long silence that seemed to stretch out followed, in which no one moved, or even breathed. Then Ella heard something. A whisper. A buzz in her ear. The odd sound seemed to come from everywhere, and nowhere. Or was it only inside her head? Her imagination? How would she know the difference, anyway? The thought vanished beneath a cloud of panic.

The wall of dead people was moving! Their shoulders lifted, heads swiveled, jerked like robots. They were awake. Aware. Ella heard a whimper, and realized that it was she, it was her own voice. She clapped a hand over lips.

Astrid backed away slowly, holding her hands out to the side like a tightrope walker. "Go...," she hissed, taking a step toward the opening in the wall. "Go. Now. Go, go, go!"

Rushing forward, they swung around the opening in the wall and found not steps, but a smooth ramp of concrete, with the railing just below Ella's shoulders on the right. It wound upward toward a haze of silver light that seemed close enough to touch. Footsteps pounded in the blackness. The noise was surely painting a sign for all the dead people, but the light was so near, so close. Harsh breathing filled Ella's ears, her own added to the mix. Her heart pounded like a drum. She caught a glimpse of Walter's face in a flash of light and nearly cried out. He was so pale! So sick looking. His mouth hung open, eyes bulging, as he gasped for air. A string of coughs left him staggering, hunched over as he limped along. The cough sounded liquid, like he was choking on his dinner, the kind of cough that left bits of yucky stuff in her mouth.

Was he sick? What would happen if he got sick, if he couldn't go on? Behind them rose the scratching of many feet dragging, a chorus of horrible growls that sent icy jolts down Ella's spine. They couldn't leave him behind. They wouldn't.

She moved to the other side of him, opposite her mother, and put her arm around his waist. Walter's heavy hand fell on her shoulder. They went faster. The darkness grew brighter. She could see the shape of the room, now; a long, tall corridor studded with protruding signs and little boxes hanging down that she thought might be cameras.

Suddenly Astrid was wresting with an infected blocking their path. As it reached for her, she swatted its claws aside, and then swung it around, sending it tumbling over the railing. The creature vanished from sight, falling silently, and a moment later a heavy thud sounded up from below. There was no stopping. Faster and faster they went, Sonia and Astrid leading the way. Then came Mister Broyles, gasping with pain. Above Ella, Walter's breath sounded like he was in agony. She held on to him tight, lifting, lifting with all her strength. At the top of the ramp was another large area, and something else.

"I see it," someone cried out from the front, "we're almost there!"

Ella felt like shouting herself, bursting with incredible relief. It was a staircase, washed in silver moonlight.

#

* * *

#

The night was a dangerous one to be roaming about, Astrid Farnsworth decided as they raced into a narrow gap between a pair of squat apartment buildings. The two buildings were close enough that she could touch both of them at once, merely by stretching out her arms. They had almost missed the opening, and she prayed the mob following them would miss it also.

She directed her light down the tiny alleyway, and other than a few overturned trash cans, the way to the next street seemed clear. "Think they'll be okay back there?" she whispered between breaths, glancing over at the woman on her right.

Sonia shrugged, breathing in and out before replying softly. "Phillip's with them. He's got the rifle. I think we made it far enough away anyway, and it's not like they can open doors."

_Yet_ , Astrid thought darkly, returning her gaze to the street outside. _And Agent Broyles doesn't have many bullets left in that gun_.

A shadow moved in the blackness beyond the row of abandoned cars. She pressed herself against the bricks as the shadow resolved into an undead man, followed by the woman they had seen before. The rest would be just behind them. She held herself still as the infected man scuffled toward the opening, and then past it. She relaxed slightly as the trailing woman followed. The rest would also, if they remained silent, at least. She felt a hand on her arm.

"C'mon," the older woman hissed in her ear. "We should keep moving."

Astrid nodded, and followed her toward the next block, stepping carefully past the upset trashcans and their rotting contents. They had left the others watching over Walter inside the ruins of a FedEx Store several blocks west of Harvard Square, the only structure in the surrounding area not burned to rubble, and with doors and windows that were still whole. She told herself they would be fine, that they weren't planning to be gone long, but it seemed like wishful thinking after everything they'd endured over the last few hours. The only bright side was the discovery of more batteries, an entire rack of them untouched in front of the printing and packing company's cash registers.

Harvard Square was no doubt teeming with hundreds, if not thousands of infected by now. She guessed at least that many had followed them out of the subway, and the square had not been empty of them even before that. Part of her was still in shock at how quickly it had all gone wrong at the lab, and all their carefully laid plans ruined in an instant. And on top of all that, Walter was getting sick. Their escape had been a close thing, with him all but being carried by Rachel and Ella as they'd neared the surface. She could still hear the coughs emanating from deep in his chest, coughs left the old scientist gasping for air, face twisted in agony. She didn't like the sound of them—not one bit. He was coming down with something, and from the sound of it, it wasn't just a simple cold, and at the worst possible moment, too.

She jerked to a halt, nearly bumping into Sonia who had stopped just shy of the next sidewalk. The block ahead was blanketed in a haze of gray moonlight. A wavering line of vehicles ran down the center of a narrow street. Car doors hung open, owners vanished into the mist of time. The wide shadow from an office building stretched out toward the next intersection, angling across both lanes of traffic. Overhead, the night sky was vividly clear. Not a thing moved or made a sound. The air was dead calm, the potted trees lining the sidewalk frozen in place, dusted with a light layer of snow, as was everything.

"It looks clear enough...," Sonia murmured, breath rising up in front of her face. She stepped out of the alley, then started forward at a trot.

Astrid followed, shivering inside her coat. After hours spent underground in the tunnels, the open air was bitterly cold, penetrating her layers with smug indifference. At the next intersection, they took shelter below an overhang belonging to a women's apparel boutique. A shattered display case revealed a beheaded mannequin , lying on its side, forever frozen in its provocative pose. Before them lay a snarl of traffic; cars and trucks askew, parked at every imaginable angle, a scene of pure chaos. Straight across from the boutique sat a squat, blockish structure. Its shape was familiar, like many of the building that resided on the Harvard campus near the lab.

She peered southward down the wide avenue and cursed inwardly. Moving among the cars and trucks were silhouettes, moving with stilted footsteps, bodies jerking with inherently unnatural rhythms. Exactly what she'd been hoping desperately _not_ to see. To the north, more infected were visible, blatant in an open patch of moonlight. Both groups looked as if they were converging on a single point. A point directly in front of them.

_Aw crap..._ Astrid cursed inside her head again. It was just their luck.

"How far is the lab from here?" Sonia hissed, pressing herself into the shadows of the overhang.

She squinted over at the street sign on the corner. "Two or three blocks, maybe?" she said. "I think, at least. I got a bad feeling about this. What'll we do if the truck is still surrounded?"

"I don't know."

Astrid sighed, keeping her eyes glued to the approaching infected. Not insisting on having Peter show her—and all of them, while he was at it—how to hot-wire a car was beginning to feel like a rather huge mistake on their part. The knowledge would have been useful right about now, assuming they could still find a vehicle with a working battery. But what was done was done. She grunted silently, shaking her head at their own shortsightedness. Not that prying Peter away from Olivia for any amount of time was an easy task in any case, but he would have, eventually. Or she could have just had Olivia order him to. The thought evoked an amused grin. The former conman had been wrapped around Olivia Dunham's little pinky finger, almost from the very beginning, if the she had only allowed herself to see it. She wasn't surprised Peter had fallen hard for Agent Dunham, however; the woman was impressive—anyone could see that. In any event, the rest of them would just have to figure something out on their own.

"Let's just see how bad it is, and then we'll make an executive decision. Deal?" she whispered.

At Sonia's returning nod, she stepped out into the street. Slipping between the crowded bumpers, they angled toward an opening between the Harvard building and its neighbor, a wide, single-story structure segregated into smashed-in storefronts. Passing through an archway of filigreed ironwork, they plunged into the darkness of a narrow alley way that snaked right and left between offsetting buildings, before depositing them in a wide commuter parking lot, overflowing with snow-covered cars and trucks. Surrounding the asphalt lot on two sides were tall walls of brick, beyond which the second stories of residential homes rose to the north. Astrid regarded the packed lot. Had the owners even tried to get them out? Or had they been unable? The parallel street was jammed, like most streets in the heart of Cambridge.

Infected moved along the sidewalk to their right, more than she cared to take on alone. All of them were heading east. As were the two of them. Swallowing, she tried to ignore the hollow pit expanding in her gut. "That way," she said softly, pointing toward the far corner of the lot where the adjacent brick wall came together. "We can climb over there, and avoid them altogether."

A truck was backed up in the corner, positioned perfectly to provide a path over the wall. They made their way across the parking lot, traversing an ankle deep layer of undisturbed snow that crunch softly underfoot. What lay on the other side? Try as she might, Cambridge wasn't her city, and had still been mostly an unknown when the infection had broken out. Most of her time before had been spent at the lab, and most of the time after, too. At least until recently. She told herself that she wasn't bitter, that taking care of Walter was just as important as what the others were doing. It might have even been true, but it still left a bad taste in her mouth on occasion.

_We'll you're out of it now, honey_ , a dry voice spoke in her ear. _Is it everything you hoped for?_ Not so much, she decided. She should have been happy with what she'd had. At least she was safe then, and warm. Mostly.

Climbing up the truck's front bumper, she moved onto its hood, and from there on top of the cab, from which she stepped gingerly over to the snow-capped wall. Moving to one side, she made room for Sonia, who joined her on the narrow perch a moment later. Beyond the wall was a line of trees, and then a wide open space sprinkled with more trees, and rows and rows of what could only be headstones. Flanking the cemetery on either side were a pair of churches with tall steeples towering against the night sky.

Astrid inhaled a breath of cool air. She knew those churches; she had been in each of them just weeks ago. "The lab's right over there," she whispered, pointing to the northeast. The outline of the Kresge Building stood out to her, now that she'd regained her bearings. Its shape was a shadowed block of brick and mortar, perhaps a quarter of a mile away. Other buildings sat nearby, equally indistinct in the darkness. And infected? She squinted, trying to pierce the blackness, the distance that lay between, but it was too far away, too veiled in shadow.

"I can't see a goddamn thing," Sonia growled with frustration. "We'll have to get closer."

"Crap. I was hoping we'd be able to see it from here."

"When has our luck ever been good, Astrid?" Sonia's voice was laced with sarcasm. Without another word, she dropped silently down on the other side of the wall, landing lightly on both feet.

From atop the wall, Astrid watched the older woman lope toward the far side of the cemetery for a moment. _That girl is holding up way better than I would be_ , she thought wonderingly, before following her over the edge. And to think, the woman had been a teacher, before. She prayed her friend's blossoming courage and fearlessness were just emerging traits, and not something else manifesting in the wake of her husband's death. She hurried to catch up, staying low among the multitude of gravestones, following the fresh tracks in the snowy grass. Ahead, Sonia stopped suddenly, ducking down behind a large coffin-sized slab of stone. Astrid sprinted forward, then dropped down beside her.

"What is it?" she mouthed. "Infected?"

Sonia nodded, and rose up on her haunches to peer over the stone slab. Astrid joined her, and immediately saw the problem. The eastern edge of the cemetery was bordered by a low fence of iron bars. Beyond was a sidewalk, and a wide intersection where several streets came together at sharp angles, packed full of cars. Infected were shambling among them, huge numbers passing through, flooding northward through the gaps in traffic.

Were they heading toward the lab? She peered up the street, hoping to see some sign of their intent, but it was too dark, too filled with shadows to see if they were turning eastward at the next block. With a sigh, she sat back against the freezing slab of stone. There was nothing to do but wait them out. A moment later, Sonia relaxed beside her.

They sat in silence, the hisses of their breaths the only sound. Astrid worked her fingers inside her gloves, hoping to revive some feeling back into them, but it was mostly futile. Her eyes fell on another open space directly north of their position, on the other side of the iron barrier. A park. She saw a tall, odd-shaped structure among the leafless trees. A statue? No, it was a monument. She realized she was looking at the same park she and Peter had passed through the day he and Olivia left. The park where she had gloated over her victory at the statue. Peter had been so certain he was right, and she had almost believed him, even over her own memories. She could still see the troubled look in his blue eyes, the shock and confusion when it had been Lincoln, not Washington. The man certainly hated being wrong. And so did Olivia. With a wry smile, she wondered how that was working out for them.

"Psst... Astrid!"

Sonia's hiss brought Astrid back to the present. She glanced around. "Are they past?"

The other woman was crouched a short distance away, motioning her forward. Out in the street, the mob of infected had finally moved on. Rising from her slouch, Astrid moved around the grave slab, then followed Sonia between the rows of headstones until they reached the low fence. They climbed over, then hurried northward along the sidewalk, trailing the last group of infected as they bumped along a tall fence on the east side of the street. The sight made her heart sink with a kind of sadness; it was the same fence that would turn the corner at the next block, eventually enclosing one side of the lab.

The street began to widen as they moved north toward Cambridge Street, where it would eventually accommodate the sunken entrance to one of the city's bus tunnels. She had been there once before, not long after she'd first started leaving the lab for supplies. A chain-linked fence surrounded the tunnel entrance, and at some point a truck had smashed through it, and had kept going, leaping over a narrow island of grass and then tearing through a low guardrail, before obliterating a city bus waiting in line at the tunnel entrance below. Curious, she had decided to investigate, only to find a scene of horror inside the twisted wreckage. The bus had been full—men and women, children, all trapped inside, all dead. Rotting faces had pressed up against the glass, mouths opening and closing. They had seen her staring up them, and their golden eyes had filled with lust. She'd avoided the tunnel ever since.

Another stream of infected suddenly appeared ahead of them, emerging from a cross street. Quickly ducking behind an abandoned car, they watched as the second group streamed across the street ahead of them, moving diagonally from left to right. The undead seemed to be taking the most direct way toward their goal, which coincidentally took them straight over the broken section of fencing, and then over the small island of grass.

Astrid's eyes widened as the first of them reached the crushed guardrail, and promptly pitched forward over the edge, dropping from sight. A heavy, hone crunch thud echoed up from the tunnel entrance. The second infected to reach the guardrail fell also, and a wave of unreality swept through her as the infected continued to plummet over the edge, one after another, like children taking follow-the-leader to a whole different, horrific level. It was absurd, surely something straight out of horror-comedy, only it was real, and happening right in front of her. She could imagine the pile at the bottom, growing larger and larger, the writhing arms and legs sticking out, reaching and kicking. It was insane, but at some point, insanity had become the new normal.

"That's messed up," she whispered. "Is that really happening?"

"I've seen them do that once before," Sonia said with a grunt. "God's developed a sick sense of humor, lately."

Astrid snorted softly. She wasn't sure when it had happened, but she no longer believed god existed—Christian or otherwise. Although if such a being did exist, he or she had surely lost their mind. Utterly. She wondered. Maybe that was what was wrong with the world. Maybe the stuff of the universe was breaking down, losing its cohesion somehow, barriers breaking, separating, splitting apart at the seams. She made a point to mention the theory to Walter. It seemed right up his alley.

Rising slightly, she peered over the car's trunk. "Hey, there's a break in the action. Let's go."

The other woman nodded, straightening beside her. They dashed forward together, skirting the traffic on the outside, staying close to the cast iron fence on their right. It was known territory. The shadow of the Kresge Building blotted out the darkened horizon on their right, and straight ahead was Cambridge Street, with its familiar cast of cars and trucks she'd passed by dozens of times over the last month or so.

They turned the corner, weaving their way through the maze of vehicles toward the lab. Rounding the backside of a dark minivan parked askew, they skidded to a halt, shoes sliding in the snow and ice. Sonia let out a dejected sigh, as if she'd been expecting, or hoping for, something different. Astrid had not been so optimistic, even before they'd left the others.

They could go no further. The street ahead was packed with infected, stretching from sidewalk to sidewalk, and beyond, spilling into the university grounds across the street from the lab. If anything, there were more of them than before they'd been forced to retreat into Walter's steam tunnels. And the purpose of their journey, the maroon suburban, was invisible to the naked eye, obscured by a wall of bodies surely numbering in the thousands.

The scene was exactly as she'd feared, no, worse. There would be no recovering of the truck—or more importantly, the radio—not anytime soon, at least. And how long could they afford to wait for the horde to move on? What if it never did?

"Fuck. Fuck!" Sonia whispered fiercely as they took cover in the shadows beside the iron fence. "What now? Can we... lure them away somehow? Maybe one of us could draw them off."

_Lure them away?_ Astrid shook her head slowly, filled with uncertainty. Announcing their presence to thousands of hungry infected seemed like a bad idea under any circumstances. Even if it meant leaving the truck behind. Who knew how many they couldn't see? And how many more might be on their way? Whatever they did, it would have to grab the attention of all of them at once, such as a gunshot, which would undoubtedly put all of Cambridge on high alert. And a gunshot was the source of all their current problems. They might very well find themselves surrounded again, and never make it back to the others at all. Or if they did, then with a horde following in their wake.

"I don't think that's a good idea," she whispered a reply. "We might find ourselves worse off than we are now. At least they're occupied, distracted. Who knows what might happen if we wake them up again?" She glanced around, scanning the cars and trucks nearby. None of them were suitable. "We have to find another vehicle."

"What about the radio? How will we contact Olivia?"

"I don't know." Astrid pursed her lips, tapping a finger against her chin. The compacted snow and ice was more slush than anything, now. Though surely it wouldn't be the same everywhere. "Maybe we can follow them," she said after a moment. "Like they were following those people they found. There's still snow on the ground. We can follow them all the way to Marlborough if we have to—as long as we leave soon. Who knows when the weather will change again. This snow could all be gone tomorrow. We might even be able to find another radio somewhere along the way. If we're close enough to them, they'll pick us up."

Sonia remained silent for a moment, and when she finally spoke, the despair was plain in her voice. "Are you sure, Astrid?"

Was she sure? Who was sure of anything these days? "No. But you got a better idea?"

The other woman's head shook slowly. "No. I guess not," she murmured. I just... I had loaded some things into the truck already. My bag... there was a picture of... of..." Swallowing thickly, she trailed off into silence.

_Aw crap,_ Astrid thought to herself, and winced internally. A picture of Charlie. _Of course._ No wonder Sonia was being so adamant.

She reached out, touching her friend's hand. "We can come back in a few days, honey," she suggested. "Maybe in a week or so. Maybe they'll have moved on by then. It's not like we need to worry about it being stolen. It'll be there, waiting for you."

Sonia didn't answer, instead gazed down the street at the spot where the truck should have been visible in the distance, if not for the intervening bodies. Finally she spun away. Wetness flashed on her cheeks in the pale moonlight, but Astrid made no comment; there was nothing she could say that would make any of it better. The truth was that her husband was dead, gutted by some freak of nature that by all rights should have never existed. And barely a month had passed. Rawness was to be expected.

Glancing back at the Kresge Building's profile through the iron fence, Astrid memorized its shape. Then she too turned away, putting it and everything that had happened there behind her.

It was over.

Maybe some of them would return. Maybe even inside a week like she'd said, but something told her that she, herself, would never lay eyes on it again.

"C'mon," she said, putting a hand across Sonia's back. "Let's go car shopping."

#

Finding another truck, as it turned out, was the easy part.

The white SUV stood out in the night, as if surrounded by a pale aura that screamed for attention. They found it several blocks west of the lab, and several more north of where they'd left the others, parked on the street in front of a residence Astrid had no doubt once sold for a number with seven digits. Its doors were unlocked, with headlights still working—the only ones on the block that did. It was simply begging for someone to come along and take it. And she was all too happy to oblige.

As she and Sonia searched the house for a set of keys, she imagined that some high-powered executive had once lived there, or perhaps a ranking official from one of the many nearby universities; Harvard, of course, or perhaps MIT or Boston College. The home was elegant in a way she had no experience with, full of burgundy and leather, darkly stained wood, and painted portraits of stately men and women rising up a tall stairwell that she knew were one of a kind. They had that look about them. Aged. Passed down. Old money. And she had no frame of reference for any of it.

She glanced at the wide desk in the center of the room, at the paneled walls of the office, at the bookshelves spanning an entire wall from floor to ceiling. And the books themselves. Thick volumes, leather bound, golden letters stenciled down the spines. Wealth—wealth she had only dreamed of, once. Her eyes fell on the wizened corpse slouched down in the cushioned office chair.

He certainly wouldn't be needing any of it. The shotgun nestled in the man's crotch had made sure of that, stock resting on the floor, barrel pointed upward and streaked with dried blood and gore.

It was not the first such scene she had encountered, not by far, but for some reason it affected her in a way the others had not. Surrounded by all his wealth and all the possessions he'd held dear, the nameless man had given in to despair, and had taken the easy way out.

_Coward_ , she thought coldly, then turned her face away and leaned in close to reach in his pocket, hands bare of gloves.

The stink rising from the body was immense. Her skin crawled at the feel of rotting flesh through the pocket lining, at the way it parted, seeming to fall away from the bone at the slightest touch. She gagged and came close to vomiting as an image of a luscious pork butt popped into her head for some reason, smoked, and mouth-wateringly tender, the way her Daddy had used to make them. The sour tang of bile was rising up her throat as her fingertips touched something metal and round. She snatched it, then spun away, putting the span of the room between herself and the dead man.

Bending over, Astrid gasped for breath. Her stomach roiled angrily, then settled down shortly, leaving behind an ache that was pure hunger. With a tired yawn, she examined the keyring she'd extracted under her light. Keys of all shapes and sizes adorned the ring, but only one interested her; a thick hunk of molded plastic, silver and black, with a three-pointed star in the center between buttons of tacky rubber. She'd always wanted a Mercedes, or any luxury car for that matter.

"I think I found the keys!" she called out, leaving the office and its owner behind.

She found Sonia in an expansive kitchen of stainless steel and granite, a wide island and cabinets of rich cherry capped with extravagant crown molding. There was a certain sense of style which she was willing to admit was not at all unattractive. She sensed a woman's touch in its design.

"I found something, too," Sonia announced in an excited voice. She held up a bag of candy corns, and eagerly wolfed down a mouthful. Astrid had the idea that was not her first as she dug around in the bag for more.

"Woah. Slow down, girl," Astrid said, startled by her friend's ravenous behavior. Cringing, she wrinkled her nose. "Eww. You...actually like those? I always thought they tasted like some kind of sweet playdough, or plastic. I hated them when I was a kid, though they did make good ammo for my slingshot."

Sonia shrugged, chewing methodically. "I don't think I've had these since I was a girl. They're delicious. I think I could down this whole bag."

"Well...you're welcome to them. Don't eat them all though. I'm willing to bet Ella would love some. And maybe Walter, too. You know how he is."

"Oh, good idea," Sonia said around a mouthful. After swallowing the candy down, she hesitated, meeting Astrid's gaze over the island's countertop. "Did she seem different to you since we got out of the tunnels? Ella, I mean."

"Different how?"

"I don't know, exactly," Sonia mused, pouring another handful of candy onto her palm. "Just different. I'm sure what happened at the lab had to affect her. Poor thing must have been frightened out of her mind. I know I was."

Astrid nodded her agreement. Ella had been frightened—nearly insane with fear, in fact. The entire episode was still clear in her mind's eye. Ella, barely visible in the darkness, huddled in on herself, sucking her thumb, eyes stretched open and shivering with terror. The infected soldier had weighed a ton, crushing down on her like a falling avalanche. For an instant, she had known she was about to die. And in that moment their eyes had met, and Ella had found her courage. None of the others were aware of what had happened. _They don't know she saved my life._ She wondered how Rachel would react when she found out. Probably, she would go ballistic, at first. If there were a pair of sisters more different than the Dunhams, she certainly had never met them.

"I think she's gonna be just fine," Astrid said, stepping around the island to an open pantry door. "I think she's stronger than Rachel gives her credit for, even if she is just a kid. And she'll have to be. Look at the world she's going to grow up in."

There came a choking sound behind her, and she glanced back in time to her friend rapidly departing the kitchen. A moment later the front door slammed, and she found herself alone. Frowning, Astrid quickly scanned the pantry's contents and snatched a bag of hard pretzels off one shelf, and an unopened jar of honey-roasted peanuts off another. She tucked them into a plastic bag, and then hurried outside, leaving the opulent house turned mausoleum behind.

She found Sonia was already waiting in the SUV's passenger seat. Ducking her head, she slid into the driver's seat beside her. "You okay?"

Sonia nodded and smiled weakly, face pale. "Um... yeah. I think I ate too many of those candy corns...like you said."

"I told you those things were bad news." Astrid grinned, sliding the oversized key into the ignition. "Here we go. Cross your fingers." She held her breath, and then turned the key. The white Mercedes' dashboard lit up as the engine turned sluggishly over, and then suddenly came to life, roaring effortlessly. The noise was hardly audible in the plush interior. She let out an involuntary squeal of delight and smacked the leather-wrapped steering wheel. "Yes!"

Sonia flashed an amused smile across the center console. "Ooh...fancy," she said, glancing around. "Now this I could get used to."

Astrid nodded, checking out the controls, the plush interior; beige leather that smelled like money. A soft, indigotic glow suffused the cabin, emitted by hidden strips of light enmeshed in molding that looked like real wood, not the plastic crap she'd had in her old car. She reached running her fingers over a section of the molding. It felt real, too. "I used to always want something like this," she admitted, putting the truck in gear. The bluish glow faded, leaving behind subtle highlights that were somehow pleasing to the eye. "Not that I could have ever afforded one. Not on the salary I was making. Not in my lifetime, at least."

She heard a snort beside her, and saw Sonia's lips purse into a frown. "We could have never afforded something like this, either," the other woman said. "You'd think having Special Agent status for the FBI would have been lucrative, but you'd be wrong."

"You sound bitter," Astrid observed.

Sonia met her gaze. "With the job Charlie had? The shit he had to deal with on a daily basis? You have no idea." She fell silent, staring down at her hands. "He used to lie to me, you know? About his days, about the cases he was working on. I knew, of course, and maybe he even knew that I knew, but it was just his way of dealing with it." She shook her head, smiling sadly. "I could always tell when the case he'd been working was a really bad one. He'd come home and act like nothing had happened at all. On those days he'd never left his desk, or had done nothing but paperwork. And the worse the case, the more boring his day had been. But I could always see it in the back of his eyes, a kind of... darkness, maybe. And on those days, I used to tell him jokes. Silly ones, mostly, nonsensical, the kind you hear children say, or the kind that made their rounds among adults who were surrounded by children all day. They made him laugh though, made him smile. Made the darkness go away, just for a little while, and that was all that mattered. And now..." She fell silent, and then dabbed at her eyes. "Geez, I'm sorry, Astrid, rambling on like that. We should get going."

Astrid shook her head. "No. There's nothing to apologize for, honey," she said through a lump in her throat. "Your husband was a good man. I didn't know him all that well, but, he was always good to me. I miss having him around. He could make you feel safe. You know what I mean?"

Sonia nodded, lips pinched together. "I know what you mean," she whispered.

Astrid exhaled, then pulled away from the curb, spinning the truck around in a wide turn. The tank was half empty, but it was a problem for later. There were hoses all over, in every yard in the country. Finding more gas wouldn't be a problem. She left the headlights off as she accelerated away, heading southwest.

#

The way back was a maze of traffic jams and debris, and dodging the clusters of infected roaming the streets. Their numbers were increasing, seemingly by the minute, though surely that was her imagination. Wasn't it? Either way, Cambridge was on the brink of becoming quite inhospitable in the not-so-distant future.

A small shadow that could only be Ella was waiting just inside the entrance as she pulled the truck up in front of the abandoned FedEx Store, and parked halfway up on the curb. The tinted glass door swung open as she and Sonia hopped out, and the shadowed form resolved into Ella on cue.

"You're back, finally," she hissed, motioning them inside with a child's impatience as she held the door open with her foot. "Geez! You guys were gone forever! I was starting to think you weren't coming back."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence there, Ella," Sonia said dourly.

"That isn't the same truck, Astrid," the little girl said pointedly with a frown. Her head was cocked, hand resting on her hip.

"You're right, it's not," Astrid said, meeting Sonia's gaze over Ella's head. The little stinker was getting a little big for her britches. The other woman rolled her eyes and grinned. "How is Walter doing, Ella? Is he feeling any better?"

Ella shrugged and shook her head. "I don't think so. He keeps coughing all the time. When he's awake, at least. And spitting up chunks of yucky stuff. My mom is worried he has something called...nu-moni-a." She sounded the word out slowly, pronouncing each syllable. "Have you heard of that? Is it very bad?"

"You mean pneumonia?" Astrid's breath caught in her throat. _Pneumonia. Oh god_. Even with modern medicine people died from it, especially the elderly. Without it... She prayed it wasn't true. "Where is h—"

A chorus of hacking coughs from inside cut her off cleanly, chilling the blood in her veins. The coughs sounded bad, much worse than before. Full of mucus and phlegm, and seemed to go on forever.

Suddenly Astrid saw herself as a girl, standing beside her mother's hospital bed. When coughing fits came, she recalled thinking that her mom was going to die from them, that her bones were breaking, cracking to pieces inside her chest. And they must have been, or else why was there blood on her lips? On her chin? And she'd been right. One of those fits had stolen every ounce of her mother's energy. Of her life. When she'd fallen back on the pillow, she'd never opened her eyes again.

She followed Ella inside, only to be met by Agent Broyles, coming toward them down a bereft product aisle. His right hand glowed, cupped fingers. "About time," he said without preamble, stopping in front of them. "What took you so long? Were you able to recover the truck?"

_So much for gratitude._ What was with everyone? She shook her head. "No, but we got a different one," she said, doing her best to hide her annoyance. "There's even more of them out there than before, if anything." Another round of wretched coughing echoed from somewhere close by, back in the veil of darkness toward the rear of the store. "Is that Walter? Where is he?"

Agent Broyles sighed. "That's too bad." He inclined his head, motioning behind him. "He's this way. Follow me."

Limping on his bad foot, he led them past a curved front counter, adorned with mangled cash registers. Nearby, a wire sales rack caught her eye, currently empty, though it had once been home to overpriced snacks and candy bars. Contrary to the building's exterior, it was clear the store had not been spared from looting. Computer stations were missing, wires dangling where the thieves hadn't even bothered to unplug them. Decaying cardboard boxes and bits of paper were strewn about, blanketing a dark-colored carpet. The detritus reeked of mold, and she suspected the sprinkler system had doused the interior at some point, probably about the same time the firestorm had swept through the area.

She glanced back, directing her light onto Ella, who was trailing behind them. "Here, kiddo," she said, offering her the plastic bag of food. "We got peanuts or pretzels or candy corns. What do you like?" Ella's eyes lit up and she reached for the bag, oddly prying her fingers apart at the same time. Astrid frowned. "What's the matter with your hand?"

Ella shrugged, shoving the hand in question in her coat pocket. "Nothing. I just... got a cut on it. It's okay, Astrid."

"You got a cut?" Sonia asked, pulled her aside. Her voice sharp with alarm. "Let me see it, Ella."

Astrid continued on behind Agent Broyles, leaving Sonia to deal with Ella's injury. Another round of harsh coughs reverberated from just ahead. A shadow separated from the wall, resolving into Rachel, face a mask of worry. Behind her was Walter, propped up against a row of white cabinetry. She let out a gasp at the sight of his haggard face.

The old scientist looked terrible, on the brink of death's door. And she wasn't altogether sure it was an exaggeration of his current condition. Eyes closed and head rolling to one side, he breathed roughly in and out. Pale cheeks lined with age sagged as if they'd lost their ability to resist the effects of gravity. He sounded terrible too. Every stilted lift of his chest was filled with bubbles and gurgles, as if his lungs were slowly filling up. And they could be, couldn't they? He could be dying for all she knew.

"Oh, Walter," she whispered, dropping to her knees in front of him. Reaching out, her heart lurched as she placed a hand on his forehead. She yanked the hand back with a hiss, glancing up at Rachel and Broyles. It might have been her imagination, but she thought she could feel the heat burning off him, even from a distance. "Oh my god, he's on fire. What happened? He wasn't nearly so bad when we left, was he?"

Rachel squatted down beside her. "The coughs just kept getting worse," she said, slowly turning her head. "Until he couldn't even stand up. He almost collapsed, and would have if Ella hadn't warned us. I hate to say this, but how do you know if someone has pneumonia? Does it cause confusion? Cause he was going in and out, saying the strangest things. I'm not sure he even knows where he is," she added, and Agent Broyles grunted in agreement.

Astrid swallowed, touching Walter's cheek once more. The fever coming off him was incredible. "I don't know how you tell, or if you even can. There's probably some kind of test that has to be run." She met Rachel's gaze. "What kind of things was he saying?"

Before Rachel could reply, Walter suddenly stirred beneath her hand. His shoulders hunching inward as a massive cough burst from his chest. Chunky and wet and bubbly, it sounded like he was gargling soup. Greenish spittle laced with threads of red shot from his lips, splattering down his chin and the front of his coat as he leaned forward.

Leaning back, Astrid's eyes bulged. _Crap. He does sound like he's dying, and right in front of us_. Cough after cough erupted, each worse, more painful sounding than the one before. When they finally subsided, Walter's face was slack, beaded with sweat despite the fever and chill air as he fell back limply against the cabinet door.

She called his name softy. When he didn't reply, she touched his forehead again, wincing at the heat pouring off him. Rachel handed her a paper towel, and she wiped the gunk away from his mouth and chin. "Walter!" she called again. "Walter, can you hear me?"

Walter's eyelids fluttered open. Blue eyes stared back at her, full of exhaustion and misery. He gave her a tepid smile. "Oh, hello Astril," he said in a dazed whisper. "You're back. How is Gene doing this morning?"

"Gene is fine, Walter," she told him as her eyes began to sting. "We're both fine. How are you feeling?"

There was no answer. Instead, Walter's eyes went distant, unfocused. A tremble went through him, pulling taut the tendons in his neck. Then his left hand shot out, clenching onto Astrid's thigh.

"Have you seen, Peter? I have to tell him!"

Astrid flinched at the sudden intensity of his gaze. What was he talking about? She shook her head. "Walter, I haven't seen-"

Before she could finish, he fell back, chest heaving. "There's so much he doesn't know... understand," he panted. "Elizabeth. We mustn't... tell him... Olive. About... we did what we did. He'll never forgive us." His voice turned hoarse with incalculable loss. "Oh, how I wish you were here, my dear. How I wish I had never shown you that...window." Falling silent, his eyelids drooped shut, chest continuing its stuttered rise and falls.

"He said something like that before," Rachel murmured. "About Peter, and opening doorways. And something about a bald friend of his. Has he ever said anything like that before to you? And who is Elizabeth?"

Astrid turned her head. "A window?" she said with a shrug. "I have no idea. He's never said anything like that to me before. I think he's delirious. I do know Elizabeth was his wife, though. Peter's mother. I think she died a long time ago. While Walter was in the institution."

She noticed a speculative glint in Agent Broyles's eyes and wondered what it was about. Before she could question him on it however, Sonia and Ella stepped into their bubble of light. Ella's hand was wrapped in a thick bandage as she nibbled on a handful of pretzels, and unsurprisingly, Rachel noticed the bandage at once.

"Ella, what happened to your hand?" she demanded, crossing over to her daughter. "I told you not to touch anything in here!"

"She cut her hand on a piece of broken glass back in the lab," Sonia explained quickly as Rachel bent to examine the wound. "And she didn't want to bother you with it, Rach. I took care of it. There was a first aid kit in the manager's office." The reply seemed to mollify the distraught mother, and Sonia glanced down at Walter. "Jesus. He doesn't look so good, but we need to get out of here. And soon."

"Just how bad is it out there, Agent Farnsworth?" Agent Broyles asked.

"Bad enough," she replied. "What should have been a five minute drive to get back here turned into twenty, mostly from avoiding infected. I don't know where they're coming from, across the river, or somewhere else, but they're everywhere. Sonia's right. The sooner we get out of here the better, in my opinion."

"But where will we go?" Ella wanted to know, shifting her gaze between all of the adults. Anxiety was written across her heart-shaped face. "What about Aunt Liv and Peter? How will we find them?"

Astrid met Sonia's gaze. The other woman gave her a nod confidence. "We'll find them, honey," she told Olivia's niece. "We just have to follow their trail."

As she explained her plan to the others, she tried to ignore the tiny voice in the back of her mind, informing her that she may have just lied to a child.

#

The tracks left by Olivia's and Peter's SUV were just a pair of divots in the shallow layer of snow and ice, leading to the next patch of bare asphalt. The wind gusted every so often, giving the white Mercedes insistent pushes toward the left shoulder, spraying a fine mist across the road ahead and doing its best to fill the remaining tracks. Given another day or two, Astrid thought it had a fair chance of succeeding. Either that, or the snow would simply melt completely.

She drove by moonlight mainly, saving the headlights for particularly hairy stretches of road. Hot air blasted from the front vents, keeping the truck's cabin toasty and warm. A glance in the rearview mirror revealed sleeping faces in the backseat; Sonia and Walter, Rachel with Ella dozing in her lap. It was a tight fit. Agent Broyles shifted beside her, but his head would nod every so often in her peripheral vision, eyelids struggling to remain open. He wouldn't last much longer. Ragged breathing broke the silence, originating from directly behind her seat, where Walter's head lolled against the window. He wasn't coughing as much as he had been, but she wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not. Perhaps he was simply too exhausted. Which wasn't to say the coughs had left him behind completely. On several occasions he had lurched upright, depositing what sounded like his lungs on the back of her seat. He was in bad shape, burning up with fever. But there was nothing she could do for him. Sonia had found several fever reducers in the first aid kit back at the FedEx store, but if they were making a difference, it was negligible.

Astrid forced her thoughts away from the sick man behind her, focusing on her driving. The road was still slick in spots, and it wouldn't do at all to guide them into a ditch. She might have worried about all the bare patches, but she knew the route they had taken, mostly. Due west, straight out of Cambridge. Then through Waltham, where she'd seen the tracks pull off into a driveway before continuing onward, through the town of Weston. There they had taken a side road, passing though the center of town, only to join up with Route 20 again on the other side. She wondered what they'd been up to, but neither Peter nor Olivia had mentioned anything. Outside of Weston, a number of infected lay in the street, broken bodies intersecting the tire tracks. The snow had been particularly deep there, and from the disarray, she suspected they might have gotten stuck, maybe even gone off the road. But whatever had happened, it hadn't slowed them down for long. She saw live infected, off the road, and sometimes on it, but none that couldn't be avoided, none that had posed a serious threat. Unless she stopped of course, and she didn't intend to. Not for anything.

They had taken a winding path through a town called Wayland, and then continued west. Not far past the outskirts, a delivery truck parked on the shoulder loomed out of the night. Braking, she leaned forward over the steering wheel, squinting at the disturbed snow around the truck, and guessed that Olivia hadn't been able to stop herself from investigating. Over the next hill, a sign off to the left announced the city of Marlborough.

She saw the traffic light first, at the bottom of a long, descending straightaway. Then the first buildings, off to the left, stores, restaurants, maybe, but it was too dark to know for sure. The tracks were clearer than before, as if they'd only been made recently. A glance across at Broyles found him fast asleep, chin resting on his chest and snoring softly. Blinking away her own rising state of exhaustion, she accelerated as her heart began to quicken. They were getting close now—she could feel it.

Keeping a sharp eye out, Astrid checked each side road, searching for where they might have turned off, where they might be taking shelter, but the path remained straight and true. Unwavering, the tracks continued west. Always west. Before long, Marlborough faded from sight. The road angled south, and still the tracks continued. Signs indicating the city of Worcester was not far ahead began to appear. A kind of giddiness swept over her then, a breathless anticipation.

The tracks were even clearer now, even more recent. As if they had been made only hours ago. Or even minutes. She guided the Mercedes around a sharp corner between a pair of low, rocky cliffs and saw something bright shining through the trees ahead, illuminating the night sky.

A bluish beam of light.

The light shot straight upward, shining palely in the distance. On either side of the beam, the stars diminished, blotted out by its greater brightness. She gasped at the sight, letting the truck idle to a stop in the center of the road, eyes wide with wonder.

It was the place Olivia and Peter had been looking for. Running water. Showers and heat. Electricity.

Her mind raced at the possibilities. How many people were there? And what kind of place was it, to advertise its presence so blatantly to the infected? A place of safety. It had to be. She tried to remember what Olivia had said about their encounter with strangers, but her thoughts were too jumbled, running at too frantic a pace. Olivia had said they were going to check it out.

What if they were there already? Suddenly she wanted to go there too, suddenly she wanted to see the ones responsible. It was civilization. Civilization. People. People that she didn't know and had never seen before. Excitement made her head swim.

The steady hum of the Mercedes' engine filled the interior. Behind her, Walter coughed suddenly, a long, drawn out hacking filled with pain and desperation. She watched him fall back to his seat in the mirror, face a picture of misery. Olivia had mentioned something about a doctor. Perhaps this doctor had medicine, even antibiotics. Would they share them? Surely they would. Why else have the light? Why else announce their presence to the world, if not to call other survivors to them?

And Olivia and Peter were planning on going there anyway. They might even be there already. Waiting for them. She could picture their surprise. Or Peter's, at least. Olivia would probably ask her a thousand questions before quirking a smile.

It was their best chance. Wasn't it?

Heart pounding, she pressed the accelerator.


	24. Or, There and Back Again

**-January 2009**

Sunlight stole across the carpet.

The slanted rectangle of white brilliance crept slowly toward the patch of ceramic tile encompassing the raised fireplace hearth, and the wide mantle above. Below the mantle and behind the screen of interlocking metal rings, feather-like tendrils of gray smoke rose upward from a uniform pile of gray ash. The fire had sputtered out during the night, and while the expansive family room was still chilly, the cold wasn't bitter, but merely uncomfortable. Beyond the sliding glass door on the far side of the room, water dripped in constant streams from an uneven lineup of icicles, no longer able to maintain their structural integrity. Standing water pooled on the bricked patio below.

The day was warming up.

_About time_ , Peter thought, turning his gaze from the view outside to another, more pleasant locale. Beside him on the next pillow, lay a fan of golden hair and a swath of pale skin visible above the thick layer of quilts and blankets. Not that winter was done with them—not by a long shot—but an intermission was long overdue. He shifted his position beneath the blankets, skin twitching at the tickle of hair falling against his chest. The movement elicited a response from the hair's owner, who reacted slightly, bare skin of her back flinching against his side. He glanced down at her sleeping form, and his lips curled into a slow grin.

For a wonder, he had somehow woken before her, a peculiarity worth noting. Olivia's breath rose and fell steadily, accompanied by a wisping snore so soft it might have been considered dainty—if that was a word that could ever be used to describe one Olivia Dunham. Stretched out beside him, her silken skin did more to keep him warm than the blankets and quilts combined.

They'd had a late night, arriving back at the Marlborough safehouse well after midnight. And they had stayed up later still, discussing what they'd seen in Worcester, the asylum, and what had happened there, before making love and passing out from sheer exhaustion in each other's arms. To his surprise, Olivia had been the one to initiate the nightcap, and he had sensed a kind of reassurance emanating from her as she'd rocked above him, eyes locked on his own. But whether the reassurance was for him, or for herself, he wasn't entirely sure.

Something had happened to her back in Worcester, something he didn't fully understand.

Perhaps it still was.

And whatever _it_ was, it had scared her—which in turned scared him. Olivia didn't scare, didn't hesitate, didn't see things or people that weren't there. That was Walter—on hallucinogens. She certainly hadn't taken any LSD lately; none at all that he was aware of since her plunge into the old deprivation tank in another life. But he was at a loss to explain why or how she would suddenly start seeing visions of John Scott.

_John fucking Scott._

The guy had not been high on the list of people Peter looked forward to seeing in the morning, nor had he been on John's, he was sure. To say they had not seen eye to eye was akin to saying the sky was blue or the world was round. Mostly, he had avoided the man whenever possible, except for when he couldn't, and by then Olivia was usually there to mediate between them.

Surely she had imagined it. A trick of the light, or exhaustion. Or something. It had to have been. But just the mere possibility that it might not be was worrying by itself, without even taking into account what else it might mean. For them. He tried to silence the insipid voices in the back of his mind that whispered of worthiness, re-voicing all the doubts he thought he'd put behind him, and mostly failed.

With a swallow, he traced a finger across her shoulder blade, down to the hint of her bicep. If he were being honest with himself, he would not have traded anything for that last few days alone with her. Perhaps not the world itself, if offered. There were certain truths he knew about himself, flaws of character that went all the way down to the core of his self, and this was one of them. Beneath his many veneers, down in the inner-most chambers of his heart, he was a selfish man.

How else could he explain his former occupation?

Olivia suddenly stirred against him. She inhaled, then let out a yawning groan. He felt her muscles bunch as she twisted, arching her back, stretching out like a cat. With a sigh, she maneuvered to face him, wisps of hair tickling his nose as she did so. Finding him awake and watching her, a shy smile broke across her lips.

"Hey."

"Hey yourself," he said, unable to contain a wide grin that no doubt made him look foolish.

Their eyes danced for an interval, and then Olivia reached up, running her fingertips softly over the scar tissue on his cheek. "I could get used to waking up like this, I think," she whispered.

Peter smiled, and burrowed his palm into the warm curve of her hip beneath the covers. He was already used to it. He didn't want it to end—but end it must. Time was passing, daylight wasting.

"What time is it?" she asked through another wide yawn that scrunched her face prettily. She squinted at the daylight through the glass door.

"The sun came up about an hour ago. I couldn't sleep, but I thought you could use some."

Olivia arched an eyebrow, perhaps at his temerity for deciding for her, but then nodded. "You're probably right, after the day we had yesterday." She scooted closer, brushing a kiss across his lips.

The moment threatened to become something less than innocent. Unable to help himself, he pulled her body against his, reveling in the tantalizing blend of soft and hardness that was Olivia in a nutshell. "And I think I could get used to waking up like that," he whispered, capturing her gaze.

Her cheeks dimpled into a smile, quickening his heartbeat, but then she pushed him away, green eyes gently chiding. "Uh uh. Don't get your hopes up, Bishop. We've got more important things to today than getting lucky. I don't want to miss Astrid."

Peter chuckled, rolling onto his back. "You know, you weren't so insistent last night," he said, then grunted when her elbow drove hard into his ribcage. He rubbed at the pain spreading out through his left side, eyeing her askance. "I suppose I deserved that."

Olivia harrumphed, but made no reply. Instead, she threw back the covers, flaunting her nakedness.

#

After a breakfast of cold instant oatmeal and a shared bottle of water, they headed out.

As Peter had suspected, the temperature outside was noticeably warmer, well above freezing from the feel of it. The sky was dappled with puffy white clouds. Constant drips of melting snow speckled the driveway beneath the roof overhang, more beneath the wide, low-hanging branches of a massive oak tree that dominated the front yard. Where before a pair of compressed tire tracks had been, exposed asphalt wound up the driveway to the black SUV. And they'd had a visitor during the night; a trail of footprints led out of the forest and crossed over the yard, passing near the front door.

Olivia eyed the footprints for a moment, then shrugged and slipped into the driver's seat. Peter slid in beside her, watching the tree line for movement. But there was nothing in the trees, nor on the short drive up to their destination in the nearby hills.

"You want me to go up?" Peter offered as the red and white tower radio came into view.

Eyes flickering upward through the windshield, Olivia frowned, and then gave a noncommittal shrug as she guided the truck to a stop near the tower's gate. "Sure. I mean... if you're offering."

Peter nodded, saying nothing. He eyed her momentarily as she fiddled with the finger of her glove, lips quirked to one side. Whatever had happened to her up there the prior morning, it was an experience she wasn't eager to repeat. That much was clear. He wasn't about to press her on it, however, and instead pushed open his door and trudged through the rapidly-melting snow over to the narrow ladder, and began the long climb upward.

The radio tower listed to and fro in a slight breeze, and the chill in the air seemed to increase with every rung. He did his best to ignore both—the cold and each somersault of his stomach. Sourly, he supposed a person could get used to anything with enough exposure. Judging he had reached the appropriate height, he hooked an arm through the ladder rung, then pulled the modified radio from his pocket.

After unwinding the second antenna, he twisted the radio on and raised it to his lips. "Astrid, come in. Over."

Waiting for her reply, Peter let his eyes wander over the thawing countryside, over the hills rolling up and down. Houses dotted the forest below, many more than were apparent from below. Entire communities seemed buried among the trees, melting rooftops visible in all directions. He shook his head at the devastation. Even after witnessing horrors and atrocities without end, the shock at how few had survived—less than a percentage point, it seemed—was still raw, a wound that refused to scab over. And with that knowledge came the understanding that their little group's luck was off the charts, in _Powerball_ winning territory. And all because of a few words of warning.

Abruptly, he became aware of the radio's silence. He checked the display with a frown that only deepened at what he saw there. The radio was on and on the right channel, and it was the agreed upon time. He repeated his message, uncomfortably aware of a slow twisting in his gut.

"Where the fuck are you, Astrid?" he muttered, checking the radio again.

As if to mock him, the small black radio remained stubbornly silent. The sun was a blazing disc, hovering well above the horizon to the east. It had been just past nine o'clock when he'd begun his climb, or near enough. There had been plenty of time. Astrid should be there. Before leaving he'd replaced the batteries in both radios, and had given her extras, just in case. She should be there. The uneasy twisting in stomach soured, taking on a sick edge.

Unless, of course, something had happened. Unless something had gone wrong.

Far below, Olivia's tiny form paced about, making a track in the melting snow. Every once in a while, she stopped, he assumed to peer up at him. He could imagine her likely stance, head cocked and hands on hips, generous lips thinned with growing impatience. She would start wondering soon however, wondering, and worrying.

Why was it taking so long? "Astrid, come in. Over."

Again and again he repeated the message, but the radio remained stoically silent. After a while, a wave of coldness that had nothing to do with the temperature washed over him. How long had he been trying? Fifteen minutes? Half an hour? The sun hung above the trees, possibly higher than before. Long enough for the realization to set in.

Something had happened.

Peter glanced down at Olivia. She was standing still now, watching him. Even from afar there was a certain wariness in her posture. It was taking far too long, and she knew it. By now, the possibility that there was something wrong had no doubt entered her mind also.

And the voice of inside his head, the voice he always trusted to get him out of sticky situations, was telling him that she was right.

#

* * *

#

Olivia stopped again, glaring up through the criss-crossing structural members of the radio tower. Other than his black coat, which contrasted sharply against the red and white sections of iron latticework, it was difficult to make out Peter at all, much less determine what was taking him so long.

_What the hell is he doing up there? Reading Astrid a novel?_ How long could it possibly take to relay the message she had given him? Nearly half an hour had passed by her internal clock, and was verified by the sun's position overhead. She took a few steps through the slush, then stopped, crossing her arms beneath her breasts, and glowered up at Peter's distant form again. What was taking so long? If she'd known they would be exchanging their life-stories, she would have gone up there herself, no matter what happened before.

The wind chose that moment to plaster her hair across her face, roaring frantically in her ears. Some of her irritation fled then, as she recalled what it was like being up there, with the tower swaying back and forth like a sapling in a tornado—and she had always enjoyed thrill rides. Guiltily, she sighed and let some of her impatience slip away. Perhaps Peter deserved a little bit of leeway. A tiny bit. On the heels of that thought was another that left an icy knot in the pit of her stomach.

What if they weren't chatting idly, weren't discussing the changing weather? What if there was another reason? What if something had happened? Something that required careful explanation. In less than an instant, the worst-case scenario played out inside her head; Rachel or Ella, or both, hurt, injured... or worse. _Oh god... and I left them... I could have gone back..._ She almost had. For several heartbeats, she couldn't breathe. Fear and worry turned the air solid in her chest. Another thought interceded then, just as crippling.

What if it was taking so long because Astrid had never made contact at all?

Olivia shuddered a gasp. It was either one or the other—they were the only explanations that made sense—and both amounted to the same thing.

She peered up at Peter high above her, blackish smudge against the blue sky. Something _was_ wrong. Evan as the thought flashed across her mind, some preternatural part of her sensed that it was true, that it was a fact. Something had happened, and not knowing what set her nerve endings on edge. She contemplated shouting up at him, but it was doubtful that he would even hear her, nor did she want to startle him. The ladder was more than precarious.

Unable to stay still any longer, she swept her gaze about, searching for what, she didn't know. She had to do something, anything, to take her mind off it or she was going to scream.

They were surrounded by thick forest, except for the small clearing around the radio tower`, and its maintenance shed off to one side. The area was still and serene, belying her fractured thoughts. Unlike the previous morning, either there were no infected nearby, or they were simply unaware of her and Peter's presence. The shadows inside the tree line were just that; empty, devoid of life, or unlife. She stalked a path over to and around the truck, holding the mass of her hair back with both hands. The pressure on her follicles was soothing somehow, relaxing. And more than anything, she needed to relax. Nothing was certain.

In an effort to avoid thinking about horrors that may or may not have happened back at the lab, she paced a figure eight on the ground, and let her mind wander where it would. She thought of the dead _thing_ they had stumbled upon in a random bar outside of Worcester. Mercury for blood. What the hell was it? It certainly wasn't human, though it had been made to look like one. Was it alien? From outer space? Another planet? The idea was ludicrous, but not more so than the dead rising, so what did she know? Peter thought it was alien, or made by aliens, but was that it? There was too much unknown. No facts, only bare suppositions—if even that much.

Olivia plodded another circuit around the track she'd made in the diminishing snow. Out of habit, her eyes scanned the darkness inside the tree line for a moment. They were clear. The whisper of pine needles rustling in the breeze caressed her senses.

Her thoughts shifted gears, settling on the old mental hospital. The Kirkbride building, and the man she assumed was the doctor the two men they'd overhead had been referring to. Who was he? What was the true purpose of their light? Her inherently suspicious nature couldn't decide. Were they gathering survivors to them? Or infected? But why would anyone purposely gather infected to them? There was no reason that she could think of—none that weren't insane, at least. And the doctor hadn't looked insane. Concentrating, she saw his face again in a memory. Balding, with largish ears. His face had been sort of pudgy, with a full beard closely trimmed. He had looked methodical. Confident in his abilities. But hadn't he looked a bit dead in the eyes too? Like a fish. Or a corpse with its eyes left open.

Why did the man's face seem familiar?

For a sliver of an instant, a name hovered on the tip of her tongue; a name that went with that face. Olivia reached out, grasping for it, but the name slipped away, dissipating from her memory as if it had never been there. _How do I know him? Do I know him?_ There was a part of her that insisted she did, while at the same time, there was another part of her that knew for certain she did not. Impossibly, both felt correct. She pressed her hands to her forehead, massaging where a twinge was beginning to develop behind her eyes. _Maybe I'm the one that's insane_ , she thought, coming to a stop, taking in panting breaths of cool air.

When she lowered her hands, a figure all in black stood in the middle of the clearing, squarely between herself and the radio tower.

Watching her.

Olivia gaped at the apparition, head shaking in denial at its existence. Her mind filled with static, lungs with wet ash. She could feel herself, her mind, discorporating, dissolving, fraying like a rope stretched too taut, snapping twine by twine.

_No... nononononoooo..._

John Scott wore a smug grin that curled up on one side, blue eyes twinkling with humor. His dark overcoat was cinched tight at the waist, white shirt and tie exposed, hair the color of sun-bleached sand blew in the wind. His smile widened. And then he winked.

_This isn't happening. It can't be happening again..._

Except it was happening. He wasn't disappearing. John wasn't disappearing.

Random thoughts pinballed inside her head. _You're dead, John. You can't be here. You can't be here. I don't love you, I don't know if I ever did...did I? It all seems so long ago..._

A stab of pain lanced through her skull, blurring her vision in its intensity, originating just behind her left eye. Gasping, Olivia lifted a hand to her temple, pressing hard on the spot as tendrils of agony spider-webbed through her brain. The ground tilted, swayed beneath her feet. She staggered to her right, suddenly unable to find her balance.

"Olivia Dunham." The monotone voice came out of nowhere, from directly behind her.

Already reeling, she spun around, stumbling, nearly falling on her face in the wet snow and ice. The pale-skinned man standing less than ten feet away watched with a kind of curious detachment as she fumbled for the gun on her hip. A bald man, with no eyebrows, with no hair of any kind that she could see. His head tilted to one side, meeting her gaze. It was him! The bald stranger!

Olivia staggered upright, chest heaving, pointing her gun with an unsteady hand at the man's face. "Y-you..." Her voice was a harsh rasp. "It... it's you!" She shot a glance behind were John's ghost had been standing, but he was gone, the snow smooth and undisturbed. Her cracked sanity splintered further as she wheeled back to the stranger. "What are you doing here? What do you want?" And then came the question she wanted to know most of all. "What the hell are you?"

The bald man remained silent, head cocked to one side as he studied her intently. She noticed a fedora hat tucked under one arm, and a slight bulge in the left breast of his coat. His zap gun, as Peter had referred to it. Gray eyes lifted, swiveling upward. Olivia followed his gaze, up to the black shape moving high up on the radio tower ladder. Peter was coming down, finally. When she turned back to the stranger, he was peering at her again, like she was a piece of artwork on display, or a science project. A flicker of what might have been pity passed across his face.

"I have come to warn you," he said, speaking with the same slow and steady cadence she remembered from before. Like a robot. Or a psychopath.

"Warn me? Warn me about what? And why the hell should I trust you, anyway? I don't even who or what you are or why you're following us!

The man's head tilted again, switching to the other shoulder. Something about the way he moved struck her as fundamentally inhuman, animal-like, or as if he were employing otherworldly senses that could peer inside her soul. Could he read her thoughts? It had felt like that before.

"There is no time," he monotoned. "The space between moments grows ever smaller, and I am stretched... thin. My calculations and projections have all ended in error, the equations incomplete, lacking the required nonzero constants to project any certain outcome."

_Project an outcome?_ Olivia blinked. What was he saying? Equations? "I don't know what the hell you're talking about," she said. "I don't know why you're telling me this, or why you're telling me right now." Without taking her eyes from the bald man, she raised her voice to a shout. "Peter! I need you down here!" He had to hear this. Of the two of them, he had at least a chance to make sense of it. She had to keep him talking, she had to keep him here. "What do you want from me—from us?"

The bald man hesitated. "I fear this reality's endpoint grows nearer, in time and space, exponentially, and also the window of resolution narrower."

"Window of resolution...?" she uttered, taking an involuntary step closer. "What do you mean? Do you know how to stop the infection? Walter said it wasn't biological, that something else was responsible." At mention of Walter, something flickered inside the stranger's eyes. Was it recognition? Could he know Walter? Before she could ask, the bald man nodded, almost imperceptibly.

"Doctor Bishop is correct," he said. "The physical constraints of this reality have been altered—are being altered—and the effect is cumulative."

Her eyes widened, her heartbeat accelerating to a gallop. "You're saying someone is doing this to us. On purpose. Who? Where are they?"

"I told you... I'm not supposed to get involved," he replied simply, as if it explained everything, instead of nothing. "To intercede is anathema, and leads inevitably to catastrophic outcomes."

"Then why _are_ you involved?" she growled. "What about that thing in the bar in Worcester? You killed it, didn't you? You've been involved all along."

If her knowledge surprised him, he gave no sign of it other than a slight angling of his head. "The shape-changer was an outside variable that would have irrevocably altered the current trajectory of events. I... I could not... allow that to happen."

Olivia's mouth was suddenly dry, the insides of her cheeks coated with sand. Thoughts flew through her mind at the speed of light. Previously unrelated puzzle pieces came together, falling into their proper places. _Shape-changer_. Something that could change its shape? _Or its appearance._ And it was an outside variable. _Outside_. "Why are you telling _me_ this?" she said softly. "How do you even know me?"

"I... feel... something, Olivia Dunham. An urge to... act. To make a difference, as you do. Even here, in this place, at the farthest reach of possibility. Yet it is not our way. Intervention changes the course of natural events. It has always been so. And yet... my colleagues are blind to this branch of history, blinded by the plan." The man's voice grew quiet, almost as if he were speaking his thoughts aloud. "The corruption is not isolated as my initial projections indicated."

"Olivia!" The stomp of Peter's footsteps thudded behind her as he raced toward them through the snow. _Outside._ "Olivia!"

She threw a hand out behind her, palm out, warning him not to interfere. "Is it the other world doing this to us?" she demanded. "The other Boston I went to. That world... it felt dead, like nothing lived there, or could." The gray eyed widened ever so slightly. Was it surprise she saw in them? She sensed Peter drawing close over her shoulder, snow crunching underfoot.

"It is not empty," he said softly. "Yet..."

Which meant that it was a real place. And that she wasn't losing her mind. She exhaled slowly, lowering her gun as Peter came abreast of her.

"Olivia, you okay?" Peter said, moving to her side.

"I'm fine." She nodded toward the bald stranger. "He's okay. I think."

"So this is the guy then? Mister No-brows?"

Olivia snorted, holding in a laugh despite the severity of the situation. She gestured toward the stranger. "This is him. Peter, meet... whoever you are. You haven't told us your name."

The bald man's head shifted slightly, locking onto Peter's face to her left. "My designation is September, ninth month of your year," he intoned. "I have done all that I can, Peter Bishop, as you once asked of me. I know you both have questions, but I cannot help you any further. I have interfered too much already. He was my friend, once, in another place. Goodbye."

Peter stepped forward wearing a scowl. "Wait, I what? Who the hell is h-"

The bald man vanished with a faint pop.

For a long moment, neither of them spoke. In the interim, wind sighed through the trees, feathering icy touches across Olivia's cheeks. Metal creaked behind them, emanating from the radio tower guy wires stretching in the wind. Where the bald man had been standing, a single pair of footprints marred the smooth surface of the melting snow, with none coming or going. The man had appeared out of nowhere, just has he had disappeared.

"Neat trick," Peter muttered, raking a hand through his hair. "Mind telling me what the hell just happened? What did he say to you before I got here?"

Olivia swung toward him, reaching for his hand as she met his gaze. "Forget him for a minute, Peter." She darted a glance up to the radio tower. "What happened up there? Something's happened hasn't it?" Her throat tightened as Peter's face turned ashen. "What is it?" she asked quickly, seeing confirmation of her worst fears in his eyes. "Is it Rachel? Ella? Or did Astrid never even show up?"

Wetting his lips, Peter hesitated. "...She didn't show up," he said with a sigh. "Liv, I checked the radio; it was fine, and on the right channel. She just never showed up."

They stared at each other in the cool morning air. Olivia suspected she knew what the bald man had been referring to when he'd mentioned being stretched thin. There was too much happening, and all at once. And all of the threads were jerking her in different directions. What the hell had happened? Astrid wouldn't have just not shown up, nor was it like her to be late. The young woman had been as punctual as a person could be, never late, always showing up for work at the lab every morning on the dot. And the radio had been working fine.

"So what do you want to do?" Peter glanced around the clearing. "Maybe... maybe she overslept," he offered. "As unlikely as that seems. Everybody's gotta slip up once in a while. Maybe she got there late and I climbed down five minutes too early."

Olivia didn't know what she wanted to do. Indecision pressed her lips into a thin line. Should they go back to Cambridge? Or give Astrid another day to make contact? Her heart told her to get in the truck and head back at once, but her head insisted on coolly informing her that Peter could be right. He more than likely was right, wasn't he? Mistakes happened, and all the time. But would not listening to her heart be one of them? If only she could see the future. They had to know more about the community they'd found, but if something had happened to her family... then what was the point—of any of it? None of it would matter anymore. Which left only one option, in truth. And the choice wasn't a choice at all, but an imperative.

"We have to go back," she told Peter with a nod that was more to convince herself than him. "We have to, or not knowing what happened will drive us both crazy. We can discuss the bald guy on the way. Oh, and you drive. I have to think."

As they slogged back to the truck through the melting snow and ice, it suddenly hit Olivia that she'd seen John's phantom again, no more than ten minutes ago. That it was now an afterthought—and preceded by more precipitous events—was merely evidence of how badly they'd been blindsided by the sudden arrival of the bald man and Astrid's tardiness. She considered whether or not to mention it to Peter, but couldn't quite force herself to do so. He would look at her differently afterward—with doubt in his eyes, with hesitation, or even fear—and how could he not? She would have if the situation were reversed. Wouldn't she? That was what you did when someone claimed to see dead people. Seeing John once could have been a mistake, a trick of light, or something she had yet to think of. But twice? And in broad daylight? That was something else again. Something that pointed toward sickness, toward madness, toward a fracturing psyche. Peter would think she was insane, that she was losing her mind. That instead of bending under the pressure, she was breaking all together. She couldn't bear to see such in his eyes. Not ever.

_But then again_ , a voice spoke in the dim recesses of her mind, _maybe I am_.

#

* * *

#

Peter let the truck come to a stop at a narrow gap between a pair of cars smashed together in the middle of the intersection. He hardly noticed the wreckage, or indeed anything but the scene that lay before them, far down the block.

They had entered Cambridge from the northwest, following a winding path through the roadblocks and traffic jams, and many more wandering infected than he recalled, until the peaked roofs of the Harvard campus appeared in the distance, bedecked in lines of verdigris patina that gleamed dully under the noontime sun. Burnt-orange bricks made a solid wall to the south, speckled with grids of white-framed windows. The Kresge Building was among them, with the brown van-gate, the black iron fence along the street.

Or at least, those things should have been visible. Instead, a teeming mob of undead in numbers beyond belief obscured the view.

"Holy shit...," he breathed, easing the gearshift into the parked position.

Sitting in the seat beside him, Olivia's face had gone deathly white. Her green eyes bulged, lips parted and trembling. The arm rest creaked beneath her white-knuckled grip.

Before them, on the far side of the intersection, stood the expanse of the Cambridge Commons. The park was a patchwork mix of thin snow and brown grass, skeletal trees and pointed evergreens, and also a solid mass of infected, stretching for blocks in either direction. Presumably, more of them were out of sight, filling the spaces between buildings and alleyways. Many more. The army of undead had lain siege to the main Harvard campus, appearing to circle it in its entirety.

"We should have come back yesterday," Olivia whispered. Tears were forming in her eyes. "We should have come back... Oh god, Peter, we should have come back. Astrid told me she'd seen more of them, but I... oh god..."

Peter swallowed through a harsh bitterness. "Maybe... maybe they made it out," he said, hearing the lie in his words even as he spoke them. _Walter..._ In spite of everything his father had done—had admitted doing—an ache started in his throat. It spread downward through his chest to his heart, pressing with impossible weight. _You son of a bitch_.

Suddenly Olivia was in motion. She shoved open her door and flung herself outside. Before Peter could react, or even open his mouth, she was gone. Her ponytail whipped about as she sprinted toward the entrance of an apartment building hovering over the sidewalk at the corner of the intersection.

"Olivia, wait!" he managed to shout, but she didn't stop, or even slow down. She leapt over the front end of a red sports car and an instant later was gone, vanished inside the apartment building's main entrance. Peter watched the door swing shut. "Fuck!" He slammed his palms across the steering wheel, then ripped the truck's starter wires apart.

A moment later he was after her, crashing through the heavy wooden doors of the apartment building entrance and into a darkened interior. He glanced around, hesitating for an instant, uncertain whether they had cleared the building already or not; after months and months and hundreds of similar buildings, they had all blended together. Olivia was nowhere in sight. The doors had opened into a small vestibule with a wall of inset mailboxes on one side. Charging past, he moved deeper into the gloom. Somewhere ahead a door crashed and pounding footsteps echoed in the darkness. He slid to a stop in front of a small concierge desk, and listened to the diminishing sound of Olivia's flight. She was above him, searching for high ground. He moved forward again, peering right and left, and then saw what he'd been looking for; the sign for a stairwell on his left. Blackness and Olivia's stomping footsteps greeted him when Peter threw wide the door and plunged in after her. Tiny windows of clouded glass set high on the wall at each floor provided scant light, and thick shadows filled the spaces between. He vaulted up the steps, spinning around the handrails.

Five squares of light he counted, before reaching what was hopefully the last intermediate landing. It was. His legs burned, his breaths labored gasps as he turned the corner. Suddenly a body reared out of the darkness, head thudding hollowly on each step as it slid slowly downward. The infected's face was a ruin, one eye gushing founts of blood as it passed through a shaft of light. Leaping over it, Peter came to the end of the stairwell and caught the edge a door closing slowly on a hydraulic arm. He pulled out his pistol, then stepped into a shadowed corridor with plush carpet that seemed to bounce beneath his feet.

Peter glanced left, then hurried to his right where an open door cast a slanted ray of light across the hall. Nothing moved. The light revealed the carpet was crimson in color, and as he made his way to the open door, he couldn't help but think of it as blood, a river of it—and he was wading right down its center.

From the obvious lack of forced entry, it was clear Olivia had found the door open. He passed inside the apartment, wondering distractedly if the dead man in the stairwell had been its owner. Shutting the door quietly behind him, he found himself in a well-furnished living room. A massive television was mounted on the wall opposite a cushy-looking couch of brown leather. Framed artwork adorned the other walls, modern works of the abstract, all sinuous lines and odd shapes on colored backgrounds. He had never understood the lure of such pieces; none of it held a candle to the old classics—the Van Goghs, the Monets, and their ilk, the masters of decades past, of centuries past. Perhaps he was too much of a traditionalist to understand. He swept through the living room, through a kitchen of white cabinets and black appliances. On the far side was an open French door, leading out onto a narrow balcony. Wind gusted outside, its voice shrieking through the apartment.

Peter paused on the threshold.

Olivia stood before the waist-high railing looking out over the park below. Her shoulders hunched, shaking gently as the sound of her tears could be heard between the wind's rise and fall.

He stepped out onto the narrow ledge. A stainless steel barbecue grill sat off to the left, a pair of high quality lawn chairs to his right. He passed between them, moving to Olivia's side at the railing. From the apartment's vantage he could see clear across the park to the Kresge Building, and also what had brought Olivia to tears.

The iron fence guarding the two of the Kresge Building's flanks was gone, squashed flat from what little he could make out through the mass of bodies inside what had been the perimeter. Peter staggered against the railing, gripping it in both hands. Not only was the fence missing, but the infected had somehow swarmed over the barricade of vehicles. Even now several were stuck in the narrow gap between the rows, reaching frantically for nothing. How was that even possible? The quad beyond was a black ocean of upright bodies, lapping up against the Widener Library to the east, to the old chapel building to the north, and every space in between. He saw the statue of John Harvard rising up among them, like a god casting judgement on his supplicants. He saw that the horde stretched for blocks; to the east and west, and to the south, he assumed, though his view that way was mostly blocked. How many were there? Ten thousand? Twenty? The dead had crossed the river en masse. _So many of them. How can there be so many?_ The sheer volume of space they occupied sent his mind reeling. Though it was out of sight, they were surely pressed up against the lab's back door, indeed along the Kresge Building exterior in its entirety, searching for a way in. Shifting his gaze, he noticed something else that sent daggers piercing through his heart.

Out in the street and hedged in by infected innumerable, was the roof of the maroon suburban, clearly visible above the fray. Then, even as this second revelation left him with the urge to weep, another followed on its heels as one of the Kresge Building's doors pushed slowly open and an infected stumbled outside.

"They never made it out, Peter," Olivia whispered in a choked voice, turning to him. Pain crumpled her tear-streaked face. She had seen it also, and drawn the same conclusion. "They never made it out."

Numbness washed over Peter, scouring him bare on the inside, leaving nothing behind but a vast emptiness. He had nothing to offer her, no words of hope. They were gone. Only the dead still resided in that building, of that, he had not a single doubt. His father, little Ella. Rachel and Astrid, Sonia and Broyles. All gone.

All dead. Or else the infected would have simply followed wherever they had fled.

Had they gone down fighting? Undoubtedly. He was sure of it. But in doing so, they had only drawn more to them, like iron filings to a lodestone. He could picture what must have happened, the hail of bullets, gunfire echoing through the city. Rank after rank of undead mowed down, only to be replaced by another. And another. And another. Until the end came.

Peter met Olivia's gaze through a blur of sudden wetness. "I... I'm sorry, Liv," he said through a band of pain. His voice sounded strange to his ears, like he was hearing someone else speak through his mouth. "I'm so sorry."

Olivia reached for him even as he stretched out, pulling her in close against his chest. He buried his face in her hair, breathing her in. Olivia's fists bunched the back of his coat, and hot tears scorched paths down their cheeks.

#

Time passed in increments, in waves of sadness and pain that ebbed and flowed, rising and falling against the shore of their sorrow.

Eventually, Peter became aware of the chill in his fingertips, working its way through his boots, settling in his toes. He opened his eyes and saw that nothing had changed—not that he had expected anything to. Infected milled about, in the park and in the streets, moving without purpose. It was all useless, all without reason. Distantly, he wondered if Walter was among them.

Had he succumbed quickly? Had there been pain? Agony? He wished things had ended differently between them. The regret was a familiar one, nearly identical to when his mother had passed. Perhaps he could have allowed Walter to explain himself. He had certainly tried to. His father had begged on his knees, but he had refused to hear any of it, refused to even consider any of his pathetic excuses.

But what if there had been a reason? What if there had been an explanation? One that wasn't utterly insane, no matter how small the odds? Should he have given his father a chance? Was it a coincidence that his final words to each of his parents had been words said in anger? Or was it something else. He was the common denominator, wasn't he?

_Maybe I'm the problem._ The thought left desolation in its wake, desolation without end. _Maybe I've always been the problem. Maybe I'm the reason for all of it._ Occam's razor was nothing, if not obvious.

He felt Olivia stir against him. She leaned back, peering up with bloodshot eyes. There was misery in her striated gaze, endless misery and boundless pain. Then, as if steeling herself, he lips came together in a thin line of determination. Her face changed, transformed, losing some of its luster, or was it life? He saw shadows of the Olivia he had first met, the Olivia he'd poked fun at on the plane ride back to Boston, the Olivia whose sense of humor had seemed to consist solely of cold glares and looks of disappointment.

"This is my fault."

"Olivia—"

"NO. Don't." Olivia's voice was the tenor of ice, without emotion. "You can't fix this, Peter. You can't talk me around. It was my idea to split up. It was my idea to leave them behind. My sister... Ella... they..." She gasped, facade of control slipping for an instant, revealing tortured-inner thoughts. "Because of me they..." Her eyes screwed shut as she took in stuttered breaths. When she opened them, the mask slid back into place as she turned to the railing. "We need that truck," she said woodenly. "Astrid told me they were planning on loading it up with the guns and food. We'll need it all."

Peter studied her profile. Did she think she was the only one hurting? The only one of them who was culpable? Did she think her grief was greater than his own? Her lip trembled as she stared silently over the park, and his anger slipped away, leaving only hollowness and despair in its place. Perhaps hers was, at that. At least she'd had normal relationships with her sister, nothing like the dysfunctional mess he and Walter shared. And she'd had Ella.

Pain twisted his throat into a knot. _Goddamnit. She deserved better. They all did_. Even his father, as difficult as that was to admit. Even Walter.

He joined her at the railing, leaning forward on his forearms. "What exactly are you proposing, Olivia?" He had a feeling he knew what she was going to suggest, and didn't at all like the sound of it.

#

* * *

#

Down on the street below, the truck dipped forward as Peter applied the brakes, slowing to a crawl as it reached the corner. Head cocked, he stared upward through the windshield, meeting her gaze. From the grim set of his face, it was obvious he didn't like her idea, not one bit. But he hadn't complained, much. Nor had he protested like she had expected him to, or said something foolish, like he should be the one to go.

Olivia raised her hand, waggling her fingers. _This isn't the end, Peter_. She sent the though outward, imploring him with her eyes. They would see each other again—as long as he did what she'd told him, at least.

Peter touched his lips as if he'd heard, then pressed them briefly to the glass. It was an uncharacteristic move for him, and showed just how out of sorts he actually was beneath his veneer. Smiling bitterly, she returned the gesture, then managed to keep her face plain long enough for him to nod, and then accelerate away, heading west.

She watched until the black SUV was no longer in sight, then stared where it had disappeared into the shadow of a steepled church on the far side of a park below. They _would_ see each other again. If not, well, she was already sinking into a well of darkness that seemed without end. What was one more death to lay at her feet? Even if it was the man a secret part of herself thought she might be falling in love with.

_I can't lose you, too, Olivia_ , he had whispered, cupping her face. _Not after everything, not after... I..._ His voice had broken, and for a moment she'd thought he was going to say the words, those three simple words. But he hadn't. Instead he'd spun away from her, and when he'd glanced back before walking back inside, his eyes had become mirrors, reflecting her own darkness back at her. She had been too harsh with him earlier.

"Stay safe, Peter Bishop," she murmured. _I don't think I could bear to lose you, either._ The thought of being left alone, stranded in the purgatorial wasteland of the apocalypse was beyond terrifying.

_But maybe it's what you deserve_ , a voice from the back of her mind whispered. _After what you've done, after what you've let happen, maybe you deserve to be alone, to lose everyone you love._

Olivia swallowed down a harsh dryness, then turned away from the railing. The voice had been Rachel's, and laced with accusation. An aching pang spread through her chest, expanding in her lungs until it was impossible to draw breath. For an extended moment, their distended faces swam in her vision, wavering in her mind's eye, flesh bloodied and torn, eyes golden and accusing, alive even in death. Rachel and Ella. Her family was more than likely gone. The ache swelled. Agonizing pressure threatened to tear her apart from the inside out, one cell at a time.

Clamping her fingers over her mouth, she rushed from the balcony. Tears blurred her vision. She swept through the swanky apartment without seeing any of it, and then out into the corridor, searching for solace in its dimness. Darkness closed in from all sides, and the racking sobs she'd been holding at bay since her fist sight of the street in front of the lab broke free of their moorings. Pain and guilt buffeted her, driving her to her knees. She fell back against the wall beside the door, hugging her knees to her chest, and cried.

_I killed them..._

As good as. It was her arrogance that had led them to this end, her certainty that she could walk the tightrope long enough to do what had to be done, even if it meant putting those she loved at risk. The outcome had been inevitable from the beginning—and she was a monster.

Suddenly, between rough intakes of breath and incessant sniffles, Olivia caught the tail of end of something, a noise muted and distant through the balcony door she'd left standing open in her haste to exit the apartment. She lifted her head and blinked around the confines of the darkened corridor. Was it Peter? Was it the signal? Surely he hadn't reached the east side of campus yet. The roads were a maze, navigation by vehicle, all but impossible except for a few well-traveled routes. How long had she been sitting there? She didn't know. In the midst of vast sorrow, time broke down, lost all meaning.

She heard it again. This time, instead of single blast, the car horn blasted its cry over the city, unceasing, a long, a drawn out wail that went on and on, never ending.

Olivia sat upright, smacking her head against the wall. He was already starting! And without her—she should have been halfway across the park already. "Shit..." Her hiss came through gritted teeth.

Bolting to her feet, she scrubbed the last remnants of tears from her eyes. And then, though it sundered her soul to do so, she quashed thoughts of Rachel and Ella and the rest of them, the overwhelming guilt, the self-hatred and despair, forcing it all into the farthest reaches of her mind. Where it was all safely out of her way. She could wallow in it later, drown in it if need be. When nothing was expected or required of her.

Taking in a huge breath, she sprinted through the gloom. Back to the stairwell. And then down it, leaping over the infected man she'd knifed on the way up. Her momentum carried her to the next landing, where pain shot through her right arm as she slammed into the stairwell wall. Without stopping she leapt again, fingers sliding over the railing on her left for balance, winding her way downward. At the bottom, she threw herself back into the lobby, scrambled over a tiled floor that suddenly seemed as slick as ice. Blinding sunlight filled the far side of the lobby, shining in through half-circle portals set in the upper half of the stout entrance doors. She charged forward, past a tiny desk she'd missed before, past an alcove of mailboxes that were eerily similar to those in her own building, and then she was shoving through the doors and out into the street, where the horn continued to wail, blocks away to the east.

_Don't do anything stupid_ , _Peter_ , she thought, loping southward down the sidewalk, through the intersection, sidling between a pair of charred vehicles.

The wide park spread out before her, filled with a smattering of trees and rusting playground equipment, statues and war memorials from another epoch. Stepping over a low guardrail, she made her way down an asphalt walkway. Her boots sloshed in melting snow and ice. Footprints crisscrossed ahead of her. Some were ancient, grown comically large in the snow by the passage of time. Others were fresh, as if they had only been made minutes prior—and they certainly could have been. An erratic wind blowing every which way carried hints of rot, of decay. The stench grew more prominent with every stride.

Infected occupied the southern half of the park, spilling onto the street that was its border. Olivia eyed them warily. Far across the intermittent patches of snow, the struggling grass, they were stirring, coming awake. Heads were swiveling, bodies following suit, precipitating movement. The sheer number of them was appalling, stretching out of view to the east and west, like some horrific parade gone wrong. But the dead were moving, slowly.

It was going to work.

Slowing, she angled toward a pair of metal bleachers off the footpath to her right. Beyond was an open field, a perfectly flat rectangle. Metal goals painted white at either end named it a soccer field. Unbidden, silent images of running children played inside her head. The images became movies, and she could hear them; the girls and boys, the screams and shouts of encouragement from parents watching from the sidelines, following their child's path across the field, the breathless anticipation. Ella would never be one of them, would never know the exhilaration of scoring the winning goal, or the heartbreak of victory slipping away at the last moment. She would never have a true childhood. And Rachel would never see her daughter grow up.

Tears stung Olivia's eyes. She blinked the distractions away, forcing her breath through a painful band of constriction looped around her neck. They were distractions. She couldn't think about them or what had happened, not right now.

Ducking down low, she clambered up the tiered bleacher, and then settled down to wait for the crowd to disperse. She listened to the warble of the horn in the distance. Was Peter staying on the move like she'd told him to? It was the only way to avoid being surrounded himself. Surely he understood that. He was a genius, after all, though it seemed he seldom enjoyed acting the part.

The mob was slowly departing, making its way west down Cambridge Street, meandering like a heard of obstinate cattle. At their current rate she was in for a long wait, but there was nothing to be done. Shortly, something moved in the corner of her eye. Turning, she found a herd of bodies shambling in her general direction. Leering infected slipped between the trees to the west, eyes glittering in the sunlight. From the angle they were taking, it was clear that they would pass close by her hiding spot in the middle of the bleachers.

Uncomfortably close. _Of course they will_ , she thought, cursing her bad luck.

Flattening down against the foot rest between the middle row of seats, she held herself still as the silent figures approached. Metal cold like ice pressed rough against her cheek, stinging. She reached back and pulled her long knife from its sheathe, then brought it forward, holding the blade horizontal in front of her eyes.

The first of them was almost upon her. The walking corpse's emaciated frame was draped in a grimy Red Sox t-shirt and a pair of khaki shorts that might have been any number of colors. Heart galloping, her breath hissed, condensing into tiny clouds as the infected moved across her field of vision. Then it was gone, oblivious to her presence. The others were mere moments behind, and, she saw with an icy shiver, they had tacked slightly to their left, sending them on a collision course with the bleacher in which she'd secreted herself.

Her muscles bunched, tensing into tight, corded knots. Moving in almost slow motion, she reached back and carefully unsnapped the catch holding her gun in place. Of course, firing it at this crucial juncture would ruin everything, but then again, so too would dying.

They were nearly upon her. Could they see her? She doubted it, but what about their sense of smell? Her blood? Her live flesh? Could they sniff her out? Or did they have some other sense they weren't yet aware of, one that made her stand out like a blazing star? The infection followed no rules of logic she could discern, which was a large part of the problem wasn't it?

Twenty feet away.

Ten.

The nearest was a gray-skinned dead woman wearing nothing but a man's button down shirt. Her left thigh was a slab of partially eaten meat, flesh torn and dessicated, with hair matted into thick tubers of mud and grime. Eyes cold and inhuman passed over her, but like the first, it too, was unaware of her regard. Then it was gone, replaced by several handfuls that parted around the bleacher, like a school of fish avoiding an obstacle on the ocean floor.

The clomp of footsteps and mumbling breaths filled her ears, almost close enough to touch. Olivia kept her eyes open, her head forward. A cloud of putrescence followed them as they passed by her, one after another. A part of her was painfully aware of how close her legs were to the bleacher's edge—too close, they must be, surely—but to move was to draw their attention. But what if one of them had already sensed her, and was even now, stopping, turning slowly, yellow eyes filling with animal greed, bending over, teething pulling back, spreading open wide for the kill? A tickle started up on the back of her neck and she hunched her shoulders, straining against an overwhelming urge to look back. The blade shook in front of her eyes, hovering centimeters in front of the aluminum foot rest. Suddenly it seemed impossibly heavy, a lead weight in her hand. She moved the hand carefully to the side, intending to slide the knife back into its sheathe, when a sudden cramp struck, turning her fingers into gnarled tree roots. The knife slipped in her grasp, dangling precariously from pinky and ringfinger, before succumbing to gravity's inexorable pull.

Olivia made a desperate grab for the hilt as the knife dropped, only for her hands to close on air. Wincing, she waited for the metallic clatter, the ring of metal that would bring the infected rushing back, but there was only silence. Then the last of them passed her by, and it was truly silent, except for the drum beating in her chest.

She lifted her head and let out a long exhale. Luck had been on her side. Glancing down, the knife was stuck blade first in the ground, having narrowly missed a plethora of angle-iron structural supports.

Luck. Was that what survival came down to? Who had the most, and how long it lasted? How long would hers last? Peter's? She already knew the answer for the others.

Retrieving her errant weapon, she slammed it home in its sheathe, then rose to a crouch. She peered southward toward the campus, where the horde was slowly thinning out, homing in the distant horn. It was quieter than before, and perhaps more northward. Good. _It's working, Peter. Keep going._ How long had he been at it? Surely he would have to quit soon. They had each agreed his time as bait could only last until it became too risky to continue. Then he would head to Waltham and wait for her arrival there. No doubt holes existed in her plan—holes big enough to drive several buses through—but she wanted that truck, and more importantly, what was in it.

And she wanted something else. Something Peter would have never agreed to if he had stayed with her.

Olivia bounced on the balls of her feet. The horn continued to wail, a nostalgic breaking of the silence that had fallen over the city for almost seven months. The south end of the park was empty, infected having trickled through the trees and monuments and playground equipment, and out onto Cambridge Street beyond. In another minute or two, it would be time. She could make out the campus now, the maze of cars and trucks filling the street. The horde walked at a shuffling pace, each second exposing more to her eyes. More and more vehicles came into view, appearing like a shoreline beneath a receding tide. A dark smear of brown, far down the street. The van-gate. The iron fence beside it was crushed flat, the masonry peers between the spans toppled over, shattered.

A black fount of darkness rose up inside her at the condition of the fence. For a span of heartbeats, she was on the verge of breaking down, of walking over that cliff and shattering into a billion broken pieces. Of giving up. But something inside her refused. Even in the face of overwhelming loss that part of her refused to budge, refused to give in. Not while she was still breathing.

The maroon tint of the suburban was visible, just past the van, parked in the middle of the street. The space around it was clear. At that same moment, the constant moan of the horn from the east fell suddenly silent. As soon as its echo died out, two more sharp blasts pierced the air in rapid succession, and then fell silent once more.

Olivia tensed, waiting for a third blast, but the city's only voice was a whisper of cool air rustling through the pine needles. With a sigh, she straightened, rubbing at an ache in her lower back. Peter had made it away safely then, and was on his way to the safe-house they had used the first night after leaving the others. She eyed the crushed fence that had once guarded the Kresge Building's north and west flanks, then made the long step down from the bleachers. The area seemed clear, empty.

It was time.

Olivia double-checked that her weapons were secure, then started south through the park.

#

She ran for the street, sprinting, boots thudding on the narrow walking path.

A memorial to Abraham Lincoln centered in a ring of trees flashed past on her right. Movement caught her eye, and she glimpsed several infected moving inside the dead president's shadow. Ignoring them, she angled to her left, through a copse of evergreens, guarding her face when a storm of low-hanging branches lashed out with tendrils of fire across her cheeks. She broke through, then hurdled a low fence running parallel to the sidewalk and charged eastward down Cambridge Street.

The Kresge Building grew steadily larger, until the individual lines of mortar between the bricks stood out, and ghosts of reflections appeared in the rows of windows. Out in the street the maroon suburban stood alone, surrounded by what looked like a blackish slush and formless lumps dotting the pavement. As she drew closer, the odd-shaped mounds resolved into scores of bodies, layers it seemed, squashed flat, splinters of bone, arms, legs, ribs, poking up through sodden tatters of clothing and torn flesh pitted with decay. More lay up against the few sections of fence that remained standing, bodies twisted and contorted through the iron bars. As if they'd been pushed. The stench of rotting flesh seared the inside of her nose.

Olivia slowed, coming abreast of the now-irrelevant gate. Truly, the horn had done its job better than she'd imagined, or even dared hope. Of the massive horde of infected, only a single undead remained in the vicinity—a dead woman with streaked hair that growled and hissed as she approached. The dead woman surged forward with open teeth and arms, and then promptly fell on its side. With a frown, she moved closer, stopping just short of its hooked fingers.

The creature's foot was caught, trapped between the bars of the mangled fence. From the way the foot was twisted around—nearly facing the wrong way entirely—its ankle was nonexistent, utterly obliterated. Its eyes filled with lurid hunger as she bent close, grabbing the mop of filthy hair, then went flat when she drove her knife into its temple. Yanking the blade free, she let the head drop with a dull thunk, then straightened, the infected already a distant memory.

She had little time.

Crossing over the layers of bodies to the suburban, Olivia opened the passenger door and looked inside. That it was unlocked was not surprising, nor that the keys dangled in the ignition; they'd had no reason to lock doors, no reason to worry about theft. Sitting in the middle of the passenger seat was the other handheld radio, twin to the one with Peter. Over the rows of back seats, were bags and boxes, bulging with supplies, most of which was food. She picked up the radio and considered making contact—Peter had said he'd leave his on, just in case she found the other—but then let it fall back on the cushion instead.

Peter could wait until she finished her other business.

She shut the door and moved the trucks rear door, swinging it upward silently on its hydraulic hinges. Nestled to one side of the boxes of food were the weapon bags from the Federal Building—rifles and submachine guns, the heavy sniper rifle in its long, black case. She swept her eyes over them, taking inventory with a glance.

One of them was missing. An M4 assault rifle, similar to the two she and Peter had taken. Turning, Olivia peered up at the Kresge Building, at the wide lettering set in gray stone above the entrance portal reminded her of a mausoleum, at the rows of windows reflecting the sun's glare, hiding the darkness within.

_I'm sorry, Peter, but I have to know. I have to see them, see for myself, one way or another._

Olivia reached for a black stock and pulled free one of the remaining rifles. She pulled back the slide and found the chamber loaded, then grabbed another full magazine from the supply of ammunition.

Would two be enough? How many could be in there? _At least six_ , a tiny voice whispered back. _At least six_. Blinking away tears, she shoved the spare magazine in her back pocket.

Hefting the rifle, she moved away from the truck, stepping over the body of the dead woman on her way inside the perimeter, careful to make sure her own foot wasn't caught by the warped metal in a similar fashion. As she made her way through the slush and mud, it struck her that for having been overrun, there were surprisingly few bodies inside the fence—indeed almost none at all. And there should have been.

Olivia frowned, looking at the scene with a clinical eye. Hadn't they fought back? The snow was trampled out of existence, even on top of the barricade of trucks, which the infected appeared to have somehow crossed over. Chewing on the corner of her lip, her frown deepened. Something wasn't quite right. The professional part of her sensed a greater mystery, an aura of discord.

She headed toward the wide stairs leading up to the entrance, scanning ground as she went. Footsteps crisscrossed every which way. A glint of muddied bronze caught her eye and she bent down, reaching for a small cylindrical object, squashed flat by a heavy tread. A spent shell casing. Forty caliber, from its familiar size and shape. Glancing around, she saw more of them all over, sprinkling the lawn and sidewalk, a mix of forty caliber rounds along with five-five-six pressed into the mud.

Dropping the shell casing, she straightened, peering up at the stoic entrance again. So they had fought back, after all. The spent shells explained the bodies outside the fence; they'd been fired before it had been breached. Broyles and Astrid each carried Glock 40s. Maybe it had been Sonia with the M4, certainly not Rachel. But how had the infected broken through? Was it simple mass? Simply sheer numbers? That didn't explain how they'd gotten inside the lab though, unless the dead had learned to pull open doors since she and Peter had left. It didn't seem likely.

Olivia crossed over to the vehicle barricade, and went to climb up onto the hood of a white pickup truck. As she stepped up on the front tire, her eyes fell upon splinters of wood crushed into the mud. Pausing, she stared down blankly at what appeared to be a shattered chair. A chair, wooden, the sort found in classrooms the world over. Recognition followed an instant later, in the image of Charlie, sitting watch, stern gaze fixed on the horizon.

_Oh, Charlie. Your wife would have made you proud...but she' s gone now_ _._ She hung her head as the emptiness she'd tamped down earlier came roaring back, expanding in her chest, stopping her breath, fresh and still-healing wounds alike, both scoured open anew. _I failed her. Like I failed you, and everyone else. They're all gone._

As if in response to her puling, a gruff voice cut into her sorrow. _Keep moving, kiddo. Just keep moving._

Yes. She could cry later. After she did what had to be done.

Steeling herself, Olivia quickly pulled herself up onto the truck, then dropped down on the outer wall of cars. To her left, close to where the barricade met the fence, was a ramp made of broken bodies, layers upon layers, some of which were still squirming in death. Indeed, along the barricade, grisly and misshapen ramps, stair steps of bodies had formed, a scene unlike any she had ever seen. A sight straight out of hell itself, she might have said, if such a place existed. She couldn't picture it; the unimaginable frenzy that had driven them over the wall. What the hell had happened? What could have enlivened them so?

She dropped down outside the barricade, then made her way around the ghoulish ramps of dead flesh. The ground sloped downward gently toward the rear of the building, where lay the lab's back door. It was near the halfway point of the incline when she noticed the trio of windows, set low near the ground. The frames were devoid of glass, spilling shadow out into the daylight. And from the lack of shards on the ground, the glass had shattered inward. Bodies lay nearby, bodies crushed into oblivion.

_Inward._ Olivia choked a gasp, pressing a hand to her forehead.

Those fucking windows.

They were small, less than three feet in either dimension. Tiny. Barely large enough for a man to squeeze through, with frames of painted metal mortared into place. From inside the lab, they were high up on the wall, offering a view that consisted of treetops and the sky. Yes. She knew them well. Too well.

Not long after the outbreak was in full swing, they had tried to board them up, but had never found a permanent solution. Masonry on the outside and solid concrete on the inside had confounded their best efforts. Clearly, as if it had happened yesterday, she recalled Peter, sweat beading on his forehead, worrying over it, wishing bitterly for something called a hammer-drill, without which, he claimed, he was never going to secure anything in place. And he never had. But then nothing had happened. Even during the chaos of the first few weeks, with freshes everywhere, killing anyone in sight, nothing had happened. When they had hunkered down, drawing no attention to themselves, watching and waiting for help that would never come, nothing had happened. And nothing had kept happening, after the freshes aged into the slow-walkers, after the bombs stopped falling, after the fires went out, after the city fell silent and they were left all alone in the tomb of civilization, nothing had happened. _The infected were too stupid, too oblivious_ ; she remembered thinking that thought. So arrogant. And the windows had been forgotten. The lab was safe. The lab was secure.

_Oh, Peter, what fools we were. What blind, stupid, fools... We deserve the hell we're in_ _._

Tears burned in her eyes as she knelt down before the window. Icy dampness soaked through the knees of her jeans. Ducking her head, she peered inside, into gray shadows and formless black shapes.

For a moment, the view seemed completely foreign to her, wholly unfamiliar. But then, as her eyes adjusted to the gloom, objects began to emerge from the dimness; the work tables, the cabinetry, the hulking cube-like bulk of the deprivation tank, the rows of Walter's equipment pushed out to the edges of the room for space. Nascent patches of daylight crept across the polished concrete floor, slanting in through the windows on the adjacent wall. She scooted over the next window for a better angle, but the view was more of the same.

Nothing stirred within, the whisper of her breath the only proof of life. Glancing around, she picked up a handful of gravel-filled dirt and tossed it inside. Rocks and pebbles plinked off the concrete, rung of metal tabletops and cabinetry.

Olivia waited for movement, intent on the shadows, with the rifle pressed hard to her shoulder. When nothing stirred, she pulled a tiny flashlight she'd found in the Marlborough house from her pocket. It was made of metal, colored blue, a miniature version of the big maglights police had once carried nationwide. When she swept the blue-white beam around the lab, her heart lurched, skipping several beats in her chest.

On the floor beneath the window lay a scatter of bodies, legs and arms askew, golden eyes gaped, glazed over. There had been a firefight, a battle. A desperate struggle for survival. Inside the lab. The evidence was in front of her, but it wasn't enough. She already knew they'd been overrun. I have to know more. _I have to see it for myself. I have to see them._

After clearing away the few remaining splinters of glass still stuck fast in the frame with the barrel of the rifle, she poked her head inside. She directed the light downward, onto a flat surface it took her a moment to recognize. It was the old upright piano, only it was different than before, when she'd leaned over it long ago, meeting Peter's gaze as he'd played for her. The bedraggled pine finish was now stained a dark, brackish color, flecked with bits of gore, chunks of meat and bone.

A last stand.

Olivia squeezed her eyes shut, taking in measured breaths, then carefully lowered her inside through the window. She searched for the piano lid with the toe of her boot, then dropped down fully on top of it, grimacing at the tacky feel of it beneath her. Noxious fumes hung in the air. Death. Putrid decay. The foulness was a new, unwelcome addition to the lab's confines. Forcing the stench out of her mind, the flashlight blazed in her hand as she swung the rifle, probing the darkened corners for white faces, for pale skin and bloodshot eyes burnished gold.

They would all be newly dead.

They would all be fresh.

She hopped down from the piano, landing lightly in a sinuous pool of blood beside an infected with the crown of its head gaping open wide. Shriveled gray brain matter sliced clean through. Axe wound. She had seen enough by Peter's hand to know one in an instant. Bending over with a hand over her nose, she checked the other bodies and found them with similar wounds; cavernous bullet holes, eyes and temples punctured by the stab of a knife. The dead were a mix of soldiers, men and women in tattered suits and blouses, in unkempt t-shirts and threadbare summer dresses.

And none of them were her people.

She checked Walter's storage room and found it vacant, but looking as if it had survived a tornado. Emerging from the stairwell, she made her way to her old office and found it the same. Empty. As was the bathroom, and the tiny file room they'd never found a good use for. She stopped near the weapon table, now barren of weapons, and looked about.

Where were they? Perhaps they'd had to do flee the lab, a forced retreat. Yet, there didn't seem enough bodies for that. Not nearly enough. Again, something tickled the spot in the back of her mind where her intuition and hunches originated. A whispering sense that something wasn't quite right, that not all was as it seemed.

Casting uneasy glances about, Olivia spied the old furnace across the room. With its domed exterior, the furnace looked more like an igloo than a device to make heat, but that was its age showing, she supposed. Surrounding the furnace was a jumbled ring of mussed blankets, and mattresses in disarray. Unless they had changed their habits during her and Peter's absence, whatever had happened, it had happened during the night, while they were in their beds. Or else the mattresses and blankets would have been piled out of the way in front of her old office; they took up too much room otherwise.

She crossed the room, stepping through the mounds of blankets and pillows. When she swung open the furnace's cast iron door, a faint, orange glow emanated from deep inside a choking cloud of smoke that stung her eyes as it billowed upward toward the ceiling.

The glowing embers gave her pause. The fire was still lit, still giving off tepid warmth. How could it still be lit? How much time could have passed since it had been fed last? Five hours? Six? Suddenly she wished she'd paid more attention to the fire's maintenance, instead of leaving it to others. How often had they needed to add wood? She had no idea, but often enough, if Peter's constant deconstruction of classroom furniture was anything to go by.

Turning from the furnace, Olivia swung the flashlight in a slow arc, searching for any other clues that might tell her what had occurred. The beam fell across the grayish rectangle of the back door on the far side of the lab.

Could they have escaped?

She found herself crossing the room without having made a conscious decision to do so. Glass crunched underfoot as she passed by the counter that had once held Walter's prized glassware. But no longer. History was contained in those spiraling tubes, the beakers and strainers, and the other parts she'd never bothered to learn the names of. History now smashed into dust by mindless zeal. Grimly, she thought it was an apt reflection of the state of the world.

Stopping in front of the back door, she studied its painted surface under the beam of her light. Other than chips and scratches from decades of absent abuse, it appeared no different than when she'd seen it last. She pushed it open and stepped outside, careful to make sure it didn't shut behind her.

Trampled into the mud on either side of the door were several androgynous bodies, unrecognizable whether men or women, only that they had been people, once. And not hers. Was there a hint of camouflage beneath the grime? She couldn't be certain. A wide ring of churned earth spread out from the building, the hibernating grass of Harvard Yard mashed into extinction by thousands of feet all pushing forward, their mass more than any ground could bear.

It struck her that she had seen such churning before, decades ago. In her childhood. In another world. How old had she been? Her thoughts turned inward, went backward through time down the years to her youth, to the girl she'd left behind long ago.

She'd been in high school. Or between grades, more precisely. The summer she'd made the transition from the tenth to the eleventh grade. One of her few friends back then—Julie had been a grade ahead of her—had somehow convinced her to go to a heavy metal rock concert. Nine...Foot Nails...wasn't it? Something like that. The band's name was hazy in her memory, like much of that night, which had taken on the qualities of a dream. Except for the parts that weren't. She'd been unfamiliar with the rock band, but had gone anyway. She'd been desperate for friends, desperate for someone she could relate to.

The concert was outdoors, and louder than anything she'd ever heard before. Waves of strobing lights of all colors had bombarded the screaming crowd, dazzling her senses. She'd been sure her ears would start bleeding at any moment, that she was going to be permanently impaired, yet Julie had merely laughed, unaffected. At some point they had become separated, and she had wandered through the rows of screaming young people, dazed, disoriented by the ear-shattering music, the lights, the acrid haze of cigarettes and marijuana smoke hanging low over the crowd. Without understanding how, she had suddenly found herself in the middle of a whirlwind of bodies—older boys, mostly—all flinging themselves about, into one another, into anyone in the vicinity, anyone at all. Even a gangly sixteen-year old girl. They'd been all around her, jumping, shouting, eyes wild, filled with an eerie kind of madness that turned them all into visages of her stepfather. Flying elbows had staggered her. Kicks from heavy combat boots had knocked her down, her legs stepped on repeatedly, her back, her arms. In a crying panic, she'd crawled for a way out of the scrum, out of the chaos, but it had been as if the mosh pit had wanted her, as if it had possessed a collective mind of its own, and was determined to keep her in its center. But then something had happened. She had found herself being lifted up, flung over a broad shoulder. Her nose had filled with a musty odor of... something; maleness and sweat, she would think later in the darkness of her bedroom—and not altogether unpleasant. The man who had rescued her—and she was certain it had been a man, not a boy—had said not a word, instead had merely deposited her gently on the ground in an open space in the crowd, before melting back into the wall of gyrating bodies. After he was gone, she'd sat there alone, crying, trembling, bruised, battered, covered in grime. White lights from the stage blasted down, illuminating the lawn around her. Or what was left of it. A tornado had passed through, a tornado of people in the grip of some kind of group-insanity. Not a blade of grass remained standing. Blankets, torn and twisted, bottles and cups and shoes and pieces of unrecognizable clothing—all had been swept up. Only tilled dirt and mud remained, deep gouges pressed into the earth by a stampede of boots and stomping feet.

Clearing her throat, Olivia came back to the present, and slowly turned away from the ruined expanse of Harvard Yard. She stepped back inside, and leaned back, resting her head against the wall beside the door.

No one had escaped out the back. Not with the sheer numbers that must have been right outside. It just wasn't possible.

Dreary silence filled the lab. A kind of numbness crept over her. Numbness and a hollow pit in her stomach that had no bottom. But mostly, mostly she was just tired. Exhausted.

What had she been hoping to find out there anyway? Had she truly believed they might have escaped? She had to be realistic. She hadn't come back to find survivors, but to put her family to rest.

_Now get on with it._

Pushing off the wall, she headed for the exit out into the corridor. On her way, more dead bodies emerged from the shadows. They lay in a morbid zigzag formation at the foot of the stairs, as if they'd fallen like dominoes. And perhaps they had. She bent over, studying the ruined faces. None had been shot, to her surprise, instead, all had been taken out by precise thrusts under the chin by something long and narrow, possibly even round from the shape of the wounds. Straightening, her gaze narrowed on the space between the bodies beneath the window and where this second group had fallen.

Why was there a gap at all? Why weren't there more bodies? There should have been more. Perhaps they had fled the lab, made their last stand elsewhere, possibly even on another floor. Why did it seem wrong, then? _Because there aren't enough bodies,_ she answered herself. _Not to force a retreat. Unless... maybe they were trying to escape, trying to flee._ They wouldn't have let themselves become surrounded. She wouldn't have. And Broyles would have been in charge, with everything he had been through Downtown eating away at him.

Olivia mounted the steps to the exit, pressing the rifle to her shoulder and lighting the way with her light. The door was half-open, the glass insert with Walter's peeling name lying shattered on the corridor floor. She passed through, stepping on slivers of glass, and out into a haze of dim light percolating out from the lab behind her. She swept the light across the hall.

To the left was nothing, and the stairwell to first floor at the corridor's end. To the right, a trail of bodies lay sprawled amid pools of blood more black than crimson. She stepped toward them, shining her light to either side, checking each classroom door as she passed them by. All were closed, including her own room, in which she saw familiar shapes and shadows through the narrow window, but she didn't linger. Her room was not what she'd come for. She moved on to the bodies, checking each of them as she went, but none of them were her family, or any of the others. All bore gunshot wounds to the head, however, all at point-blank range. As she straightened from the last of them, she noticed another detail, impossible to miss now that she'd seen them.

Smeared shoe prints, heading not toward the stairs as was logical, but in the other direction, toward Peter's room. From the distance between the prints, she thought it likely someone had been running, sprinting even.

Olivia frowned, and directed the light down the hall, following the trail of bloody shoe prints, but the tiny flashlight lacked the range to make out more than shadows on the floor ahead. She shook her head. Why would anyone have gone that way? That end of the corridor had no exits, only dead ends. It was a death trap. They knew that.

Swallowing, she resumed her careful pace, finger tensing and releasing on the assault rifle's trigger. Her boots clacked on the tiled floor, echoing faintly in the silence. The smell of death grew stronger as more bodies appeared, one face down against the wall on her right, another spread-eagle in the center of the corridor, mouth frozen in a snarl, eyes sightless and glazed over. Both had been soldiers, though their tan camo was more black with dirt than any other color. The trail continued, unwavering. Not far past the dead soldiers was the aged wooden bench where Peter had once made her a peace offering by way of coffee. A stray thought crossed her mind that he'd known the way to her heart, even back then, at the very beginning.

Beside the bench was another soldier's body, sprawled near a dented vent cover that had somehow come loose during the struggle. Flickers of gold on the floor beyond the bench caught Olivia's eye. She went to investigate and found the floor tile littered with scores of shell casings, again the five-five-six and forty caliber rounds, hundreds of them.

_What the hell?_

She swept the flashlight over the speckled casings, and beyond, revealing a mound of corpses not far away, full of vacant, gleaming eyes and gaping teeth. For a heartbeat, her brain refused to register what she was seeing. _Jesus._ She crept closer, within spitting distance, scattering the empty shells with her boots. The pile of undead was wide enough to block the corridor, tall enough to require climbing over.

From the lay of the bodies, the infected had been gunned down, by at least two people, possibly, though it was difficult to tell. She bent closer, examining the bodies on top of the heap. Gunned down, and then it had been down to knives and axes, and something squarish and blunt-edged. On the far side of the waist-high mound were many more dark shapes lying prostrate.

A fragmented picture formed in her mind, a possible sequence of events that could explain what had happened, at least in part. For reasons unknown, the infected had forced their way in through the low windows on the opposite side of the building, just as they had done in the lab. Her people had retreated down the hall only to find themselves trapped between opposing groups. But what had led them to come this way at all? And why had they stayed? Why hadn't they just gone up the stairwell? It would have been infinitely less difficult to hold, or even barricade off if they'd had the time. She struggled to make sense of it, to put the pieces together into a coherent image.

_They chose to make their stand_ here. But why? It didn't make any sense—rational or otherwise. Nothing was as she'd expected. The feeling that something wasn't quite right began to grow in the back of her mind again, as much good as it did her. _Why did they come this way?_ She turned her head, pinching her nose against the brimming ache in her heart. _I should have been with them. I should have been here._

Something grabbed her attention then, a sound, like the whisk of shoes treading across the tiled floor. She swung her light down the corridor again, over the bodies, but nothing stirred. She heard it again. Behind her.

Spinning around, Olivia spied a silhouette coming toward her through the shadow, just out of her light's range. She snatched the rifle against her shoulder as the figure drew closer. For an instant, she thought it was Peter coming toward her—she half-expected him to ignore the plan and show up anyway—but then the shadowed figure surged forward, arms flailing. Adrenaline flooded through her limbs, standing up her hair as the figure crossed into the light. The infected—a dead black woman in a business suit, blouse ripped open down the center—rushed forward, yellow eyes gathering the light. She waited until the last possible moment, when it was almost on top of her, until the cuts and gouges adorning its ebony flesh stood out in bright detail, and then squeezed the trigger.

Blood splashed the air as the dead woman fell in a heap, skidding a few steps across the floor.

Before the deafening report could fade into silence, she spun on her heels, shining the light back out over the mound of bodies. They would come for her now. They would be helpless not to. And then she would to what had to be done, no matter how much it would shred her to pieces on the inside.

When she swung back the other way, more shadowy forms where emerging from the gloom. None of them seemed fresh, however, as they hobbled toward her, gaits uneven. She spun around again and saw nothing but darkness and an empty hallway over the hill of bodies. _Where are they? They have to be here._ The possibility that they had made their way out of the building and were doomed to become one of the decrepit horrors wandering the city was more than she could bear. And equally unacceptable was the prospect of someone other than herself putting them down. It had to be her.

As she twirled back to the approaching infected, the circle of her light passed over the open air duct, fragmenting the beam. They had halved the distance; four or five of them spread wide across the hall. She held her breath, squeezing off three booming shots in quick succession, shifting her aim deliberately between them. A random thought that her aim might be improving crossed her mind as the infected topped one by one. She kept going. Knees buckled, heads rebounded off the floor. Muzzle flashes bathed the corridor in staccato flares of white light. Long, fleeing shadows blinked on and off. And then the corridor was empty, the last infected pitching forward on its face.

Olivia gasped a breath. She darted a glance to her rear and saw nothing but dead bodies and empty corridor. No movement. No freshes. Nothing. She hung her head. "Fuck...," she whispered, letting the rifle fall from her shoulder. It was pointless. All of it. They were gone. If there were any fresh infected in the building, they would have been on her already. It was a fact, not supposition. And if any of them were somehow still alive... the same applied.

Pointed at the floor, the blue-white beam of the flashlight fractured on the multitudes of spent shell casings. Shoe prints of blood zigzagged in every direction. One set print in particular captured her gaze. A single, smeared shoe print, no larger than her hand. A child's. Tears formed in her eyes, her throat aching at the sight, her heart splintering into pieces.

_Ella._

Then she noticed a shadow on the floor beneath the wooden bench. Oddly round, it was lumpy in a disturbing sort of way. Curious, she bent down and found a pair of tiny, dull black eyes reflecting the light back at her.

The breath whooshed from her lungs. Dropping to her knees, the rifle clattered to the floor. It was a stuffed animal, thin and floppy, formed in the vague shape of a bear, faceless, except for a pair of beady black circles of plastic for eyes. The rough fabric of its canvas skin was threadbare, spotted with stains. Stabs of anguish pierced her chest. _Ella. My poor baby girl. I'm so sorry..._ She pulled the stuffed bear out from under the bench, and with a wordless gasp, hugged it to her chest. She breathed in its musty scent, searching for something familiar, then fell back against the bench's seat, biting down hard on the back of her hand.

They were gone then. Truly gone. Her niece would have never left her bear behind. Not willingly. But they had been there, in that very spot; the stuffed bear was proof enough, if she'd needed any further.

Olivia wiped fresh tears from her eyes and stared up into the dimness. The silence was immense, with an air of finality about it. Or was it futility?

_Why did I come back here? What could I have possibly hoped to achieve?_ Proof of her own failure. Proof that her mistakes had led to the death of her family, of her friends, of almost everyone she'd held dear. That she had brought ruination down on them all.

A sound intruded on her misery. The stomp of running feet thudding the tiled floor.

She dropped the bear and snatched up the rifle, pointing it and the flashlight down the hallway. A black shadow charged straight for her through the dimness, arms swinging. Her finger tightened on the trigger. The shadow leapt over the fallen infected, then abruptly skidded to a stop just out her flashlight's range, raising blurry hands above their head. A human, not a fresh.

"Olivia?" The voice echoed down the corridor, achingly familiar.

"Peter...?" she gasped, letting the rifle dip to the floor. "What are you doing here?"

"I could ask the same of you," he replied without humor, lowering his hands and moving forward into the light. "Did you find them?"

She shook her head. "I... No. Not yet. Did you?"

Peter's head turned slowly. "No. There's no one upstairs, only a few infected. And none of them were... them." He moved closer, stopping within arm's reach, and his face grew bleak as he glanced around, eyes tightening on the mound of bodies. "Shit. How the hell could this have happened? How did they get inside?"

"They came in through those low windows," she said softly, without thinking. "In the lab. And I guess down the hall from here too, from the way these bodies are laid out."

Peter staggered as if she'd punched him in the gut. "In the... lab?" he said in a hoarse voice. "You mean the windows that I... I... couldn't..." He backed away from her, eyes distant. Burgeoning horror slackened his face. Abruptly, he spun away from her, gagging on a mouthful of vomit that sprayed onto the floor. Another heave struck, and he braced himself against the wall. The sour odor of bile added to the stench of death permeating the corridor. Finally, when it seemed no more was forthcoming, he dropped down on the bench and buried his face in his hands.

Olivia sat down beside him, wrapping an arm over his back and laying her chin down on his shoulder. There was nothing she could say, no words that could offer succor or comfort. They had failed their loved ones, utterly. Tears rolled down her cheeks, soaked the fabric of his coat. What were they going to do? What was the point of going on? Everyone they cared about was dead. There seemed no reason for any of it, not anymore.

"You were wrong before, Liv," Peter whispered. His voice was cracked and broken. "This is... this is all my fault. I was the one that couldn't—"

"No...," she cut in, squeezing his shoulder blade. "No. It's not just on you, Peter. We were complacent, both of us. We thought we were safe inside our walls, that nothing could happen because nothing had happened. But we were wrong, both of us. And now..." Her voice began to rise upward, throat filling with pain. "And now they're... they're gone...

She couldn't go on. Anguish twisted her insides into thorny knots. She couldn't breathe. Darting forward, she put her head between her legs and took in huge gulps of air, or tried to. Her airway constricted, closing up. The tiny flashlight slipped from her hand, bounced once, then rolled away from her. Through a blur of tears, she followed the flashlight's progress as it squeaked lightly across the floor in the stark silence. On the opposite wall spun a lazy circle of light, rotating with a strangely hypnotic grace before coming to a stop. The light fell across the dead soldier lying on its face in a pool of blood. The fellow had been huge, muscular. A soldier. A gunshot wound gaped above its right ear. Beside the body yawned the open air duct. The duct was oddly cavernous, full of shadows. Yet at the same time, seemed to absorb the light as if it were somehow bigger on the inside than the outside. Straightening slowly, she shifted her gaze from the opening in the wall, to the dented vent cover, before drifting to the mound of bodies.

_They came this way for a reason_ , an emotionless voice interjected in her head. Her own voice, answering her earlier question.

Peter shifted beside her. "Hey, is this...," he started, leaning forward, reaching out, plucking Ella's stuffed bear off the floor. "Oh. Fuck me...," he finished in a contorted murmur.

Only a distant part of Olivia's conscious mind registered what he was saying. Her eyes remained locked on the air duct opening. Bewildered, she tried to make sense of what she was seeing. It _was_ bigger on the inside than the outside. Her pulse began to race. The rush of blood filled her ears, a static roar that drowned out her pounding heart, Peter, and then everything else in the world. With a gasp, she lunged for the tiny maglight and flew across the hall, scrambling forward on hands and knees. When she shined the light inside, her heart paused, then took a giant leap in her chest, thumping ferociously.

Surely she was dreaming. It couldn't be there. It had to be an illusion of some sort, a trick of the light. Maybe her mind had finally broken, and was now conjuring her in-vain hopes to life, hallucinations of self-torture.

Why else would there be a ladder standing upright inside an air vent?

She tried to blink the image away, screw her eyes tightly shut. When she opened them again, the thing was still there. Still resting against the edge of the vent that wasn't a vent at all, just below her, denying her insanity plea.

"What's in there?" Peter's voice asked from behind. She didn't answer; she couldn't speak. Her heart was lodged in her throat. "Olivia? What is it? What do you see?" His voice was right over her shoulder.

Olivia managed to tear her gaze away. She looked up and a grin stole across her lips. Suddenly she felt as light as air, and almost drunk. Almost giddy. _And I'm never giddy._

"Look, Peter," she said, reaching and pulling him downward by the hand.

"They're alive."


	25. The Doldrums

**-February 2009**

Peter grunted, and the top half of the infected's head slid off, sliced clean through at a sharp angle. Dark froths of blood erupted, gushing upward, showering across his coat, his face, and turning the sidewalk black at his feet. Spinning at the knees, the infected toppled, seeming to collapse in on itself.

Before the walking corpse could complete its fall, he was already twirling to the side, bringing the sword around in a savage arc and burying the blade in the skull of an undead woman, just above its right ear. The light in the infected's eyes went out, and he ripped the blade free in a putrid spray of blood. He pivoted again to meet the next attacker, thrusting the angled tip through the eye of a third infected rushing in, little more than a boy. A distant thought that they might have all been family rung between his ears, but he paid it no mind; more urgent matters took precedence. Namely, the circle of infected closing in. He kicked the small body off his blade, then rushed to the opposite side of the street. Ahead lay open ground, a gap in the mob that he had foolishly let surround him. Launching off a low bench set back off the sidewalk, he hurtled between outstretched claws that were just a hair too slow, and then charged down a narrow alley bisecting two rows of houses to emerge on the next block.

More infected were gathered on the corner beneath a street sign, bobbing shoulders lurching as they staggered out from between the scree of demolished buildings. Shattered bricks littered the pitted street, clumps of detritus lying here and there. A three-story building lay on its side, as if swatted over by some giant's hand. Bodies that still moved — bodies that had been moving more than likely since the structure's initial collapse — were buried among the rubble, hands and arms protruding, eyes and mouths gaping. More of the dead lurched out of the shadows at his arrival, from within the skeletal remnants of the structures that had somehow been able to withstand the massive blast that had shaken the area. Why the infected were still in them was a question, but the dead told no tales, except for those of hunger and lust.

He rushed to the nearest, lopping off one if its legs with a single, low slice, and then moved on to the next — a wild-haired dead woman wearing a tattered red summer dress — cutting a horizontal slice through the air. There was a slight resistance, a tugging at his wrists and forearms, and then the mop of hair and a leering grin were tumbling past. He kept going, barely even registering the wet splatter across his right cheek or the dull thud echoing off the sidewalk behind him.

Turning to his left, he cut at the face of another trying to sidle its way between a pair of burned-out cars. The infected's face merely separated, lower jaw flopping down upon its chest like some horrific necklace and exposing the inside of its mouth and a mash of chewed flesh stuck fast in the maw of its throat. Surprise ricocheted off the knot of fury that was his inner self. Reversing his swing, Peter slashed a deep gouge into the side its neck, and the jawless head flopped to the side, golden eyes now vertical, blood bubbling up from the exposed throat in great globules that spilled down the neck of its shirt. Jawless and nearly headless, the infected continued forward obstinately, now free of the wreckage, reaching out with cruel fingers. He hacked at it again and again, slicing its shoulders and the stump of its neck to ribbons. _Just fucking die!_ a voice shouted inside his head. Blood splattered the air. Finally, the leering head separated, ragged sinew stretching out like a rubber-band before tearing free and dropping onto the pavement with a disturbingly hollow thunk. He shoved the bumbling and now headless body aside.

Sucking in a gasp of air, he sensed movement at his back and spun around to find another ring of infected closing in. Men and women all, some of which looked as if they'd been living in an elderly home from their wrinkled and dessicated flesh. He counted seven without making a conscious effort to do so, and there were more beyond, converging from all sides. Many more. Beyond the infected, the open expanse of the park was tantalizingly close, and with it, the safehouse they'd taken up in on the far side, and Olivia. Chest heaving and swallowing down gulps of air, he backed away from the approaching undead, until his shoulders bumped up against something solid — an abandoned utility van. He was out of room, and there was no more time. The hands reached in, close enough for him to make out the ragged flesh beneath their fingernails.

Peter raised the sword with a snarl, then charged into their midst, roaring to meet them. He slashed downward at the nearest, splitting its skull to the bridge of its nose. Ripping the blade free, he wheeled around, stabbing and cutting and slicing, like hewing limbs from a tree. Hands reached in on his right and left, grasping at his coat. Spinning, he sliced them away, fingers and wrists, arms and legs, heads; anything within reach. Undead blood splattered in his eyes. Sweat beaded on his brow, filtering down through his beard to sting at his cracked lips. With every slice and every blow, the old wound in his left shoulder sang its discomfort in hideous fashion.

All around him the infected cooed adoringly, growling, buzzing in his ears, eyes burning. A scream filled the air. He spun and turned, slashing, piercing glowing eyes, thrusting into gaping mouths. Bodies fell all around him. Stumbling over one, he managed to catch the infected man falling on top of him with the tip of his blade under its chin. He wrenched it aside with a grunt, then scrambled to his feet, slashing upward into the face of an old woman in a flowered nightgown. Its cheek slid off, along with her right ear and a tangle of knotted gray hair.

Something grabbed him from behind, yanking him backward, tearing at the fabric of his coat. A something that felt like teeth. Twisting to the side, he threw a frantic elbow into something solid. Shock ran up his arm, jarring his shoulder. The infected that had latched on to him — what appeared to be a formerly young woman — staggered to the side. As he rammed the sword through the flesh of its cheek, it struck him that something about it seemed familiar in some way, but how exactly he couldn't say. The thought passed in an instant.

Yanking the sword free of the dead woman, he realized that the voice he was hearing was his own, and that he had been screaming for some time, perhaps from the very beginning. He closed his mouth, cutting off the scream with finality. Rawness burned in his throat from the force of it. His arms ached, his hands shook, his fingers unwilling to unclench from the sword's hilt. And the sword itself suddenly seemed impossibly heavy, ten times heavier than it had before. He raised it before him, readying for the next attack.

But there was none. There was nothing.

Except for himself, the street was empty. He was alone, for the moment, at least. It wouldn't last.

Glancing around, Peter let the sword drop to his side. The city was silent, except for a tonal ringing blaring inside his head.

Bodies and body parts lay all around him, horribly maimed, chopped to pieces. Blood was everywhere, buckets of it, rivers, streaming out from beneath the mass of bodies at his feet. Blood, and chunks of sliced flesh. His chest heaved. His breath was a harsh rasp in his ears, contrasting the stark silence of the city. Something dripped into his left eye. He brought his hand up, only for it come away wet, fingertips smeared crimson. Lowering his head, he found himself drenched, stinking of death; even the leather of his boots was sated.

There would be no hiding what he had been up to. Not this time.

 _Fuck me..._ Peter glanced down at the sword still gripped in his left hand. Dripping blood, the blade was slightly curved, its single edge flecked with bits of gore. It was a marvel of efficiency when it came to killing. _Where have you been all my life?_

Looking for something to drink, he'd stumbled upon the _katana_ in a stately Victorian, easily within spitting distance of the eastern edge of campus. Another, slightly shorter blade — a _wakizashi_ , if his memory was correct — was now strapped across his back, both sheathes of lacquered wood held in place by thin cords of red and blue nylon looped over his chest and shoulder. The pair of them had been resting in an ornate stand atop a wide, elegant mantel of dark mahogany, in what appeared to have been a dining room converted into a shrine of some sort. And they were real Japanese swords — as sharp as fucking razors — not the dull-edged theatrical props he'd come across before.

Had their owner been a professor? Perhaps of the East-Asian History. He liked to think so, and that whoever they had been, they approved of the use he was putting them to now. But he would never know for sure, nor did he particularly care.

The swords spoke for themselves. They sang. Songs of death. Of blood.

Of vengeance.

Bending down, he wiped the blade clean on an infected's pants leg, then held it up, studying its razor sharpness, the edge so fine it seemed almost invisible to the naked eye. The long hilt was wrapped in a finely thread fabric—silk possibly, by the feel of it—and of a blue so navy it approached black. Running down either side of the hilt were a pattern of burgundy diamonds, somehow incorporated into the weaves. Intricately etched into the small, circular guard of some dark metal at the base of the blade was a crescent moon surrounded by a field of stars on one half, and a rising sun with rays of light beaming outward on the other. Taken all together, the sword was beautiful, seemingly more a work of art than an instrument of death. Only the deadly gleam along its keen edge spoke otherwise. He wondered what Olivia would think of them. Before the disaster at the lab, he could envision her delight, the faint curl at the corner of her lips, or perhaps a slight widening of her expressive green eyes.

But now? Now he wasn't so sure.

Dipping his shoulder, he let the katana's sheathe slide down his arm, and then carefully inserted the blade before moving it back up onto his back. Maybe in movies and TV shows the hero could manage the entire process by feel over their shoulder, but he wasn't about to try it himself. Fingers were in short supply.

Peter felt at the torn fabric of his coat where the infected had tried to gnaw on his shoulder, perilously close to the flesh of his neck, and gulped uneasily. Perhaps he'd been a bit reckless, if not outright foolish. He could admit that much.

 _We have to talk_. She had to understand. The others obviously weren't going to just show up or they would have, if they had made it out of the subway at all. There was no sign of them out in the streets, or anywhere in Cambridge, though he'd yet to venture back into the subways. It was that particular quest that had led him to start going out alone in the first place. Maybe the two of them needed to rethink their priorities. What were they even doing? They had taken the suburban, and left a sign with their current address in its place. And if that weren't enough, the constant stream of smoke drifting up from the chimney should have been. Both were impossible to miss.

He thought back to that day, to the mind-numbing horror turned ecstatic happiness. It hadn't taken long for cold reality to set in however, the possibility that their worst fears had in fact been realized. How many days had they been waiting, each drearier than the last? He had lost count, though he might have been able to make a go of it by lining up the bottles on the table beside the window. It wasn't a harsh thought, nor was there an ounce of blame attached to it. Grief was grief. And how you dealt with it was your business, and no one else's. Certainly not his.

 _I have to talk to her_. _Today_. He shook his head. He was starting to sound like a broken record.

Peter began a slow jog toward the park at the end of the block, passing through alternating shadows and patches of light falling across the debris-strewn avenue. Empty windows stared down from either side. A glance over his shoulder revealed a number of infected bumbling along in his wake, having at long last caught up with him. He left them behind, slipping through a barricade of abandoned vehicles blocking the intersection and entering the park beyond.

Abraham Lincoln stood proudly ahead, bronze statue nestled among the barren trees. Unblinking sunlight beamed down from a clear sky, warming his damp hair. Wind chimes rung faintly from somewhere to his right, the sound familiar and soothing. Odors of earth and grass and life perfumed the park, with not a hint of death or decay in the vicinity. Wistful gusts of wind rustled pine needles and tumbled handfuls of leaves over patches of tremulous green grass, bouncing them along ever so slowly. Unseasonably warm temperatures had graced them for the last week, setting the city free of the plague of snow and ice and cold fingers and freezing toes. Slowing to a walk, he relished the feel of the day.

He doubted it would last. At least one more major snow storm would strike before winter let up in a month or so, possibly even two. It was all but a certainty. A crow cawed in the distance, and another let out an answering cry of belligerence from a different area of the city. He passed by a weather-beaten playground with empty swings twisting listless in the breeze, rusting monkey-bars and monstrous climbers of wood and metal, tiers packed full of dead leaves. He passed by a plaque a dim memory in his head informed him could not exist, commemorating the late George Washington.

Astrid's face appeared behind his eyes, and his heart clenched at her memory, always quick with her smile. Not once had she complained about her constant care of Walter. Not once. She'd been a true friend, and he hadn't had many of those, not in his adult life, nor his childhood. He wished he could be sure, that there was some evidence that pointed one way or the other, something to show them the way. Anything out of their current listless uncertainty.

Without warning, a ferocious squeal of rage jerked Peter from his thoughts, freezing him mid-step, curdling the blood in his veins. Another furious peal echoed over the city, standing his hair up straight, loosening his bladder. His heart began pounding a marathon in his chest. The roar had been ominously close, possibly even down the very block he'd just exited.

He knew that sound, that roar. He'd heard it before. Downtown. And then again in Allston. He'd hoped to never hear it again.

_But... it's dead... Olivia killed it..._

He flailed under a sudden barrage of images. Charlie on his back, life fading from his eyes as he struggled to hold his quivering guts inside his torn body. Savage claws ripping at a hotel room door, rending hardened wood into slivers of kindling all the while an out-of-her-mind Sonia screamed hysterics in his ear. Chaotic bellows of animal rage only inches from his face. The certainty of death, and not a painless one. And then Olivia on her knees, exploding in a blast of fire, of heat, and pain.

Peering back the way he had come, he backed away, slowly. His panicked thoughts devolved into a flood of recurring phrases. _Oh shit. Oh fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!_

In the end, Peter did the only thing he could. The only thing a sane person would or could do.

He ran.

#

* * *

#

Beating down from a cloudless sky, the sun glinted off unending rows of windshields, and cast the slimmest of shadows upon the streets below. Off in the distance a smattering of treetops and tall roof-lines marked the edge of the Harvard Campus, with the recently-vacated Kresge Building among them.

A flutter of black wings passed before the window from which Olivia kept her daily vigil, spiraling in intricate displays of aerial agility. After several moments, the pair of birds shot upward and vanished from sight, leaving the scene outside her window serene and still once more.

She leaned on her hand, and absently wondered if the weather out there was as pleasant as it looked. It seemed a perfect day. The kind of day she might have once spent her day off browsing the booths at a local street fair if she could find one, or taking a stroll through the rooftop garden at the Cambridge Center. From where she was sitting, it seemed like a perfect day, but she wouldn't know, would she?

When had she last stepped outside? She tried to think back but the days were a blur, in no small part due to the half-full bottle of Jack Daniels on the night stand beside her. Five other bottles of various vintages also crowded the table, all drained to the last drop. Among the empty bottles sat an empty glass, dry on the inside. So far. The glass had been dry all morning, and from the sun's position overhead, it was just past noon.

Olivia reached out for the glass, then paused midway. A faint tremor went through her, vibrating her outstretched hand.

Was it merely habit that she was about to succumb to, or was there a real need? Had there ever been a real need? One she could live with, but the other? The other was unacceptable. It had always been so.

Letting the hand fall to her side, she rose from the chair, stretching out her back. It was habit, she decided. Even still, she crossed the modest bedroom anyway, putting some distance between herself and the amber liquid that had found its way into her glass so often over the last week or so.

She glanced around, taking in the room's contents for the ten-thousandth time. It had been a child's bedroom once upon a time, with a white baby crib tucked into one corner, and a matching changing table and dresser sitting adjacent on either side. High on one azure wall a grinning sun peeked out from behind fluffy white clouds.

A baby's room.

In the mirror above the dresser, her own reflection stared back at her. She had more or less avoided looking at herself in it, but for some reason allowed herself to do so, finally.

Blackish rings marred the skin beneath her eyes. And she was thinner than she should be, wan, her complexion sallow, utterly unlike herself, even taking the end of the world into account.

It wasn't so surprising, she supposed, eying the empty bottles in the mirror, considering how poor her diet had been as of late. Her threadbare ponytail holder barely held her hair in check, hair most of the way down her back. With a sigh, she pulled the bound hair over her shoulder, fingering the split ends. She had thought about chopping it all off, but could never manage to find the energy to so. What difference would it make anyway? Reluctantly, she let the ponytail fall from her grip. Her eyes flicked to the bottle of Jack, then to the empty glass on the table beside it.

For once, the urge to dull the pain, the sorrow, the guilt, the rage and despair—to dull everything, the world itself, if she were being truthful—was only moderate. Perhaps even tolerable. There was still a gaping hole in her heart, of course. A hole in her life that could never be filled. A hole with endless gravity pulling her down, but the feeling that putting the barrel of her Glock in her mouth and pulling the trigger might be preferable to living had faded. Had she finally moved beyond grief's event horizon? Or maybe it was that ending her own life was too much of a bother. Either that or it was too easy. Why should she be allowed such an easy way out? Rachel and Ella certainly hadn't. Her throat clenched with searing pain. Returning to the chair by the window, she almost reached for the empty glass, but instead, movement out in the street below drew her gaze.

A figure in a black and red coat was racing toward the house, weaving a path through stopped cars and trucks, far down the block on the edge of the park. _Peter_. Something deep inside her and hovering on the edge of her awareness relaxed, unclenched.

Olivia exhaled, letting out a measured breath. He was back. Hours earlier, she had caught a glimpse of him moving away from her, winding through that same stopped traffic. He'd left without a word or a look. Had they even spoken to each other at all that day? What about the day before? She didn't think so. What was there to say? Not many words passed between them during the light of day anymore. She wondered where he'd gone without her. She wondered what he did while she sat by the window, slowly drowning in her grief, turning inward on herself. It wasn't like they needed much in the way of supplies. After all, there was only the two of them, now.

They had been filled with such hope early on. She could almost feel it even still, or the memory of it, perhaps. That hope had persisted while they'd searched the tunnel system and then the subways to no avail, from the impassable station at Porter Square where the tunnel had somehow collapsed entirely, to Harvard Square to the south, where the path to the surface had seethed with limitless infected. And then, after the days of waiting for their loved ones to appear turned into a week, and then two, they'd been faced with certain, harsh realities. And the hope had withered into despair.

A furious part of her had wanted to know why Peter was still able to function, still able to go on as before. It was Ella, and Rachel. His own father. Didn't he have a heart? Didn't he care? She understood him a little better, now. He was hurting, just as she was, and dealing with it in the only way he knew how.

To run. To move, to stay in motion. Just as how he had dealt with all the tragedies in his life. Only there was nowhere for him to run to, not anymore.

At night, under the cover of darkness, when they would eventually find their way into each other's arms, when no words were needed, when there was only flesh and the insistent need to feel something, anything, Peter's eyes told his story, glistening in the moonlight as she shuddered above him. Perhaps hers did, too. But they never spoke of it; they never spoke of anything.

The cycle of sex and silence they'd fallen into was probably unhealthy. Every particle of her being screamed that it was not the right way. But it was all she could do, all she could manage. It was a thread of normalcy she could cling to, a tuft of grass on the face of a cliff. In this moment, it was enough, and she prayed it was enough for him also. If they could just both hold on until the storm passed them over. That was what she told herself, at least, when she rolled away from him, when she sensed his hand reaching out to touch her, only to fall short. And so the cycle continued.

Refocusing her gaze on the street below, she searched for Peter. At first she couldn't find him among the refuse, but then she spotted him, only much closer than she'd expected. His wiry form dashed out from behind a conversion van, leaping onto the hood of a sedan parked perpendicular to the sidewalk, and then off, bounding forward without slowing, long legs pumping up and down. He was still running. Running as if his life depended on it.

Or running for his life.

Olivia frowned, rising up from her chair. As he drew near, she leaned in close to the glass for a better look. He was still sprinting, full tilt. Her frown deepened. Something wasn't right. She could see it in his manner, in the desperate edge to every movement he made, every shift of his hips, every pump of his arms. She could make out his features, the shadow of his beard across his cheeks. A pair of somethings bobbed up and down over his right shoulder, and she leaned even closer to the window, clouding the glass with her breath.

 _What are those?_ she wondered, and then gripped the window sill, digging her fingernails into the soft wood. _What is that on his face?_ Smears of something dark covered his cheeks, above his beard, on his forehead. He drew closer, until she could see his eyes. _Is that... blood?_

Biting off a gasp, she sprang to her feet, knocking the chair over in her haste. The chair thudded on the carpet, forgotten, as she raced out of the room and down a short hallway ending with a set of narrow stairs down to the first floor. She flew down the steps, feet hardly touching a tread, charged through a living room where a weak fire burned in the fireplace, and then threw wide the front door.

Peter was staggering up the steps in front of her, chest heaving, eyes wide open, whites glaring all around. And it was blood, she saw to her horror, splattered across his face, dried rivulets staining his brow.

"Where the hell have you been?" she blurted before she could stop herself, even as she took in his appearance. Her hand flew to her mouth. The blood was not just on his face. It was everywhere, all over him. He was drenched in it, coat and jeans saturated, even down to his boots, which gleamed wetly. A foul odor drifted off of him, vestiges of death and rot.

Peter's head whipped around. He cast a long glance down the street behind him before turning back to her, nostrils flaring. "We need to get inside," he said between breaths.

There was no mistaking the fear in his voice. Olivia peered past him, squinting, but saw nothing untoward, only the empty street, the same houses and structures that had always been there, the same groups of cars and trucks parking in meandering lines. He stepped forward, taking hold of her arm, and propelled her firmly back through the open doorway. When they were both inside, he shot another look out at the street, then closed the door, and carefully, she observed with a note of alarm.

Mystified by his odd behavior, Olivia stared up at him. In most cases, an elbow in the ribs was an appropriate response to being manhandled, if not for the intense aura of panic he was radiating.

"What is it, Peter? What's happened?" He turned back to her, and her eyes darted to the pair of objects sticking up over his shoulder. Handles with a slight curve to them, wrapped in strips of fine cloth, held in place by thin ropes or twine looped across his chest. Her first thought was that he was wearing swords, as ridiculous as it seemed.

Peter sighed, blowing out a long exhale. He leaned back against the paneled door and stared down at his hand. It was shaking. He was shaking. He clenched his hand into a white-knuckled fist, and then lifted his head. "I was on my way back," he said with a swallow, "when I heard it. You didn't hear it, did you?"

"Hear what? I didn't hear anything. What are you talking about?"

Wetting his lips, he swallowed again. "It was that thing. That creature — the one that killed Charlie. Or one just like it. I'll never forget the sound of it."

Olivia froze, muscles tensing all at once. For an interval, she couldn't breathe, as the air seemed to compress in her lungs and a sickly knot settled deep in the pit of her stomach. Charlie's face hovered on the back of her eyeballs. She met Peter's gaze.

"Are you certain?" she asked in a cautious voice. The blood was freezing in her veins, turning solid. "Are you positive it was the same... thing?"

Peter snorted, lips curling into a weak smile that fractured the sheen of dried blood on his left cheek. "Well, I didn't see the whites of its eyes, if that's what you're asking, but that sound it made in the hotel? The one that sounded like a cross between a pissed off dinosaur and a fucking lion? That's what I heard."

 _Its eyes didn't have whites_ , she thought in a daze. _They were just black, all the way around_. "You... you said it was dead," she whispered, trying and failing to banish Charlie's bloodied face. "You said that I... that I burned it." They hadn't spoken too much of Allston, and of what had happened there. The subject was still painful, even now.

"It is dead, Olivia. Or at least the one that attacked us is. Believe me, I saw its body with my own eyes—what was left of it, at least. It was well-done, and then some."

"So then there must be more of them," she murmured, shaking her head and glancing around as if one of the monstrosities could be hiding in a darkened corner of the living room. "Where can they be coming from?"

"When you were unconscious, I described the first one to my... to Walter, and he thought it could be a successful chimera." As she opened her mouth to inquire exactly what that was, he smiled and added, "A new species, created by blending two or more unrelated species together into one twisted whole."

"So what, you're saying it's man-made?" she gasped.

"I'm saying Walter said it could be. Beyond that, I don't know."

"Why would someone do that?"

"Why the hell do mad scientists do anything?" he countered. "My guess is because they can. Cause they're ahead of the curve, ahead of the laws, and there's no one to stop them."

"So someone is out there right now, making up unnatural creatures and just... letting them run loose? Great. That's all we need."

"Not necessarily," Peter mused, idly scratching at the bloodstain on his cheek. "Could be that whoever made them is dead, just like everyone else. Maybe they got free somehow in all the chaos. All it would have taken is for some looter to open up the wrong door and... bam. That's all she wrote. The bright side is that if it is a chimera, there can't be too many of them. They're not easy to make. Impossible to make, I would have said, but then I thought it was impossible for a baby to grow into an old man in under an hour, so what do I know? Maybe there's only one left now."

Olivia grunted. "One is one more than I ever want to see again." She captured Peter's gaze. "Do you think it was tracking you?"

Peter lifted his shoulders, then raked his fingers through his hair. "I didn't feel like sticking around to find out. Would you?"

She found herself smiling at the question. "No. I guess I wouldn't at that." A silence passed between them then, and it came to her that this was the first real conversation they'd had in days. Or weeks, maybe. _I've been a fool_ , she thought, as emotions flitted across his face. _If they're alive, they aren't coming back. And if not... either way there's no reason to stay here_. She wiped a hand across her mouth, swallowing through a lump forming in her throat. Then silence drew out, became uncomfortable.

"So... what have you been up to?" she asked lamely. As soon as the words left her mouth she regretted saying them. They sounded false in her ears, a retreat back into the safety of her walls. A return to the status quo vague questions and even vaguer answers, of talking past, instead of to, each other.

From the way Peter's lips thinned, he heard it also. He brushed past her. "Not much," he offered without looking her way. "Just working a few things out in my head." His voice trailed after him as he headed toward the kitchen.

Olivia's gaze followed his broad frame across the room, eyes widening as he presented his back to her. The things strapped to his chest were in fact swords. Incredibly, two samurai swords, like something out of a movie, hung low across his back. Were they real? Where could he have possibly found them? She wanted to ask but then he was gone, disappearing around the corner, leaving her standing alone in the entryway.

Alone. Pain clenched her throat. The bottle of whiskey sitting on the nightstand upstairs entered her mind, and she imagined the feeling of its quenching burn sliding down her throat, the sharp pain in her heart dulled to a muted throb.

_No goddamnit. I'm done with that_ _._

Instead, she headed for the kitchen, listening as Peter moved about inside. She paused in the doorway. He was standing over the sink, head bowed and leaning forward, both hands gripping the countertop. On the wide island in the center of the kitchen lay the two swords, sheathes made of some dark, shiny material, wood possibly, with blue and red cords hanging down. While interesting, and possibly quite useful, the swords could wait for later. _We have to talk_.

Crossing over to him, the soles of her boots whisked faintly on the tiled floor. The stench of blood and death and decay filled the air as she drew near. She laid a hand on his lower back, and a twinge of pain went through her at his flinch. Then she latched onto a spot high up on his left shoulder. His coat was torn, bunched together in a familiar shape.

The air sucked out of her lungs. Above the collar of his coat, Peter's shaggy brown hair suddenly blurred, the backs of his ears also, doubling, as if there were several of him occupying the same space, and all out of sync somehow. She blinked, then forced her eyes shut, forced herself to take in a breath, then another. When she opened them again, the odd blurring was gone, but the source of her panic remained.

A bite mark. On his coat.

For time immeasurable, her eyes remained glued to the coat's torn fabric, the frayed ends twisted this way and that. How close had it been? How close had she come to losing him also? To finding herself utterly alone, adrift with no tether in an empty world. Would she have known? Would she have somehow sensed his fall? How long would she have waited for his return? Weeks? Months? How long before madness set in—if she wasn't mad already. Grief came with its own special brand of paralysis.

Trembling, Olivia drew in a shallow breath, and managed to speak. "Hey."

"Hey." His voice was weary. Downtrodden. Exhausted.

"Are you okay?"

Peter turned around at the question. His face was a slab of granite as he studied her, but his blue eyes burned with some hidden emotion. "Am I okay?" he asked finally. "You're asking me that?"

She met his gaze with her chin up, without blinking or looking away, but merely nodded her head in reply. She didn't trust her voice, didn't trust herself to say the right words.

He fingered the bite mark on his shoulder. "I almost died today," he offered softly, he visibly cleared his throat before continuing. "I was an idiot. And you would have never known."

Olivia gave him a hopeful smile. "Well, I'm glad you didn't. Die, I mean."

"Yeah? Me too." A lopsided grin curled his lips.

Reaching out, she took his hand. "Come here," she said, pulling him after her toward the kitchen table. "Sit down. We have to talk."

Peter's brow furrowed as she guided him to the table, but he remained silent, dropping down on a wooden chair with thin spindles and elegant curves. He stared up at her, eyebrows raised expectantly. Waiting. She understood his silence; it was her truce after all, she had been the one to call it. The plumes of dried blood decorating his face transformed it into a grisly mask. They had to go.

A kind of serene stillness permeated the kitchen as she wet a rag from a cabinet drawer with a bottle of water. When she approached his chair, Peter's eyes widened and he leaned away slightly, as if uncertain of her intentions.

"Hold still, Bishop," she growled under her breath, reaching out, and then to his obvious surprise, began gently wiping the smears of blood from his temple.

She didn't speak. Not at first. Nor did she meet his gaze, though she could feel his eyes boring holes through her flesh. The blood had dried tacky, clinging to his skin by invisible fingers that resisted removal. How could there be so much of it? Had he decided to take a shower in it? It was an exaggeration, but not by much. She worked in silence, moving on from the deep creases lining his forehead, to skin around his eyes, which were soft and gleaming, locked on her face. His breath hissed softly below her, and at some point a hand had crept up her right hip, fingers hooking into the back pocket of her jeans.

"Peter, I uh...," Olivia began quietly, dabbing at a stubborn spot in front of his right ear. She wet her lips and started again. "These last few weeks, they've... been difficult for me. And I know they have been for you, too," she added quickly. "But first I had this... idea in my head that they had made it. That if they had made it out of the lab they were gonna be okay. Even after we searched the tunnels, I'd still thought they'd made it. I kept thinking that we just had to wait one more day. Just one more day. And then I'd hear a knock on the door and they would be there, Rachel and Ella, Astrid and Sonia. Broyles. Even your father." His face was clean now, the white rag tinted crimson. She tossed it in the sink, where it would remain, perhaps forever. She turned back, meeting Peter's gaze steadily. "But that's never going to happen. Is it?"

"Olivia, I wasn't trying to-"

"No, let me finish," she cut in, touching his cheek for a brief moment with the pads of her fingertips. "Please. They aren't coming back, are they? Even if they're alive — and I'm not saying they are — they're not going to show up here. That much is clear. You've been wanting to tell me that, but I wouldn't hear it."

Peter lowered his head, nodded once in agreement. "I've looked for them, Olivia," he said to the floor. "I've looked everywhere. Even among the infected, looked in every place I could think of, anyplace at all I thought they might have gone. And I know it's not what you want to hear, but I don't know what more we can do. Maybe they made it out of the subway. Maybe they even made it out of the city, and they're out there, looking for us right now. Or... maybe they didn't. I'm sorry."

"I know you are...," she whispered through a blur of tears and aching pain. She stifled it down, clearing her throat. "So... I guess what I'm saying is, is that I'm sorry, too. And, that I'm ready to leave whenever you are, especially if one of those... things, is prowling around here.

Peter rose slowly from his chair. He reached out, and she allowed him to pull her close, to rub his forehead to hers. "I'll promise you this," he said, "If they're out there somewhere, we'll find them, Olivia."

"Don't make promises you can't keep, Peter," she replied, smiling up at him sadly. She started to turn away, then paused, looking back and wrinkling her nose. "Oh. And Peter? It's time for some new clothes. You smell like road kill. And I mean that the sincerest way possible."

The burst of laughter that erupted from Peter startled her at first; it almost seemed alien, originating in some other universe, but then she found herself joining in, forgetting for that span of minutes that the two of them were all that was left. It was enough, for now. The paralysis was fading, the numbness with each passing moment, until finally, after her stomach began to ache from the humorous spasms, she could breathe again. Feelings she'd been holding at bay for too long came rushing back in, filling her chest to bursting.

When the laughter died away, their eyes met. Olivia pressed her lips to his cheek, and then turned away, homing in on the pair of swords lying forgotten on the island top.

A story went with them, and she wanted to hear it. She wanted to hear what exactly he'd been up to that had led to him taking a shower in infected blood. She ran her gaze over the weapons' sleek lines. They were beautiful. Dangerous icons of a different era, museum pieces. One was a bit shorter than the other, both slightly curved. At the top of each sheathe was a metal clip formed into the shape of a clover.

Glancing back, she caught a flicker of anticipation cross Peter's face. He had been looking forward to this moment. It was right there in his eyes, plain as day. She could imagine him stumbling across the pair of swords who knew where, could imagine his excitement, his need to show her. The thought made her smile.

"Now. Tell me about these swords, Peter," Olivia said, inclining her head and motioning for him to join her. Reaching out, she laid a hand across the smaller sword's hilt. The cloth wrap was soft, yet firm, and she suspected it would yield a strong grip. Sliding an inch or two of the blade free, her eyes widened at an edge so finely honed it appeared to glimmer, as if possessed by some inner luminescence. Surely it was a trick of the light. She looked up to find Peter watching her, eyes gleaming. The raw emotion he was showing took her breath away. Her insides filled with heat, a blatant reminder that she was still alive. And so was he.

A slow grin crooked her lips. "And tell me which one of these is mine."

#

* * *

#

The arrow of time slowed in increments, growing exponentially shorter, shorter before ceasing its forward progress altogether. What remained in its place were mere snapshots of moments, without order or sequence, without meaning or message. Motion happened in fits and starts, in sudden patches of flickering darkness and flashes of light. Voices echoed hollowly from nowhere, whispering through the grayness of stasis. Faces intruded, strange visages that passed in and out of view, blurred and disembodied. Woven throughout was an ever-present ache. Pain that had weight pressed down interminably. It was all intolerable.

In the midst of such chaos, Walter floated, adrift in the spaces between moments.

Yet it was not all confusion. Not all were delirious amalgamations of thought and memory and dreams. Elizabeth was with him; her voice murmured accusations inside his head. Her lips feathered softly against his ear. She whispered of Peter. He had left her, left Boston. He was gone. Her baby was gone again, she cried in his left ear, her voice distant, tinny, reverberating downward from some great height, or percolating through a narrow tube. Her panic was tangible. Infectious. Peter was gone. As before, the blame lay with himself; he wasn't smart enough, capable enough to discover the cure on his own. He wasn't there for him even when he was there.

Thundering heartbeats drowned out her voice, drowned out everything, even himself. He floated in anxiety-streaked grayness. Images coruscated, blasting through his writhing consciousness.

When something that resembled awareness returned, it was Belly's voice he heard at the end of the dark tunnel. The nature of reality was on the day's agenda, the potential consequences of parting the veil. Oh, how he loved to pontificate! Of course there was danger. Did not the great explorers of eons past experience doubt upon embarking for the edge of the map? Did they not feel fear when they neared the place where monsters resided? Fear of the unknown must always be overcome if any real progress was to be made. And Belly was hardly one to talk! His own appetites for pushing back the boundaries were well known and documented; detritus of his own littered the path of his enlightenment.

Belly's voice faded, only to be replaced by that of a woman. Her voice was shrill, full of wretched pain, of terrible agony. The foul odor of burning flesh and hair became the extent of his existence. And screaming. Coming from everywhere and nowhere. Walter yearned to scream also, anything to make it stop. To make it all stop. But it went on, blaring louder and louder, ricocheting through the gray void, now streaked with angry spiderwebs, cracks the color of rust, fiery oranges, colors pulsing, keeping time with a steady pounding.

_Thump... Thump thump. Thump... Thump thump..._

"Dad?" a tiny voice whispered. "What do you think happens when you die?"

The weight on Walter's chest grew heavier, like a mountain collapsing on top of him. _Peter!_

_THUMP... THUMP THUMP. THUMP... THUMP THUMP..._

The void shattered, exploding into infinite fragments. Sharp splinters cut deep, lacerating his very being. And then everything stopped. Quiet happened, and the grayness melted into light.

Walter found himself in a small bedroom, looking down on himself. On a bed, hands pressed into the soft quilt of blue-striped plaid. The room was dim, cast in a dull yellow light by lamps with conical shades sitting on nightstands on either side of the bed. Beside one of them was a silver dollar, resting face down. The face staring up from the pillow was near translucent, veins showing through skin pale with sickness. Beneath bright blue eyes were dark rings of purples and browns. Sickness. More bruises resided under the layers of quilts, mottling Peter's arms and legs, the skin of his abdomen.

"I... I don't know, son," he heard his own voice answer, simultaneous with a voice shrieking the answer in his mind. The Walter on the bed didn't say that his experiments all pointed toward oblivion, that consciousness was an illusion, a mere reflection of the brain's chemistry. He didn't say that it could be manipulated like a machine, played like a piano. He didn't say that he knew this because he had plucked those chords himself.

"I wish there was a way I could tell you," Peter's voice murmured, fading away. "After I die..."

The image of his dying son compressed, turning sideways as Walter's heart shattered again into a million pieces. The certainty in his son's tone; the acceptance of his own inevitable death. _He's just a boy!_ He howled into the nothing. _A goddamn boy! Peter! My son!_

Walter began to shriek as the bedroom disintegrated. He thrashed about as the void formed around him once more, sinking back into a grayness that seemed lighter than before.

The intruding voices returned. Voices calling his name. He saw bright light. Faces in a crowded room. White walls, peeling paint, sagging under its own weight. Where was he? Hands like iron gripped his arms, his legs, holding him in place. He had felt similarly manhandled before. Somewhere. Voices spoke from a vast distance, fading in and out like an out-of-tune radio.

_...hold him._

_...that really necessary? ...antibiotics... even working?_

_...time... needs... lie still. ...keep him sedated... tolerance to... is incredible..._

_I don't... think... like..._

_Walter?_

The voice was vaguely familiar, almost musical in its qualities. He reached out, grasping, fumbling for a name. The light faded as something moved in front of him. A face? It moved in close, obscuring the light. Whispered words reverberated through the gray nothing. The words were pleasant, soothing, like the fall of water over rocks in a stream. He strained to hear better.

"...want to restrain you, Walter. Please."

Walter came forward, clawing his way toward consciousness. The something obscuring the light was right above him. He could just make out a heart-shaped face, cream colored skin. Dark eyes and curls of black hair. Something touched him. He became aware of feeling, and felt a hand on his arm, applying the gentlest of pressures. It was a woman. He knew her. Didn't he?

"...have to lie still... I'm here. Just relax."

 _Astro...?_ He tried to speak, but her voice was fading again, receding down a dark tunnel. He felt a distant prick, and a pleasant glow bloomed inside his mind, wiping consciousness away in a burst of pleasure, suffusing through what little remained of his awareness.

 _Main line sedative_... an inner voice whispered. _Main line..._ the voice became a lingering sigh that faded into nothing.

Darkness closed in, sweeping him away.

#

When semi-cognizance returned, Walter found himself in a bare room, eyes frozen on a plaster ceiling stained and pitted with odd-shaped indentations and faint, hairline cracks. Directly above him was a dome-shaped light fixture that flickered fitfully, buzzing, its inner surface harboring a layer of dead bugs.

He shifted his gaze, staring down at his feet. He was on a bed, covered in thick, wool blankets up to his chin. To his right, a small window showed a cerulean sky. Vertical bars of gray iron outside the glass sent a chill racing down his spine. Directly ahead was a plain, circular clock mounted high on a wall the color of healthy urine, hands overlapped on the Roman numeral twelve. Left of the clock was an aged door of dull brown metal that appeared heavy enough to withstand a battering ram. Set in the door's upper half was a single horizontal window, the sliding type, just narrow enough to shove an arm through. Possibly. If he were desperate.

Sweat began to bead on Walter's brow. Chalky dryness coated the back of his throat. Swallowing, he lowered his gaze to the door knob — or at least, to where it should have resided. In its place was the rusted backside of a deadbolt lock. Shock stole his breath away. He knew that door, that lock, and the tiny window that would slide open to reveal a pair of pale, gray eyes. Terror surged through his limbs. He went to sit up and found himself unable to move, hand and feet glued in place, his chest also, held in an implacable grip.

Straining, he lifted his head and found a thick leather strap fastened across his abdomen. Was it growing tighter? It was! Constricting, squeezing, coiling ever tighter like a python embracing its prey. He opened his mouth to scream, to call out for help, but found the air in his lungs solid as stone.

Something small and hard dropped onto his tongue, then another. He spat out the foreign object, and found two perfectly formed teeth sitting atop his blankets, roots and all. Eyes bulging, he felt the rest of his teeth drop out, filling his lips to the brim. He spit them out also, spraying the room with molars and canines and incisors, then felt along his gum line, shoving the tip of his tongue into the moist, empty divots.

Footsteps echoed outside his door. The world shook, the air vibrated in expanding ripples that shook his bones.

Walter gasped. He tried to hide, to sink back into the softness of his bedding, but instead found the mattress as hard and unyielding as concrete. The footsteps grew louder, booming, vibrating the air. Suddenly voices were shrieking outside his room, all overlapping, layering on top of one another in a rising crescendo. Gibberings of madness, whispers of insanity, reverberating through walls of concrete. A resounding thud echoed on the other side of the wall opposite his bed, followed by a wild cackle filled with glee. Another blow shook the wall, and then another. He could feel each, through the bedposts, rocking the frame, and somehow, he knew that it was a head striking the wall, over and over. A head. Leaving spots of blood behind, bits of hair and flesh. Perhaps a tooth. He had seen such before, hadn't he? The maniacal laughter continued beside his head. Or was it not laughter, but screaming? Screams of agony? Of hysterical madness? His tongue ran over the edge of his own teeth, sharp and unyielding as ever. Outside the barred window a storm raged. Lightning shattered across a black sky.

The footsteps stopped, cutting the madhouse cacophony off mid-shout.

Walter's mouth worked. His eyes darted between the sliding window and the narrow strip of light beneath the door where a pair of shadows moved. Someone was outside. His heartbeat thundered, blaring inside his head. After an interminable silence, there came a metallic jingle from outside the door. The window slid back suddenly, revealing as he'd known it would, the pair of pale gray eyes staring in.

Were they familiar? Did he know them? Their shape? Their color? Did he?

"H—hello...?" he called out, straining once more to sit up. "Who... who are you? Wh—where am I? Why are you holding me here?"

The gray eyes regarded him without blinking, cold, unfeeling, empty. A knot of cold fear formed in the pit of Walter's stomach. Suddenly he regretted calling out. Maybe he didn't want to meet their owner. Without warning the sliding window slid shut with a deafening crack. A keyring rattled, and then a metallic scrape as the lock began to turn.

The door swung open with a creak and a man stepped inside. He was hatched-faced, with reddish skin and sand-colored hair streaked with wings of gray in front of his ears.

At the sight of the man's face, Walter shrank back, jerking against the straps holding him in place. He shook his head, denying the sight, even as the man stepped closer, lips pinched together, nostrils flaring. _No! It can't be him! Anyone but Sumner!_ His gaze flew around the room, and he suddenly saw it for what it was.

A cell.

His cell.

The high ceiling with sagging tiles, the hateful lime-colored walls, narrow and coffin-like. The mesh-covered window, dented with abuse, c _aked in years of dirt and grime. It was his old room, his old cell at the asylum._ Dear god... I'm back.

"Good afternoon, Doctor Bishop," his old doctor said, looking up from his clipboard and smiling professionally. His gray eyes were sharp and disapproving, the smile false, the smile of a shark eyeing its prey, the smile of a charlatan. "And how are you feeling today? Better, I hope? That was quite an outburst yesterday."

"Oh?" Walter swallowed. His breath came in shallow pants, vision dizzy with fear. "I uh... I'm afraid I don't... I don't recall... yesterday..."

"Is that so," Sumner said flatly. "Well, your little tantrum upset the other patients, particularly Mister Kim. Dashiell nearly beat Jeremiah to death. The poor man's skull was fractured." The hospital administrator shook his head sadly, and pulled a syringe from the front pocket of his white smock. He placed it on a metal tray beside Walter's bed. "I'm afraid this kind of behavior is unacceptable in my institution, Walter."

An outburst? Dashiell? Jeremiah? Mind racing, Walter's gaze swiveled to the clear solution inside the syringe. What was it? Thiopental? Lorazepam? Perhaps it was a cocktail of both, with a side chlorpromazine — the man was obsessed with the drug, no matter that it had been superseded decades ago. He wanted no part of it. It would put him back to sleep, drown out the world, drown out himself — like he had been before Peter came.

A terrible thought struck him then. Peter had come, hadn't he? His son had come, finally, and freed him from his prison. Hadn't he? Peter, grown up and so handsome. And angry, so angry. He had come with Olive, had he not? Olive had come back to him. It had happened, hadn't it? But then why was he in his cell? No, it couldn't be right. After the fire, they had never seen each other again. They had made sure of it. Steps had been taken, the children's memories carefully edited — a risky enough process in itself. But other risks were simply too great, so Belly had said, and he had agreed. God help him, he had agreed.

Had he never left then? Had he never left Saint Claire's at all, then? His son had never come? Could it have been a dream, an intense hallucination, more detailed than he could ever recall? Yet there were clear dream-signs. The dead rising? Ridiculous.

"Now I had thought you were making progress, Walter," Doctor Sumner went on in his southern lilt. "I had thought that you had rounded a corner. I see now that I was incorrect." His lips pinched together, turning white from the pressure. "You have made no progress, and in fact are regressing, the breaks in your psyche becoming more pronounced, more schismed. I'm afraid harsher... more direct methods are in order."

Doctor Sumner reached for the syringe. Unable to protest, Walter shook his head, eyes locked on the needle's point. It seemed incredibly large, large enough for a horse. Or a rhinoceros.

Suspended from the needle's angled tip was a drop of clear liquid. The drop stretched out, sagging in the air, perfectly shaped raindrop. Quintessential. He waited for the drop to fall, but instead it just hung there, glistening with an iridescent glow. The light drew him in. Something shimmered inside its depths; particles that spun and twirled, spirals that waxed and waned. It was as if an entire world resided inside. And did they not? Who was to say? All was possible in the endless expanse of time and space. Multi-layered it was. Didn't he know? Had he not experienced it firsthand?

The drop fell, splashing silently into rainbows of color.

Walter flinched as a shadow moved into his line of sight, hovering above him, a black, person-shaped spot. Fingers gripped his chin, squeezing his jaw with terrifying strength. Gasping, he tried to jerk his head free, but the grip only tightened, fingertips gouging into the fleshy part of his cheek. Pain and blinding light blurred his vision.

"Hold still, please," Sumner ordered. Walter tried to scream but his teeth were clamped together. "Any movement on your part could have catastrophic consequences on your mental faculties going forward." His voice held not a hint of pity, and raised the syringe to plunge out the air bubbles. "Frank? Hold him."

The metal door opened with a bang and another person stepped into the room.

"No!" Walter thrashed about, head banging off the cool metal of a surgical gurney. "I don't—! NO...! NO!" Intense light shot down from above, blinding circles of white that scalded his retinas. A pair of meaty hands fell across his shoulders, pressing down with the weight of a mountain.

"The problem is your brain, Walter," Belly said, standing over him. A teal surgical mask covered his face, muffled the rasp of his voice. "Your brain — it's always thinking. It has to come out."

He heard the whirl of a bonesaw roaring to life somewhere out of his view. He felt something loose inside his gut, and the acrid odor of urine filled his nose. The room darkened, yet he could still see every detail happening around him. The plain, circular clock high up on the wall spun backward, numbers and all. A ring of people surrounded the gurney—nurses and other doctors, presumably — watching the procedure from above masks splattered with red spots. Belly moved in closer, and the spinning bone saw was passed to him by a pair of hands—one of which was metal, fingers moving robotically.

Harsh spasms shook Walter from head to toe. Bile rose up in the back of his throat.

Belly stood over him. His normally dark eyes were burnished gold, with striated capillaries that writhed ever so slightly. "I'm sorry, old friend," he said with real regret, "but it is for the best. There's just too many of you. There's always been too many of you."

The bone saw descended, volume increasing to painful whine. Walter screamed but there was no sound. There was only the whirring saw, growing louder and louder. The blade descended slowly, a blur of tiny but sharp teeth, eager to rend flesh, to grind bone. Louder. Louder. Belly's eyes were gone above the mask. Blackened pits remained in their place, empty spots with all the gravity of a collapsing star. The spinning saw blade pulled at his hair. Exquisite pain lanced through the back of his skull, and then he was falling into endless darkness.

Falling. Air rushed past, whistling, screaming in his ear. Yet all was silent. Something rushed toward him, a kind of mirrored blackness. Was he rising or falling? Perhaps moving sideways. It was impossible to tell.

A speck glimmered, growing larger every moment until he was staring at himself, a mirror image whose eyes were bulging, mouth gaping open. Or was he the reflection? A voice was screaming. His own. Theirs. They both were. The distance between them halved, then halved again and again, and again, and on unto infinity, and then beyond infinity, where time had no meaning, where the self had no shape or form or identity.

The world blinked out.

#

Gasping, sucking in a huge mouthful of air, Walter came awake.

His eyes fell on peeling paint, on a wall a pale beige in color. He was in a small room, little more than a closet from its size. To his left, a rusted folding chair sat beneath a window of clouded glass. The closed door on his right, gray and featureless.

He tried to sit up, but found himself unable to do so. Fear choked the air from his chest, but then he lifted his hands, waggling his fingers weakly. He touched a spot on his head where phantom pain lingered for but a moment before dissipating. With a sigh, he relaxed, sinking back into a lumpy pillow.

Not strapped down, then. Not restrained. The bed he rested on was little more than a simple cot, the sort one might find anywhere, at any hotel the world over. His blankets were plain, homespun wool gray in color, and quite warm.

He was not at the lab, or even in the Kresge Building, judging by the unfamiliar room. The air seemed stale, aged, an odor only an antediluvian structure with a lifespan that measured in centuries could exude. He thought he could hear distant music, playing somewhere outside his door.

Memories began to collate, images and fragments coming together in a clouded deluge. The lab. The undead's attack, and their subsequent escape into the steam tunnels. He'd been sick. The respiratory infection he'd been developing over the last few weeks had finally come to head — walking pneumonia a distinct possibility.

Yet he felt better. Not great, but to some degree better. The weight on his chest was only moderately heavy. He noticed his clothes were gone, replaced by a light blue patient's gown. On the back of his left hand was a strip of white medical tape, holding a thick wad of gauze in place.

"What is this?" he murmured, touching the bandage carefully, feeling a strange lump.

A dull ache emanated from underneath when he applied pressure. IV cannula? Feathers of unease stroked the length of his spine. Where was he? How had he come to be there? Where were the others? Where was Peter? How much time had passed?

Before he could contemplate his present circumstance any further, he became aware of a figure standing beside the door, watching him.

Walter jerked back, crashing against the wall beside the bed. Eyes bulging, blood thundering in his ears, he shook his head, denying the apparition before him.

It couldn't be. Not here. He had left _him_ behind, at Saint Claire's.

The man standing before him wore his face, his hair, his clothes. Only the face wasn't his as he was now, but the man he had been, before. Before Peter, before the sickness and the pain and the suffering. Before Elizabeth's beautiful brown eyes had turned sad, and his world with them, before everything unimaginable that had happened so long ago, back when he'd been certain of his own place in the universe; far, far above it. The harsh lines of his former face were cast in stone.

Was it possible he had always looked so cruel? As if the only emotion he was capable of was of clinical detachment? How had he never noticed before?

"Hello, Walter," the apparition said, taking a step forward. "You're back. Back where you belong."

"No... no, no...," Walter whispered, swinging his head from side to side. As if it might serve as a shield, he pulled the rough blanket up to his chin. "I'm not here! I'm not back. This isn't happening. You're a figment of my imagination! A construct of my mind. You always have been!"

The corners of the other Walter's mouth turned upward, giving him an even crueler aspect, if that were possible. "We've missed you here, Walter." The voice seemed to echo around the room, coming at him from all sides. "But now you're back. Now you're home."

Walter screwed his eyes shut, rejecting the apparition's existence. He focused on the insides of his eyelids, on the swirls of muted colors, kaleidoscopes and writhing fractals. It had worked before. The man wasn't real. He'd never been real, merely a product of his own guilt, his own paranoia.

Inside the darkness of his head, he heard music again, louder than before. The beat was familiar, guitar chords, and most especially, the piano accompaniment.

A smile broke across his face. His throat tightened, tears unbidden seeped out from beneath his eyelids. How was it possible? He nodded, hummed along, whispering the lyrics to Violet Sedan Chair's, _Last Man In Space,_ beneath his breath.

 _"...the last man in space_  
It's a shame you got left behind  
Follow the sound  
It's a shame there's no gravity  
Pulling me down  
It's a shame you had to leave me here  
I don't want to die  
It's a shame at the end of time  
To leave my only world behind  
It's a shame you got left behind  
Follow the sound..."

A sudden squeal interrupted him, the opening of a door. His door. He let his eyes crack open, and saw a shaded person outside his door through his lashes. His former self was gone, gone as if he'd never been there. Had he? _Last Man In Space_ blared loud through the open doorway. A female-shaped silhouette spoke to someone out of view, and then stepped into his room, closing the door behind them.

The shape _was_ a woman. A slender woman with dark, curly hair. Walter felt a weight lift of his shoulders, replaced by a kind of indescribable joy that left him breathless.

"Astro!" he wheezed, trying to sit up. He made it only as far as his elbows before falling back on his pillow, gasping for a breath.

"Walter!" she said, stopping for an instant, before breaking into a smile that lit up the entire room, and rushing to his side. "You're finally awake! Thank god! No, don' try to sit up. You're still weak. You've been sick, Walter. Very sick. The Doctor said it was some kind of pneumonia."

"Doctor? What... what happened?" he asked. "Where are we? Where's Peter?"

Astrid shook her head. "I don't know where Peter is, Walter," she said, pulling the folding chair closer and sitting down beside his bed. "Or Olivia. I'm sorry. Truly. But we made it to safety. Everyone else is here. Rachel and Ella. Sonia. Agent Broyles. We all made it. Because of you."

Because of him? Walter wiped his mouth with his hand. "Made it where? What is this place?" And why does it summon _him_?

"Everyone calls it the Home of Light. Or just the Home, for short. It's kind of a sanctuary, I guess. It's safe here. So far, at least."

Safe? A sanctuary? How could it be safe anywhere? And who were _they_? He glanced around his room, taking it in anew. The stark walls and their peeling paint, the clouded window, which upon closer inspection appeared barred. Why did it bear such a strong resemblance to other rooms he had known — other cells he had known? He scratched at itches traveling up both forearms, digging his nails in deep. And what about Peter? And Olivia? Were they safe? Were they even alive? _My son... I'm so terribly sorry_.

Astrid reached out, taking his hand. "They have power here, Walter. Somehow." There was a hint of pleading in her voice, and in her expressive eyes. "Electricity. Some kind of generator in one of the out buildings. It's spotty sometimes, but it works." She smiled, touching her curls with her free hand. "You know what? I took a shower this morning. Running water, Walter. You can't drink it, and it's not very hot, but it's running water. They have people at the local water utility somewhere around here. I think somebody used to work there." She paused, studying his face for a moment. "I know you want to find Peter, and we will, but you have to get better first. You've been in and out of it for almost two weeks."

 _Two weeks? Dear god_. Walter's head swam. So much could have happened in two weeks. Anything. Anything at all. But Peter was intelligent, despite his proclivity for acting the fool on occasion. Olivia would keep him safe. She would. Why did it sound like a prayer in his head? He had to trust her. He had to trust Olive. Wasn't it why they'd made her?

He met Astrid's gaze. "You said there's running water, yes?" he asked hopefully. "And a bath? A tub?"

Her slow nod brought tears to his eyes.

#

* * *

#

The fence curled slowly inward from one upper corner, rolling over onto itself as a tall man wearing a tan cowboy hat made several cuts, using what looked like giant scissors, only made for slicing metal instead of paper. With a rattle, the cut-away section tipped over, dropping flat on the ground. Several men rushed in, dragging the old piece of fence away, while at the same time other men unwound a new stretch of fence from a huge roll lying on its side nearby. Overlooking the entire operation was yet another man, armed with a machine gun, standing in the back of a pickup truck outside the fence. Head swiveling, he searched for approaching infected. None had appeared, yet. When the new section of fence was finally wrestled back in place, the man in the cowboy hat pulled what looked like a pistol on a hose from the back of the truck, and dragged it over the new fence. He bent over, doing something near the pistol's tip, and suddenly a bright light bloomed in his fist.

The thing was a welder, so Ella's mother had called it. And it glued metal together. Somehow.

She was not to stare at it, not ever. Just looking at it could burn her eyes out, as impossible as that seemed. She turned her face away as the man put a pair of thick sunglasses over his eyes and bent close to the fence.

Strange hisses and pops and crackles carried over the yard. Sneaking a glance back toward the fence, a shower of sparks out of the welder's tip, which blazed like a second sun. With a gasp, she quickly covered her eyes, seeing a purple blob floating on the backs of her eyelids. It had only been a second. Surely that was okay.

After a moment, Ella lowered her hands and turned to the girl on the stone bench beside her. "Do they have to fix the fence a lot?" she asked, blinking her eyes open and closed to make the purple go away.

"Sometimes. Every once in a while." Gina said, lifting her shoulders. "Only after really big ones."

"Have they ever broken it down all the way, and gotten inside?"

Gina shrugged again. "I don't know. I don't think so, else the dead ones would be in here with us, wouldn't they?"

Ella considered that, eyeing the other girl sideways, and then nodded. Her new friend made sense, she supposed. Gina was actually a little older than herself, but sometimes she seemed younger. Sometimes. She hardly ever said anything for one, and sometimes she wouldn't leave her grandma's side, for another. Skittish, was the word she had heard her mother whisper to Sonia. Her friend's black hair was bound in tight, thin braids, some with a pretty pink and purple beads woven throughout. Her dark eyes were focused on her uncle, who was with the men working on the fence. She didn't talk much, her new friend, but they _were_ friends. It was nice to have a friend again, a friend her age to talk to. More than nice.

Twisting around, she snuck a careful look back toward the fence.

The welder thing was off, and the giant roll was being loaded back into the truck by four men, each straining hard to pick it up. When the roll was finally loaded, the cowboy — whose name she could never remember — hopped back up into the back of the truck and smacked the roof. The pickup truck lumbered forward, the men walking beside it. Those not working on fence repair, men mostly, but a few women, walked along the inside, each carrying long poles of wood or metal that were sharpened to fine points, like tall spears.

Most everyone was still a stranger to her, other than Gina's uncle, Chris, who was among the workers. As the truck passed in front of them, he winked and flashed a smile their way. Gina waved, grinning a huge grin. As he walked past, Ella waved also. She had come to like him in the short time they'd been there. He was kind and funny and strong, kind of like she'd imagined how a big brother might be. Not that she would ever have one, or a little sister, of whom she had dreamed of even more.

Suddenly bored with the fence repairs, Ella leaned back, eyeing the blue sky overhead. Strings of curling white clouds stretched across the horizon. A slight breeze blew wisps of hair across her face. The wind was cool, but not too cold. Warmer weather had melted all the snow away, and the ground was only a little squishy still, mostly in the form of a ring of dirt that wound all the way around the inside of the fence. It felt like spring outside to her, but it wasn't yet. At least that was what she'd been told by everyone she'd asked. Weather was strange like that. Occasionally the breeze would carry with it the bitter stink of death and dead bodies, twisting the inside of her nose.

The dead pit — as some of the others called it — was outside the fence and beyond a wide parking lot, but still too close. Especially when they burned up all the dead bodies of infected in it. The single time she had seen the licks of fire rising from inside the pit, a dense cloud of gritty black smoke had spread out, hanging low over the yard. Accompanying the smoke was a smell beyond horrible, worse than anything she could think of. Mom had taken one look at the smoke cloud, and then hustled her back inside.

Ella turned in her seat, eyeing the buildings spreading out behind them, gaze shifting to the pointed clock tower towering overhead. She was still uncertain how she felt about their new home. The buildings were all ancient, even older than Walter's lab. At night, when all the lights went out, she often found herself unable to sleep in their tiny room. The thick metal door was encrusted with rust, and so heavy she could barely swing it shut, or pull it open. And they creaked something awful, too. Late at night she could hear them; doors opening, with eerie squeaks and creaks that would echo through the corridors, seemingly without end, as if the buildings moaned in their old age. Or screamed.

But there was electricity. Running water. So what if the rooms all smelled kind of bad inside? Or that the lights didn't work all the time, or that when they did, they glowed eerily, pulsing brighter and darker like a beating heart? Or that the water wasn't very hot, or that they had to cook it first before they could drink it? She'd been doing that already at the lab.

She heard her mother's voice speaking inside her head: _What right do we have to complain?_

The only things missing were Aunt Liv and Peter. Where were they? No one seemed to know. She missed them both, terribly. Her mom did too, though she rarely mentioned either one of them. It was in her face, though, in the way she would stare out at the gate. Ella found herself staring out it also. Waiting for them to appear. They would, one day. She just knew it. They had to.

"What was it like where you came from, Ella?" Gina said after a while. "There a lot people there, like there are here?"

Ella shook her head. "No, not so many," she replied, then hesitated before going on. Gina had never asked about where they'd come from, or about much of anything — she hardly spoke at all most days.

They weren't supposed to talk about it much, Mister Broyles had made that clear to the others when they'd arrived in the middle of the night, with the giant searchlight shooting up into the stars. She was supposed to be asleep, but she wasn't, and had heard them talking about how they would approach the new people. Nothing was to be said about Walter, or the secret research he'd done in his lab before the infected came, or that Mister Broyles and Astrid were secret special agents, like her aunt. Why it all had to stay secret she didn't understand, but Mister Broyles had seemed awfully sure. The others had all agreed, except for Walter, and he'd been burning up with fever.

But surely there were some things she could tell her friend? Surely not everything was a secret.

"I was visiting my aunt at her house when the infected came," she started, thinking back to that day. "We were watching a movie."

She told Gina how the news reports had cut in, and how mad she'd been when they couldn't finish the movie. And she couldn't even remember that they'd been watching. It all seemed so long ago, so far away from her. She told her how her aunt had called and warned them to stay inside, to not let anyone in. She told her of the looters out on the streets below her aunt's window, and how they'd been replaced by hordes of dead people, the freshes and the monsters. Of the soldiers, and the bombs dropping outside the window, the fires raging across the city, how she'd watched a woman leap to her death out of a window across the street, and then how that same woman's broken body had stood up and joined the ranks of undead feeding on the soldiers. Of the long silence after the soldiers were gone and fires had gone out, and how she would stare down at all the dead people walking past on the street below, how she would sometimes give them names in her head, give them stories. Her eyes stung when she told Gina about her Daddy, and how he had come back one night, holding his arm, blood dripping through his fingertips, and after locking himself in the back bedroom, how she had never seen him again.

"What happened then?" Gina whispered. "How'd you and your mom make it out?"

"One night, my aunt came for us," Ella said, "just like she promised she would. She and Peter."

She described the wild ride in the truck, how her mom had puked on the floor, how Peter had run over all the infected, and then how they'd had to walk the rest of the way when they'd run out of gas. Gina's eyes bulged when Ella told her about the run for the bridge, the strangers in the other truck shooting at them, the horde of infected on their heels.

"What happened to your aunt?" Gina asked when the story was done. She tilted her head, braids dangling, beads swinging back and forth in the wind. "She still alive?"

Ella nodded at once. "I haven't seen her in weeks, but I know she is" she said without a shred of doubt, no matter that it had been days and days with no sign of her or Peter. "Aunt Liv said we would see each other again, she never lies, ever. She was a soldier once. My mom told me. And then she was a—" She cut herself short, on the brink of giving away her aunt's secret job.

"A what?" Gina's eyes narrowed.

"A... policeman," she said quickly. "She was a detective. And the best."

Gina face turned glum. "Oh. There was a cop with us, too," she said, rubbing her fingertips together. "A sheriff. His name was Rick, but he's a dead one now. One of the demons got him on the arm. Then he almost got my uncle, but Chris shot him in the head with his own gun. We left them all behind at the farm. "Gram says they're all demons, now. That the Devil's inside them. That the Devil's inside all the dead ones." Her voice fell quiet, little more than a whisper. "You think she's right?"

"Demons?" Ella frowned. "I don't know..." Aunt Liv had never said anything like that about the infected before. Or Walter, and he knew more than anyone. He thought something was wrong with the world, that it was broken somehow, and the broken parts were what made the infected come back. "I don't think demons are real," she said. "Or the devil. I think the dead people have just forgotten they're dead, and not supposed to move anymore."

Gina seemed shocked by her response, mouth hanging open, but before she could reply, clomping footsteps turned both their heads.

A tall man wearing a black t-shirt and blue jeans was striding toward them over the wilted grass. Muscles bulged down the length of his arms, like he was some kind of movie superhero. Ella knew his angular face well. Mister Overbeek.

He was the man who had questioned them all before they'd been allowed inside. Questions about who they were and where they'd come from. He was kind of like Mister Broyles, tall and hard-faced, except his gray eyes were almost always flat and empty. And he never smiled. Mister Broyles at least smiled, sometimes. He looked like a dead fish, or so she'd heard her mother once whisper to Astrid.

"You young ladies staying out of trouble?" Mister Overbeek said as he approached. They both nodded at once, and he crossed his arms over his chest, staring down at them with his dead fish eyes for several moments before glancing over at the work on the fence. "Well... you shouldn't be out here alone, not while the fence is down. Head back on inside, now. It's about time for lunch anyway," he added before turning and stalking away toward the other men.

From the firmness of his tone it was clear he wasn't asking. Ella slid off the bench, preparing to head back. She glanced at her friend and found Gina still sitting, watching the departing Mister Overbeek, giving him an odd look. Was it fear? _Why would she be afraid? Or is it something else_ _?_

"Ella. Ella!"

She turned at the sound of her name, and found a grinning Astrid standing between the pillars of the main entrance. And to her surprise, standing beside her in his usual plaid shirt and tan slacks was Walter. He raised his hand and smiled, giving her a silly grin.

"Hey, it's Walter!" she cried, forgetting all about Gina as she raced across the yard. Pounding up the steps to the porch, she crashed into him, wrapping her arms about his waist. "You're awake!"

Walter's hand patted her back. "Hello, my dear, Ella," he said, squeezing her gently. "Indeed I am awake, finally, as you can see by my standing before you."

Ella drew back, and noticed how thin he looked, how old he looked. She had never seen him that way before. "Are you sure you're all better now?" she asked. "You still don't look very good, Walter."

Walter chuckled above her. "Hmm. Yes. Well, I am certainly on the road to recovery, though pneumonia can be a tough nut to crack in the best of circumstances." His voice lowered, and he muttered something about a doctor, about him knowing what he was doing.

"You can let go of him now, Ell," her mother said firmly, stepping out from behind Astrid. "Before you knock him down. He was very sick, give him some time to get his strength back before you tackle him."

"Oh, it's quite all right, Miss Dunham," Walter said, grinning as Ella released him and stepped away. Shielding his eyes, he squinted skyward, lips curling into a broad smile. "I'm feeling better already. It's good to see her again. It's good to see sunlight again. My... room, if it can be called that, was certainly lacking in such a delightful view... Oh! And whom have we here?" Turning, Ella found Gina standing behind them, peering up from the foot of the stairs with guarded curiosity. "Who might you be, miss?" he asked.

"Ella, why don't you introduce your friend to Walter?" Astrid suggested.

Ella motioned to Gina, who came forward reluctantly, stopping just below them on the steps. "Walter, this is my friend, Gina," she said. "She lives here with us. Or we live here with her, I guess. She was here first."

"Oh? Is that so?" Walter's eyebrows climbed up his wrinkled forehead. "It's very nice to meet you, Gina. And how old are you? Five? Six?" His blue eyes narrowed, and he shook his head. "No. That's not right, is it?"

Much to Ella's surprise, Gina nodded, meeting Walter's gaze without hesitation. "I'm six-and-a-half, sir," she said. "I'll be seven come August."

"Six-and-a-half," Walter nodded, beaming. "What a perfect age to be. Brain development is just starting to accelerate, soaking up new information and experiences like a dry sponge. You practice your reading and writing daily, yes? And your arithmetic? You are aware it is best to get a head start on all three, are you not? Just like my Peter did."

"Does he always talk like that?" Gina said, looking Ella's way.

"Like what?" Walter frowned.

"Like a stick in the mud," Astrid muttered. "She's just a kid, Walter. Let her be one."

"What? A good foundation is crucial for a proper education!" he said, sounding rather upset. "I'm quite certain Sonia would agree with me if she were here. Hmmph. Simpletons, all of you..." Lifting his chin, he made his way carefully down the steps to the cracked sidewalk below and peered about, taking in the surrounding buildings. "Not the most pleasant of landscapes, is it? Nor is the air quality much better than indoors."

Ella was suddenly struck by an idea. "Mom? Can Gina and me show Walter around?"

"It's Gina and I, Ella," her mother corrected with a murmur, eyes focused on the fence where repairs were still underway. "Is it safe to be out here while they're repairing the fence, I wonder?"

"We'll be perfectly fine, I assure you, Miss Dunham," Walter said. "These two fine and upstanding young women are more than capable of keeping me out of trouble, I'm quite sure."

"Please, Mom? It'll only be for a little while," Ella pleaded, then held her breath as her mother decided, who, after a few moments, nodded her assent.

"Fine. Have it your way. Just don't take too long. They're serving lunch in the cafeteria soon. It's spaghetti day, apparently."

Spaghetti? Once upon a time, she had loved spaghetti, and couldn't wait to try it again. As they strolled away from the covered entryway, her stomach grumbled eagerly in anticipation.

#

Walter moved more slowly than Ella remembered, and she supposed he was still not feeling as well as he had claimed. As he limped along between her and Gina, flickers of pain ran across his face, but he never complained.

They walked around the center main building in its entirety, with Walter gazing up at the imposing clock tower, the tall, pointed roofs with interest. He asked questions occasionally as they pointed out the different buildings; which were open and closed, and who lived in them, as well as what purpose they served. Ella told him what little she had gleaned, but it was Gina who did most of the talking, filling in the blanks.

The laundry building seemed to interest him not at all, but he asked more questions about the kitchens than any other; what kind of ovens and how many, and if there were working refrigerators. Ella had never been inside the kitchens, but Gina's grandmother worked in them every day, along with Mister Broyles, of all people. Walter was aghast.

"You say _Agent Broyles_ works in the kitchen?" he said, eyes wide. "What an utterly bizarre and inefficient use of the man's talents. And what of yourself, child? Do they have you both manning the battlements, defending the walls with the others?" he finished with a snort.

She darted a glance Gina's way. Had she caught Walter's slip? Her friend's eyes were narrowed as if in thought, but if she had noticed, she gave no other sign of it. "No, we can't fight at the fence, silly," she said. "We're not old enough. And Mister Broyles told me the Doctor didn't want him at the fence because of his bad foot. He sure didn't seem very happy about it, though."

"Well I should think not," Walter said, shaking his head as they walked along. "Mister Broyles is very proud man, and quite capable. Tell me, child. This Doctor I've been hearing about. Where does he stay? With the rest of you, in the... dormitories?" His face twisted as he spoke, as if he were tasting something bad.

"He stays in a different building, I think," Ella replied, shaking her head. "He isn't around much." The man everyone called the Doctor was around hardly at all; she had only seen him twice, including the night they had arrived.

Gina nodded. "Yeah. Most of the time, he's in there," she said, throwing her hand toward a distant building, set far back and away from all the others, yet still inside the fence.

The tall building was old and falling apart like all the others, with rows and rows of tiny windows and faded red bricks. Sitting up against was another, smaller building, shorter, with only a few darkened slits for windows. Gray smoke drifted upward lazily from several black pipes poking out its flat roof. A man stood in front of the entrances to each building, a man armed with a machine gun.

Walter stiffened, eyeing the two men as they came to a stop. "And what are those buildings?"

"We aren't allowed to go in those," Ella told him. That had been made clear from the beginning, on the day after their arrival. The man everyone called Mister Overbeek had said it was off limits, to everyone. For their safety, he had explained. Except for himself, of course, and a few other men.

"My Gram said the shorter one is where the boilers are," Gina supplied. "I don't know what's inside the other one, but that's where the Doctor goes. They say it's where he's trying to cure the dead ones."

"Is he now?" Walter said after a moment, in a tone oddly quiet. "I'll be curious to see what kind of results he may have. If any." He stared at the pair of distant buildings for several moments, then looked down at them both, grinning. "Come, you two. Your mother will be looking for you, Ella, and I believe I've seen enough for one afternoon." He suddenly smacked his palms together, causing Gina to jump, dark eyes startled. "I'm ready to eat!" he exclaimed. "Onward!"

Ella agreed, and her stomach rumbled loud enough for the others to hear at mention of food. As they turned away from the unknown buildings, she thought for an instant than Gina was on the verge of saying more, but then her friend merely ran ahead, long braids bouncing out to either side with each of her long strides.

"I like your friend," Walter commented, watching her go. "She seems very nice, very polite."

"She is nice," she agreed. They walked a little, and she reached out, taking his hand. "Walter?"

Walter glanced down at her, bushy eyebrows lifting. "Yes, dear?"

Ella smiled up at her other friend. "I'm glad you're okay."


	26. Full Disclosure

**-February 2009**

Peter bent over, examining the coat spread out over the bed spread, fingering the fine threading where the sleeve was attached with a critical eye.

The black leather coat was not quite what he would have picked out for himself but it was close enough, and warm, with numerous pockets—along with being well-made to boot. Beside it on the bed lay an extra pair of clothes; blue jeans, and a thick sweatshirt of green cotton with an absurdly large wolf's head stitched across the chest. The shirt was not even remotely his style, but as it, and everything else had come courtesy of Olivia, complaining wasn't exactly an option. In any case, she seemed to care little what he wore as long as he didn't smell like a corpse, so it was probably academic. He grabbed the shirt and jeans, along with a rolled bundle of underwear and spare socks, and shoved them all down into the bottom of his open backpack.

A day had passed since they had begun speaking again, and the black wall of despair that had sprouted between them had retreated. Or perhaps they were just doing a better job of holding it at bay. Either way, it all amounted to same thing: they were talking, and they were leaving Cambridge. _And for good this time_ , he hoped. Just as soon as Olivia returned from wherever she'd disappeared to. Not more than half an hour ago, she had abruptly left, with the only explanation that there was something she wanted to check out. Her promise to return inside an hour was rapidly expiring.

His feet itched, eager to put distance between himself and the architect of the insane roar he'd heard again earlier that morning, off in the distance. And if by some miracle the others were still alive, it was now blatantly obvious that they weren't coming back, either to Cambridge, or the lab. How exactly they were going to find them even if they were alive, he had not a clue, but staying in a dead city haunted by impossible creatures bent on having them for dinner and full of undead besides, no longer served any purpose.

He cast his gaze around the room they had shared since their return. It was the lone spare bedroom, with little in the way of personality to speak of. A single full-size bed with a plain, cherry headboard sat in the middle between a pair of windows. Opposite the bed was a wide dresser with a simple mirror mounted on the wall above. Generic pictures and artwork that could have come from any department store adorned walls of beige paint.

During their recent forays into the world outside the lab, it was his observation that Olivia never chose the master bedroom, or any room with anything too personal in it, if she could avoid doing so. Her only explanation, when he'd once pointed out the mammoth king-sized bed in another room, was that the spare room was more than comfy enough for her.

And then, to his dismay, her voice had grown suspiciously bland. Oh, and did he like sleeping far away from her for some reason? He was more than welcome to take the master if that was the case. As he was not a fool, the subject had never been broached again, though he did wonder from time to time. Seeing the bareness of the room, it came to him that it was precisely that which led her to seek them out. Olivia was looking for normalcy, for something, for anything, that would hold back the long night. They were guests in someone's house. That the someone was undoubtedly dead made no difference, not to her. He wondered if she had the right of it.

Peter snapped his head around at the bang of the front door slamming closed below. Footsteps pounded rapidly up the stairwell, and an instant later Olivia flew into the room.

Her chest heaved below a face flushed with more emotion than he'd seen in days, and the hair now most of the way down her back was pulled into a high ponytail. Bobbing over her right shoulder was the silk-wrapped sword hilt, held in place by a red cord running diagonally across her chest. She had tested the weapon out earlier that morning on infected wandering outside the house and had come away eyes gleaming with excitement, lips curved into a wide smile. The sight of it now was secretly pleasing, that he had found a gift worthy of her. She was a soldier at heart. A warrior. Perhaps that was what made her so bewitching to him in the first place, how she was so different from all the other women he had known in his adult life.

"Peter! I think I found it," she said between breaths and grinning in a distinctly unwarrior-like way as she came to a stop in the center of the room.

Peter paused in the act of reaching for his backpack. "Found what? I didn't even know you were looking for something."

From the dense look he received in return, it was clear he should have known. Olivia held up a folded yellow piece of paper from her coat pocket. Upon closer examination, he saw that it was a torn out page from the now-defunct Yellow Pages phone directory. She unfolded the paper and flattened it against her chest. "Look here," she said, pointing out an ad.

"Carmelita's Farmstand...?" he read with a frown. "Are we looking for fresh vegetables? I hate to tell you this, Liv, but the world, it ended. Carmelita's dead, and probably a walking corpse. I'm sorry if she was a close friend of yours."

"Hah hah," she muttered with roll of her eyes. "You think you're so amusing, don't you, Bishop? Now look again. Did you happen to notice the address?"

He scanned the listing again, reading it to the end, then met her gaze. "Peterborough? So, what... you want to head north? I thought you wanted to go back to Worcester. What changed?"

"Nothing's changed. I still do want to go back there." Olivia's eyes went distant, narrowing in thought. "But that woman, Charlene. I also want to check out her story about the attack on her people."

"Why?"

"Because if we do go to this sanctuary," she said, tucking a loose lock of hair behind her ear, "we should know what we're walking into beforehand. After that, then we'll decide what to do."

Peter brought a hand up and massaged his neck. "Liv, even if there is someone there, you have to know it isn't going to prove that the people living at the nuthouse in Worcester had anything to do with what happened to Charlene's people. And how the heck do you even know that this farmstand is even the right place?"

"Of course I know it won't prove anything. And I know it's the right place, cause it's the only place like it in the area, and I looked up every possibility I could think of. Charlene said they had commercial greenhouses, and this place is the only place that is open nearly year round. Year round, Peter." She gave him a vexed look, thinning her lips together. "Didn't you even read the ad? You know, this is why I was the FBI agent, and you, the consultant," she added pointedly.

With a blink, he looked down at the slip of paper again. Sure enough, it was all right there, written in bold typeface. He should have caught it immediately. "Okay, but what about... well, you know...," he said, trailing off. He wasn't exactly eager to bring up their missing family and friends, not with her mood on the upside, but he had to know what was motivating her.

Olivia nodded, dropping her chin, eyes downcast, and he pulled her into his arms. After a moment, she lifted her head, green eyes filled with brimming emotions as she met his gaze. For a heartbeat, her walls were down, and the endless sadness she'd been holding inside exposed. More than ever, he suspected that her plan to head north to Peterborough was at least in part her way of dealing with what had happened, of distracting herself from the horror of it. But it was better than looking for solace at the bottom of a bottle of Jack, wasn't it? Or by hacking infected to pieces, his preferred method of choice.

Studying her soft expression, he wondered if she was as okay as she appeared. She had never mentioned her episode outside of the Kirkbride building, of seeing John Scott. It was all worrying, on multiple levels. She had seemed so sincere, so certain that the man was there—despite it being impossible. And of course, he hadn't been — the guy was worm food — but what did it mean that she was seeing visions of her former lover? _Was_ she okay? Was there something wrong with her? His mind flew to the worst case scenarios, to brain cancer, to flesh devouring tumors, or something else just as terrifying. He wanted to tell her that _he_ loved her, but there never seemed a good time, the right situation. But would the time ever be right? Civilization had come to an abrupt end. Romantic, candlelight dinners and moonlit strolls through the park were off the table. Permanently.

_I should just tell her now. There's never gonna be a_ right _time._

Before he could summon the courage, Olivia reached, touching the side of his face. Her fingernails sent tingles down his spine, and then she pressed closer and brushed a kiss across his lips. "I haven't given up all hope yet, Peter," she whispered, rubbing her cheek against his. "But I don't know what else to do, other than to keep going. We... we have to be realistic. If they're still alive, they could be anywhere, but I have to assume they've found someplace safe to hide. I have to assume Broyles would keep them safe. So would Astrid, or even Sonia." She grunted softly, shaking her head. "Hell, even Rach can take care of herself now, and that's something I'd never thought I'd say out loud. I have to assume that if they're out there, we'll find them."

She sounded as if she were convincing herself, but that was okay, wasn't it? Who was he to say otherwise? "So I guess Rachel was a handful back in the day?" he asked, trying to lighten the mood.

"A handful?" Olivia's snort told him all he needed to know about her younger sister. "You have no idea."

Peter nodded, tightening his arms about her waist, burying his lips in her hair. Part of him, a frighteningly large part, wanted nothing more than to run. To forget everything and to just run. Just the two of them. To find the nearest yacht and sail for the Caribbean, or anywhere, perhaps a deserted island in the South Pacific, no matter that it was on the other side of the planet. But she never would. And he loved her all the more for it.

Olivia pulled away from him, glancing down into his open backpack, at the clothes rammed haphazardly inside. Her eyes narrowed, and he waited for her to comment on his poor effort, but she merely looked away, face serene. "So. You ready to get out of this city?" she asked, lips curving into a slow smile. From the way she was eyeing him, she'd known exactly what he'd been waiting for, as if she had read his mind. And perhaps she had, at that, and he loved her for that, too.

"And here I thought you'd never ask, Agent Dunham," he grinned, zipping his backpack shut and slinging it over one shoulder. "I've never been more ready than I am right now."

He reached for his sword, propped against the wall beside the bed. As he pulled it over his shoulder, he felt Olivia's gaze on him, watching as he fit it in place. Turning for the door, he found themselves in the mirror above the dresser; a tall and thin New Englander with a scruffy beard, and a slightly shorter blonde woman with fair skin and striking green eyes, each with nearly identical samurai swords riding on their backs.

"Is that really us?" she said softly, meeting his eyes in the reflection.

"I think so," he replied, bemused by their likenesses. "Strange, isn't it?"

He hardly recognized himself, or her for that matter, but either way, they were quite a match.

#

* * *

#

The countryside moved past silently. Barren of nearly anything not a shade of brown, the bleak landscape was still held firmly in winter's grasp, in spite of the temperate weather of the last few weeks. A layer of downed leaves dusted the winding road, and from the look of it, they could have been the first to traverse it in decades, instead of a mere seven months. Leaves sucked up in the wake of their passage flipped and twirled on currents of air before falling gracefully back to the earth. The road and the countryside through which it passed were trapped inside a moment. They had entered the back country, if such a nomenclature could be applied to anywhere in Massachusetts.

Impenetrable gray clouds blanketed the sky, threatening rain. Birds wheeled in the distance, a flock descending on a copse of trees standing alone amid a patch of squalid corn stalks, disheveled by time and neglect. Sitting along on the edge of the forgotten cornfield, a red tractor peeked over the top of the gnarled stalks. Beyond rose a dilapidated barn with a patchwork roof, leaning hard to one side, seemingly collapsing in slow motion. At first glance it all appeared normal, as if the world's end hadn't reached the outskirts. Not until a second glance, were the blatant signs of dereliction and abandonment revealed, giving name to the obvious truth; that no place had been left untouched.

Olivia kept her gaze on the tractor as it slid past, and then vanished from sight. There had been something desperate and forlorn about it; a kind of hopelessness, a kind of soul-wrenching despair. The tractor was a relic, a monument to civilization's end. The world of its origin would soon disappear into the mists of antiquity. How soon until the silence was complete? How long until it all stopped? Until all traces of men and their machines and gadgets, their wars and petty grievances were scoured from the face of the earth? And was the earth better for it? Who could say? The air had never tasted fresher, or cleaner, not discounting the days of her youth when she had more or less lived outdoors to escape the attention of a certain someone.

Peter's sudden voice broke the spell of disillusionment creeping over her. With a blink, she shot him a glance in the passenger seat. "What was that?"

"I said to make a right at the tee when you come to it," he said, looking up from the road atlas open across his lap. His brow furrowed. "You okay?"

"Oh...," Olivia swallowed, and then cleared her throat. "Sorry. I'm fine. I guess I'm a bit preoccupied."

"No worries," he replied, giving her a crooked grin. "Just make a right."

The intersection came into view over a small rise and she did as he instructed, gliding the black SUV through a sweeping curve onto a narrow roadway. Sitting adjacent to the corner was an abandoned roadside business, a restaurant possibly, though obviously closed and boarded up long before the outbreak. Graffiti decorated exterior, a single black spiral that converged in uneven swirls down to a single point. Beneath the building's eaves, a ragged infected turned and watched them roll past. Peter leaned forward in his seat, scowling at the infected in his mirror as it spurred into motion and hobbled after them. As the figure receded in the mirror, he settled back in his seat, clenched jaw relaxing.

So far he'd done a good job keeping their route away from towns and cities, or anywhere it seemed the dead might gather. The straggler behind them was the first they'd seen in almost half an hour, a new record for them, since they had dropped the other truck off at the safehouse outside of Marlborough. By the clock in the center of the dash they'd been driving for just over an hour, heading north and east toward the Massachusetts-New Hampshire state line. Winding back roads that insisted on curling around tepid hills and low buffs kept their northerly travel to a minimum. By any account, the drive was taking longer than it should have, but what was the rush? There was no rush, no reason to hurry.

The road straightened out and seemed to grow even narrower, if that were possible. Trees hugged the shoulder on either side. Branches reached out, skeletal and knobby fingers intertwining with those opposite to form an almost perfect tube or tunnel. In the spring and summer months she could imagine how scenic the route would be, and even more so in autumn, when the leaves were just starting to change their colors. The myriads of pinks and oranges and reds, painting the countryside. It was all lost on her now, however.

Sensing a subtle change in the atmosphere, she found Peter's gaze fixed on the view outside his window. Though from the way his lips were pressed together, he was seeing none of it. Was it his father he was dwelling on? Or the catastrophe at the lab. He was prone to do either, lately. Prone to brooding. And he blamed himself, no matter what she told him, or how often she told it. She had noticed a harder side of him emerging over the last few weeks. There was more of the old Peter; a kind of harsh skepticism—not with her, of course, never with herself—but with their ultimate goal in general. It was a side of him she'd not seen since she'd dragged him back from Iraq by the scruff of his stiff neck almost a year ago. But he wasn't the only one of them despair had changed, and she could hardly blame him. At least he'd done something semi-productive while mourning the loss of their loved ones. All she had managed to find was the bottom of a bottle.

In an effort to distract herself from a rising tide of emptiness, Olivia turned her attention to the road ahead. The tunnel-like arrangement of trees came to an end. Hills topped with evergreens appeared, far in the distance. The rumble of the tires grew louder as the asphalt became increasingly rough, pitted with cracks and potholes, disintegrating into gravel near the edges. Just off the right shoulder ran a rickety wooden fence and then a steep embankment that descended to a rolling pasture with a white farmhouse and a picturesque barn atop the next rise. Surrounding a sodden patch of dirt at the bottom of the embankment was a ring of bony remains — cows mostly likely, she guessed, from the size of the ribs gleaming faintly in the morning light. Or perhaps horses. Maybe even pigs, or alpacas, for all she could tell. What the hell did she know of farm animals?

She glanced across at Peter, intending to ask him if they were going the right way — despite the map sitting on his lap — and found him staring at her, or more precisely, through her.

"What's the matter?" she asked, shifting her gaze between him and the road. "Are we lost?"

Peter blinked and gave her scandalized grunt. "Lost? No, not even a little bit." His frown turned into a wide grin that sent her pulse racing, as he was no doubt aware, by now. "What? You doubting my navigation skills, Dunham? No, I was just thinking," he explained, scratching idly at his beard. "Hypothetically speaking, let's just say that they did somehow manage to make it out of the subway tunnels, and then out of Cambridge. Where would you go if you were them? Put yourself in their shoes."

"Where would I go?" Olivia's mind rapidly switched gears. This was what he'd been thinking about? She supposed it was better than dwelling on all the mistakes they'd made, as she sometimes found herself. She thought for a moment, picturing herself in Astrid's position. No, in Broyles's. Broyles would have taken charge of the group, surely. _If he was still alive_ , a small voice intruded obstinately. _If any of them were_. She brushed the voice aside.

_I have to believe they are. I have to, or all of this is for nothing._

Olivia flexed her fingers on the steering wheel. "Well. I suppose, I would have tried to get another vehicle, if I wasn't able to get back to the truck — which they obviously weren't. Did you ever teach Astrid how to hot-wire a car?"

Peter's face darkened as he shook his head. "Never got around to it," he sighed into his lap. "Goes right beside all the other mistakes we made. I made."

"Peter...," she started, forcing him to look at her. "Enough of that. If we're going to play the hypothetical game, let's play. All in." After a moment, he nodded, and she continued, starting to get into it, going back to the days of her adolescence when she and Rachel had played the hypothetical game with every subject under the sun. "It might have taken awhile, but I think I could have found a working car, with keys eventually. And if I had car? First I would have tried to get somewhere safe, somewhere outside the city. A safehouse, like ours in Marlborough. I'd have set up some kind signal for us to see, smoke, I guess, kind of like we did. Maybe I'd paint a sign somewhere, somewhere visible where I thought we were likely to pass by. And then I'd send someone out to look. Or I'd go myself." She could see how it would have played out, hypothetically. Rachel would stay back with Ella, of course, and Walter. Possibly Broyles. Leaving Astrid and Sonia to do the searching. For just two people, it was a lot of ground to cover, the proverbial needle in the haystack." Glancing at Peter, she found him watching her closely. "Why? What would you have done differently?"

"Nothing. That's about what I came up with," he admitted with a shrug. "More or less, at least. But you know what you didn't say you'd do?"

Olivia frowned. "What?"

"You didn't say you'd go back to the city. You didn't say you'd go back to the lab."

The electric jolt Peter's words evoked sat her up straight. Her mouth went dry as he went on, but she heard none of it. Instead, blood rushed through her ears, like wind on top of a mountain. Her heart clenched spasmodically in her chest, pounding out its interminable rhythm. Taking her foot off the gas, Olivia let the truck coast up the slight incline, until it finally came to stop. In the silence that followed, the steering wheel creaked beneath her iron grip, forearms straining.

She and Peter had been waiting and watching, but they hadn't come back.

Her face grew warm, and then scalding hot. Of _course_ they hadn't come back. Why would they? She wouldn't have gone back, not with the city filling up with infected, with the lab overrun. Not immediately, at least. She'd been an idiot — they both had. What had made her think the others would come rushing back? Why had she been so convinced, so certain in their assumptions?

The answer was obvious, to her, if not Peter — though he was no fool. She hadn't been thinking clearly, not for a while. Neither of them had. They'd been overwhelmed by grief, by shock and the pain of loss. Grief was like that; all consuming, prohibiting rational thought. That it was a perfectly natural reaction to losing every single person left in the world they held dear, and all at once, didn't make her feel any better.

_I should have seen it. I should have known better._ It was her job to know better.

She let out a breath she'd been holding, unaware. "You're saying that there's a real chance that they're still alive. That there was no reason for them to come back to look for us because they thought we were out there."

"I'm saying it's a possibility," Peter said, "and one we should have thought of long before now." He reached out and gently pried her hand away from the steering wheel, and then rubbed his thumb across her palm as if that might soothe her. And to her surprise, it did. "But there's also this, Liv," he went on. "And it only just hit me. The last time you talked to Astrid — which was the last time either of us talked to her — what did you tell her?"

Olivia stared up through the visor, thinking back. The memory was as clear as if it had happened the day prior. And how could she forget? It had been the morning she'd slipped on the ladder, with the wind blowing her like a rag doll as she'd hung on for dear life. What had she said before that, though? She and Astrid had been in the middle of an information exchange. "I told her... I told her about the men in the truck, that we were in Marlborough. And how the men had mentioned some kind of refuge, and there being a doctor." She gasped softly, gripping Peter's hand. "I told her we were going to follow them! She knew our route! If they saw that light, they could be there, Peter! Right now, they could be there!"

"You're right, they could be. Maybe," Peter conceded, though from his tone, it was obvious he didn't have high hopes. "I still don't see how they could have gotten out of the subway, considering what we saw down there. But there's a chance. There's hope, like you said."

For several tortured moments, indecision tore gouges through her heart. The urge to spin the wheel around and stomp her foot through the floor was overpowering. But then a cool dose of rationality stayed her hand.

It had been her original intention to thoroughly vet this sanctuary before taking her family anywhere near it, if at all possible. And verifying Charlene Watson's story still seemed like a good place to start, ignoring the fact that none of it was happening in the order she'd intended. If they had seen the searchlight and followed it to its source in Worcester, then they were probably safe enough, for the moment. Charlene Watson and her family had certainly appeared welcome. And if it turned out her family wasn't there? That they had never been there at all? Then she and Peter would be no worse off than they were already, would they? Their friends and loved ones missing, fates unknown.

A tightly wound knot of loss and searing grief slowly tightened about her neck like a hangman's noose. She closed her eyes, trying to breathe through it. The pain was immeasurable, the grief a vast ocean, but she took it all in, swallowing it hole, forcing it down.

There was a place, down in the distant recesses of her mind — and perhaps even in her soul — a crevice, where wild things roamed. A dark, forgotten charnel where the ghosts of her past wandered even still; her stepfather, eyes glowing and full of unforgotten rage, abided there; a dimly lit corner where her mother's dying breath echoed, endlessly repeating; a single candle glowed in another corner, dedicated to a father she had barely known. There was a place even for Charlie there, and for John, both newly raw additions. She forced the pain down into the abyss, the sadness and the guilt, all of it, until bit by bit, she could once again draw breath.

Exhaling, she met Peter's gaze and found his eyes watery and full of emotion. He'd been watching her. Of course he had been. "Then there is still hope," she told him, pressing his palm to her cheek. "More than I'd thought possible this morning."

For the first time in what seemed like forever, a light had appeared at the end of the dank tunnel she'd been trapped inside since her first sight of the sea of infected surrounding the lab. With a heart that was less heavy than before, she put the truck in gear.

#

If the map in her head and the one sitting on Peter's lap were correct, New Hampshire was close. The elevation began a gradual rise, with tall bluffs and forested ridges making up the horizon. On either side of the road wooden fences held back rows of vegetation, beyond which were fields and pastures, farmhouses and red barns of corrugated metal. They passed an old house with a tire swing hanging from a massive oak tree in its front yard, a log cabin with a tarnished roof overlooking the area from atop a tall hill. The area had been well populated, once. But no more.

In the midst of her rumination, Olivia almost missed the sign marking their passage over the dotted line on the map, so sudden and unassuming was its appearance. Just over top a shallow rise was a simple road sign with a dirty white background and black letters. Its message was short, and to the point:

NH LAW  
BUCKLE UP  
UNDER AGE 13

She gave the sign a smirk as they rolled past. It seemed New Hampshire was all business; so much for living free or dying. "How close are we, Peter?" she said. "Have you figured out where this place is yet?"

Frowning, Peter glanced again between the road atlas and the wrinkled ad. "We're still a little ways off," he replied. "There's a town ahead, New Ipswich, that we're better off avoiding, I would think, and then it's just a straight shot north, maybe five, six miles. We have the address, but how far or how close to town it is, I can't tell. If it's some kind of farm it should be on the outskirts, so who knows? I guess we'll find out when we get closer." He shook his head, resting back against his seat back. "God, I miss the internet. We're back in the fucking Dark Ages."

Olivia snorted her agreement. The Dark Ages, indeed. It was like one of her senses had been removed, one she'd leaned on heavily. The age of internet mapping services and GPS devices had utterly spoiled them. "Are there any parallel roads? I'd prefer to approach this place on foot, if at all possible."

He squinted down at the map again, leaning in close. "There should be. It looks like this whole area is shot through with back roads. There's gotta be something close by. What are we looking for, anyway?"

"I don't know yet," she replied with a lift of her shoulders. "But I'll know it when I see it."

"You'll know it when you see it, eh?" Peter said, eyeing her with a chuckle. "They teach you that at Quantico, Agent Dunham?"

"As a matter of fact they did, Peter," she said primly, while giving him an indignant look. "It's called using your innate intuition."

She tried to keep the glare in her eyes, but found herself unable to feign her irritation for long. At first it felt strange to let herself smile again, to laugh, as if the muscles in her face were unsuited for the task. Since her first sight of the horde seething outside the lab, the air around her wasn't choked with bitter ashes. Were they being naive? It was certainly possible, or even probable. But at least they were doing something, anything. At least they were in motion instead of wallowing in their sorrows. She'd never been good at sitting back, at letting the world pass her by. And that was enough, for now.

With Peter navigating, they mostly skirted the town of town of New Ipswich, avoiding its main roads and population centers by running a gauntlet of side streets and cut-throughs. At some point, the sun had come out, tinting the world with bright incandescence. The area was heavily forested, with old-growth trees towering overhead, doling out thick carpets of leaves across every surface. Nestled beneath the wide branches were homes and cottages in various states of disrepair; on one corner might be a home pristine condition, while its neighbor might be boarded up by layers of plywood, or with front doors gaping open.

Oddly, the local infected population was noticeably absent, other than occasional glimmers of movement on the edges of her vision. They were around, they had to be. If there was any rule that applied in the present day, it was that the dead would be wherever there lived people. If they had stayed on the main road, they would no doubt be swimming in them

So she remained alert, vigilant, and even more so as their destination grew closer. Charlene Watson's story had initially set alarms blaring in her head. The coming of a stranger bringing tidings of a sanctuary to the south, of safety. And then, a gate suspiciously left open, just as a wandering horde had happened by. How convenient was that? In her former line of work, there were no coincidences, only designs, and motives. How easy would it be to herd infected to a particular area? Commercial greenhouses? The world had changed. Things that had once been rarities were now worthless, and those things commonplace had become invaluable resources. She could count them off on her hand.

Shelter. Gasoline. Electricity. Fresh water.

_Food_.

She would know the instant she laid eyes on the property.

Leaves whirled in their wake as they left the outskirts of New Ipswich behind. A few miles later they passed through a tiny town named Sharon, which appeared to consist wholly of several homes and a single place of business — an art institute, of all things. Or at least that was what the sign on the edge of its parking lot stated. The building itself was little more than rubble, burned to the ground, along with whatever works it once might have held.

Taking her foot off the accelerator, she twisted in her seat for a second look at the hollowed remains of the building, the husk of charred timbers folded in on themselves. Why did disaster and chaos bring out the worst in people? Why was it always the urge to destroy that rose to the top? To kill that which was not understood, to belittle or isolate those things or people that were different? It was always the same, in every town and every city and every nation. Maybe humanity deserved its fate.

Not long after Sharon was in their dust, the gray column of grain silo appeared in the distance, protruding just above the treetops. Her eyes were drawn to a glint of sunlight, reflecting off something near the base of the silo's rounded tip. A bit of structural steel, she thought, or perhaps a sheet of roof paneling. Chewing on the corner of her lip, she waited for it to happen again. Before it could, however, Peter looked up from the road atlas, scanning the road ahead with narrowed eyes.

"Hey, turn there," he said suddenly, nodding at a gravel drive forking off just ahead on the left.

Nodding, she stomped the breaks harder than she would have liked, and guided the SUV off the asphalt roadway and onto a slippery gravel surface. The tires rumbled, kicking up a fog of dust in the rearview mirror. Eyeing the dust cloud, she slowed the truck to a crawl. The gravel road wound a sinuous path, crowded with trees on either side. Before long a driveway came into view. The trees came to an end on her left, and a farmhouse with a wide front porch appeared, along with an entire collection of barns and out buildings, all in decent shape.

"Keep going," Peter said, glancing between the map and the narrow drive. "As far as I can tell, this is the only street that runs directly parallel. We need to be as far north as we can though, unless you actually want to hike through these woods for an hour or two."

"And have you pass out on me?" she smirked, unable to help herself from poking fun at him. "Like last time? Not a chance."

"Hey, I was soaking wet, and it was like thirty below zero," he complained. "You think you'd have done any better?"

Olivia snorted. "First, it was not _that_ cold, and second," she paused, wetting her lips. "I'd like to think something good came of it... wouldn't you, Peter?"

Blue eyes flared with hungry desire. "Well, when you put it that way, Liv, I might actually do it again."

"I thought you might see it my way," she murmured under her breath as another property came into view.

After passing several more farms and homesteads, she turned in at an ancient mailbox, onto a long driveway sheltered beneath the forest canopy. The driveway led to an old farmhouse with white-washed siding and a wide swing hanging down on the front porch beside the door. Opposite the house, on the other side of the driveway, was a covered carport made of wood and corrugated siding rusted with age. Further back on the property and inside a fence, a ramshackle barn leaned crookedly, beside a metal tank suspended in an angle iron cradle. It was a fuel tank, Olivia noted, from the nozzle on the end of black hose extending out from one side. Interesting, and quite possibly useful.

Letting the truck idle forward, she peered about for any signs of movement, be it dead or alive, but all was still. The area was clear. Deserted. It would do. She parked the truck inside the rusted carport, her fingers finding and separating the twisted ignition wires without conscious thought. Silence greeted them as they slid out into the cool air. Not a tweeting bird, nor a breath of wind made a single sound. Before heading out, she grabbed Peter's gift to her from the back seat, pulling it over her shoulder, watching while he did the same opposite her.

She had decided that wearing a sword on her back was exceedingly strange, as if she were playing a child's game, playing at being some kind of warrior of old. Yet the sword was no toy. Not even close. From the first swing, from the first infected she'd struck down, she had known it was _the_ weapon for her. And it was a work of art, as well as an instrument of death, from its razor-sharp blade down to the intricate stars and sun adorning the oval guard. As grisly as it might seem, the sword always brought a smile to her face.

When they were ready, they made a circuit around the house, passing through a rusty gate before clambering up to the front door. She reached back, easing her blade free from its sheath as Peter attempted finagling the door open with his multi-tool. After a moment, he shook his head.

"I think someone barricaded it from the inside," he said, stepping back. His voice dropped to a mutter as he eyed the tarnished door knob. "Should have grabbed the fucking crowbar. Oh well. Get ready."

Rearing back, he drove the sole of his boot into the weathered wood beside the knob. The door shivered. Particles of dust sprinkled down from the door jamb as the thud reverberated off the barn behind them. With a grunt, he slammed his foot into the door again. Something shrieked inside, metal crying out in furious protest at their intrusion. A third kick, and the door flew open, smacking hard into a figure wearing grimy blue overalls. The infected stumbled backward and then tipped onto its back, breath gurgling. Peter quickly stepped aside, and she rushed past him into the darkened interior.

A rectangle of daylight fell across a smear of clothing and pale limbs squirming about as the infected struggled to rise. Without hesitation, she made a vicious diagonal overhand cut, sweeping the blade in the general direction of the undead farmer's head. There was a satisfying tug on her wrists, and the infected — an old man, possibly, from the look of its overalls and missing teeth — flopped once, and then lay still, blood pooling beneath it on a well-worn hardwood floor.

Olivia darted quick glances about the room. She was in a large living room, with a connected dining area on the far side. Sheer curtains hung with limp plasticity in front of the window out to the porch. Sitting across from an old tube TV cabinet was a leather recliner, seat cushion covered by a filthy quilt of red and gold patches. A matching couch and love seat of some dark fabric covered in clear plastic sat perpendicular to each other along the living room's perimeter. Faded paintings of flowers and countrysides adorned the walls. Nothing moved, but there was distinct thumping coming from the other side of the house.

"What is that?" Peter whispered, moving to her side. His sword was drawn also, and sunlight played along its keen edge.

She shook her head, listening, then headed for an open doorway on the far side of the space. The farmhouse smelled like the inside of a tomb, musty, with a hint of rot. More than a hint. As they moved further into the interior, the stench became potent enough to peel paint. Through the doorway was an old-fashioned kitchen, straight out of the nineteen-fifties, complete with cast iron stove and dingy white metal cabinets rusting around the edges. A set of worn wooden steps led upward on the left, and to the right was a narrow door she guessed led to the pantry.

It was all rather quaint, and charming. Or it would have been, if not for the massive pile of dishes in the sink spilling over onto the countertops, the rotting plates of food scattered about on the small kitchen table; or the thick board nailed across the pantry door from which the loud thuds and scrapes they had heard earlier were emanating.

"That's gonna get old," Peter muttered after a moment. He searched around the kitchen and came up with an old hammer from inside a junk drawer. Using the hook, he wrenched the board free, accompanied by a metallic screech. "You want to take it, or should I?"

"Be my guest," she said, reaching for the knob. She waited for Peter to ready himself, and then threw the door open, shielding herself with it as whatever was inside came lumbering out.

The infected was an old woman with pure white hair and wearing a flowered nightgown. Oblivious to the danger before it, the creature walked straight into Peter's horizontal slice. Olivia ducked as the mop of white hair and the head it was attached to spun through the air, sending thick filigrees of blood splattering across the ceiling and floor. Bouncing hollowly, the dead woman's head tumbled across the linoleum, before coming to a rest against the far wall, golden eyes blinking, teeth snapping silently open and closed. Unaware that its head was no longer resting atop its shoulders, the body took several more steps before collapsing in front of the kitchen sink, limbs twitching.

Olivia eyed Peter's handiwork with distaste. "Was that really necessary?" she said, raising an eyebrow. "No wonder you get so bloody all the time, Peter. And you didn't even kill it."

"What?" Holding his dripping sword out the side, he glanced down at himself. "Not a drop on me."

"This time...," she said under her breath, peering into the doorway the dead woman had exited. As she'd suspected, it was a pantry — and fully stocked with canned goods and other foodstuffs. An unopened box of corn flakes on the top shelf drew her gaze like a magnet. On the verge of salivating, she set the box aside on a counter for later. "C'mon, Zorro," she grinned, catching Peter's eye. "Let's check out the upstairs."

"Zorro...?" she heard Peter say as he clumped up the stairs behind her, treads creaking loudly beneath their boots. "Zorro? Hardly. Liv, Zorro was a fencer."

At the top of the steps was a dim hallway, with only a single pair of doors to either side. Olivia headed toward the door to the right, while Peter did the same, moving to the left. "You're thinking of Miyamoto Musashi," he continued, talking loud just to make sure she heard him, no doubt. "Or maybe Sasaki Kojiro. And unlike Zorro, they were actually real people, both historical badasses."

"Let me guess, you learned about them reading a book, right?" she called out, grinning as she walked into an empty master bedroom. She wrinkled her nose at the hideous floral strip of wallpaper running along the ceiling, then left the room behind, moving toward the sound of Peter's voice.

"Yep. Something like that," he was saying with a laugh from the other side of the second floor. "You should try it sometime, Agent Dunham."

She found him emerging from a closet in a plain spare bedroom, still chuckling, and couldn't help but grin as their eyes met. "Anything?"

"Nope. Not a soul. I guess it was just Mom and Pop." He glanced toward the doorway. "Well? What now, boss? Should we go find this farm? It's gotta be nearby."

Olivia considered, eyeing the daylight filtering in through the window beside the bed. What time was it? She looked outside and saw a pale glow behind the clouds, almost directly overhead. As she watched, the sun peeked out for a moment, banishing the dreariness. The drive north had taken almost no time at all. Stepping away from the window, she shook her head. "No, not yet. Let's wait until dusk, when we'll have some cover. Just in case. If there is someone there, they might have lookouts. I know I would."

"Then I guess we've got some time to kill," Peter said, shrugging as if it were all the same to him.

She watched covertly as he crossed over to the window, sword strapped across his back, scratching idly at his beard as he peered down at the overgrown yard below. Wetting her lips, she let her eyes roam over his profile, noting with pleasure that the horrid burn had mostly disappeared from his cheek, how the hair at the nape of his neck curled forward. He needed a haircut. Beneath his layers of clothes, he was thinner than he appeared, but still strong. She knew both firsthand, and had already mapped his curves and dips, his scars, blemishes from an adventurous youth, and an even more adventurous adulthood. There was one scar that was almost perfectly round along the inside of his hip near his pelvic bone — from what or when, he couldn't remember. He didn't know, but secretly she liked to run her fingers over that hard scar in particular, over the hard nub of flesh, but also over all of them. She liked touching all his old wounds, touching him; they were badges, experiences that helped make a person who they were. Like a form of braille, perhaps, and one that could be oddly sexual under the right circumstances, she'd discovered. Such as that moment.

Pulse quickening, Olivia found herself eying the bed, the rows of pillows tucked cleanly beneath the heavy quilts. They did have time to kill — and nothing to do but wait.

"So... what's the plan then?" Peter asked, finally turning from the window.

Unable to say out loud what she intended, Olivia made her way over to a wide dresser opposite the foot of the bed, with a gold-framed mirror mounted on the wall above it. She dipped her shoulder, and let the sheathed sword slide down her arm before laying it gently across the dresser's top. When she began unbuttoning her coat, she felt the scorch of Peter's gaze on the back of her neck. "I think we can find something to do... don't you?" she said softly.

The coat fell from her shoulders, settling on the floor about her ankles. Watching Peter in the mirror, a slow grin formed on his lips as she reached for the buttons of her blouse.

#

* * *

#

Much later, Peter woke from a strange dream.

He'd found himself running from an army of white-haired grandma's wielding crowbars and samurai swords. As the dregs of sleep began to dissipate, he could still hear their quavering voices, chanting, calling to him... What had it been? Something about keeping up? The phrase slipped away, taking the details of the dream with it, as he became aware of Olivia on the bed beside him. Carefully, so as not to disturb her, he turned on his side, propping his head on one elbow.

She was stretched out beside him, lying partially on her back with one arm tucked beneath her pillow, and the other brushing up against his thigh underneath the mound of quilts. Her chest rose and fell slowly, the whisper of her breath escaping between parted lips. Night had fallen in the interim, and a slash of moonlight fell across the bed. Her alabaster flesh seemed to glow, as if she were some otherworldly being — and he wasn't so sure she wasn't, after the heights they had scaled together. His eyes feasted on her still form. They had slept far longer than she'd intended, but he thought it might have done them both some good, if the peaceful look on her face was anything to go by.

Swallowing through a dryness in the back of his throat, he reached out, touching the sweeping curve of her bare hip beneath the covers. He dragged his fingers northward, lightly caressing skin like satin, up to her narrow waist, and then over the contours of her stomach, until he reached the swell of her breast, where he cupped his hand, continuing his northerly travel. When he reached its peak, her eyes flew open, searching out his face. She pressed his hand against her, and he soon felt her nipples begin to harden once more against his palm. Inhaling a moan, she arched her back, an incredible sight which turned the ripples of desire coursing through his veins into a raging torrent.

Olivia's hand moved beneath the covers, grasping. "Again, Peter?" Her fingers curled around him, stretching the boundaries of his self-control. "So soon?" Her eyes were closed, voice a high-pitched whisper.

Peter gasped at her touch. He trailed kisses along the base of her neck, then down to her shoulder blade, tasting her salt, nipping at her flesh. "So soon?" he murmured against her collarbone. "Sweetheart, we slept for hours." He glided his lips lower, searching out the base of her left breast, intent upon reaching its summit.

Suddenly Olivia sat up, shoving him away from her. "What...? Hours?" She threw the blankets back and swung her legs out of bed, then leaned forward, peering out the window at the moon's glowing disk. "Shit! Peter, why didn't you wake me up! I said dusk, not midnight." Her pale skin glowed as she leapt out of bed, rummaging about in the gloom for their clothes, which she tossed in a pile at the end of the bed.

Peter groaned and fell back on his pillow. "Aww, Olivia, you're killing me."

"I'm killing you?" she snorted, stepping into her underwear. "Not yet, Peter. You should have woken me up."

"Hey I just woke up myself," he said in his defense. "Right before you did. I swear." From the glare he received in return, it was clear she doubted the veracity of his story.

"Whatever...," she muttered, leaning forward to fit her bra in place before reaching around for the catch, in that way that only women knew how. When she was finished, she straightened and stared down at him, hands on hips, clad in nothing but a black bra and matching panties. The sight was a mirror image of the day after they'd met, when she'd been insistent on getting in a rusty tank of water while having her mind blown by a mega-dose of Walter's psychedelics. The effect had not diminished one iota. "Come on! We have to go, Peter!" she pleaded, throwing her hands out. "Now get your lazy butt up."

Peter blinked and sat up, coming out of his dazed fugue. No matter how many times he had seen her, watching her dress was mesmerizing. He thought he could spend eternity that way and not care a bit.

He flew into his clothes, but Olivia was faster, and was already hurrying out into the hallway as he finished pulling on his boots. Tying them as quickly as he could manage, he listened as she stomped down the steps to the first floor, heading without pause for the front of the house. The door was slamming shut as he finished, and he grabbed up his sword and raced to catch up.

Stepping out onto the front porch, a thrill of fear went through him when he didn't see her right away, but then he did, digging though their gear in the back of the truck. The temperature had dropped, adding a slight chill to the night air. Crickets chirped and chattered, their tunes leading the symphony of all the night creatures, all unconcerned that the world had come to an end. Taking a breath, he clumped down the steps to the yard.

"You think we need any lights?" she asked without looking back as he approached, gravel crunching beneath his feet. She strapped her pistol about her waist, buckling the holster low on her hip.

Peter lifted his gaze to the night sky. Most of the cloud cover had departed, and the moon was monolithic, huge, a rogue planet on a collision course. The yard and the gravel driveway were cast in a luminescent glow that appeared to emanate from everywhere at once. "I don't think light is gonna be a problem," he told her, continuing to stare upward. The googolplex of stars seemed limitless, gleaming with boundless depths, their radiance traveling forward through time, unending. "Kinda feels like we're in Alaska or Finland, someplace far north like that."

"Like a midnight sun," she agreed, turning to face him. "You need anything out of here? Your gun?"

He hesitated for several moments, considering, but then shook his head. "Nah, I'm good. Yours is enough, and there's this." He touched the sword hilt sticking up over his shoulder.

"Fair enough," Olivia said, slamming the truck's rear door shut.

They started eastward toward the rear of the property, passing by a thick patch of weeds that might have been a small garden at some point far in the past. Behind the barn was parked an ancient John Deere tractor, and Peter found himself wondering idly if it still worked. More than likely it did not — not without a lot of work, at least. Such was the way of tractors. Other farm equipment was parked here and there along the way, all shrouded in weeds and tall grasses; several plows, a hay baler, a wide brush hog and something else that was even larger he couldn't determine the use of in the dark. The unknown machinery looked like nothing more than a mechanical octopus, or perhaps a dead spider on its back, angular legs poking up through the tall grass.

Beyond the farm equipment a disjointed wooden fence marked the boundary of a coral or pasture of some sort, for horses, he supposed, though it had long since fallen into disuse. They passed through a gate sagging on one hinge, and were soon trudging through the former pasture, navigating by starlight. Ahead, the forest was a black wall rising above them. They reached the outer edge of trees and forced their way through a net of vines and dead ivy, draped like curtains in an opera house. Once inside the canopy of branches, their footsteps seemed to scream into the night, crunching through angle-deep layer of decaying leaves and twigs. Pungent aromas of earth and mold, along with something sickly sweet assaulted his nose. And much to his relief, and hers, he suspected, unlike the forests outside of Boston, not a single infected made its presence known.

After a while, as they passed through a thinner area of the forest where the trees had larger gaps between them, Olivia began to speak.

"When I was a girl, there were these woods behind our house," she said in a reminiscent tone. "They were sort of like these woods, not truly a forest, but just a big stretch of undeveloped land between neighborhoods. I made a lot of trails through them, courses and switchbacks that I had mapped out in my head."

"You ride your bike down them?" Peter said, eyeing her sideways. His own childhood came to mind; BMX bikes and ramps and races and wiping out, knees and knuckles bloodied, his mother's frantic eyes when he'd walk into the kitchen.

"Sometimes, during the day. But what I really liked to do, was to wait until the sun went down. And then I'd run through them all on foot, as fast as I could go." She met his gaze for a moment, and he thought she might be smiling. "No flashlights allowed, of course. I remember there was something so exhilarating about those runs. Maybe I was daring the world to stop me. This was after we moved away from the base, but before what happened with my stepfather. I guess it was kind of an escape, also."

"I think I may have done something similar," he said, stepping up onto a fallen tree trunk that was nearly waist high. He reached back, offering a hand to Olivia, then pulled her up beside him. "But it was at this lake house we used to have in upstate New York," he continued as they hopped down on the other side. "I had a fort we'd built out in the woods, up in a tree, with wooden steps nailed to the trunk, and the whole bit. I used to sit up there for hours, mostly just to get out of the house, away from Walter. It wasn't very nice — or at all safe, I might add — just some two-by-fours and plywood we had nabbed from a new house under construction nearby. But it was ours, and a secret, or so we'd thought, at least. One day we found it on the ground, in pieces. Fucking older kids, always causing trouble."

"Who was we?"

"Some kid whose parent owned a house down the street from ours," Peter paused, trying to summon the boy's name from the depths of his childhood. What had it been? He dug for it, but the name refused to come, stuck as it was in the far recesses of memory. He blew a frustrated breath. "I can't remember his name. We were about the same age, though. Friends of convenience, I guess. We only ever saw each other when we were there at the same time, which wasn't that often, maybe two, three times a summer. I figure his parents must have sold their house or something, 'cause eventually I never saw him again."

"I didn't have many of those," Olivia said shortly.

"What? Friends of convenience?" he said, glancing down at her.

She shook her head. "No. Just friends." Peter didn't know what to say to that, so he said nothing. After a moment, she continued in a somber tone. "I told you how I always felt different when I was a kid, that I felt apart somehow. It wasn't just a feeling — and we know why know, of course — but I think the other kids could maybe sense that I was different, too. Maybe in what I said, or didn't say. I don't think I laughed much back then. And after my stepfather, it was even worse. The kids at my school all knew what had happened, what I'd done. They didn't care about why. To say it didn't go over well would be putting it lightly."

"Kids can be cruel," he agreed, thinking back to his adolescence, before he'd started growing taller instead of wider. "Crueler than adults, sometimes."

"Tell me about it. We ended up moving around for a while, Mom and Rachel and I. Apartments, mostly, different schools every year. Then my mom got sick. We moved to Chicago because there was some specialist there, but... it was already too late. After she died and we went to live with my aunt, the kids at the boarding she sent me to used to call me Han."

"Han? As in Solo?"

"Yeah. I suppose I might have been a bit aloof. Maybe."

Peter winced, ducking beneath a low-hanging branch. "Well, you could do worse for nicknames," he told her, nudging her side with his elbow. "You should have heard what they called me back in middle school. Remember the overweight kid everyone made fun of at your school? That was me, before I hit puberty, at least."

"So I gathered from Walter's opening statement, back at St. Claire's," she said, grinning visibly in the moonlight.

He wondered how she could speak Walter's name without becoming furious. Just thinking about his father and what he'd done to Olivia — and to who knew how many others — was enough to put him in a bad mood. _And what if he's dead? You gonna hate him forever?_ He brushed the thought aside. How he not could, after what he had done? He gave Olivia an oblique glance. "If you ever see my father again, have you thought about what you'd say to him?"

She met his gaze for a moment, shrugging. "Some. A little. Most of the time I try not to think about it. I guess I'd want to hear his explanation. If he had one."

"Suppose he had one that made a bizarre kind of sense, from his point of view, at least. Could you ever forgive him?"

Olivia snorted. "Could you, if you were me?"

Peter didn't have an answer to that, not right away. Mulling the question over, he spied an oddly dark slash of ground ahead, at the bottom of an incline they'd been descending for some time. On the far slope, the forest rose up again, and he thought the trees might be thinner there, possibly a clearing at the top of the next rise. Then their progress came to a halt. The dark spot he'd noticed before resolved into a jagged creek, crowded with detritus of past flooding. Branches and twigs and logs all wedged into a narrow space. Water trickled somewhere beneath the debris, out of sight. They climbed carefully over the refuse, cringing at every pop and snap when twigs and sticks gave way beneath their weight, and then made a short leap to the other side.

"I'm not sure I can forgive him," he said finally, as they resumed their leisurely pace. "Even as myself, much less as you. Hold up second." On an impulse, he took Olivia's hand, pulling her to a stop. "I guess... I guess what I'm saying is, is that whatever you decide, I'm right there with you, Olivia. If we see him again."

"I already knew that, Peter," she said in a quiet voice, peering up at him intently. "I never thought otherwise. Not for a second."

Staring down at her, his breath caught in his throat as moon rays filtering down through the trees bathed her in a silver light. The sight burned into the backs of his eyes, into his soul. A lump formed in his throat. He wet his lips, swallowing. His earlier thought of telling her echoed inside his head. _There would never be a right time_. They would never be more alone than they were right then, at that moment. And while it wasn't a candlelit dinner or a walk in the park, or even romantic in any way, it would have to do.

His heart began to pound, his stomach doing furious somersaults. "Olivia...," he began, rubbing a sudden kink in the back of his neck. The noise in the forest was deafening, his voice hoarse, like a man dying of thirst. Taking in a deep breath, he started again. "Liv, I know you already know this, but, before we met... before you brought me back here, I wasn't a good person."

"Peter," she broke in, shaking her head, "And I told you, I don't care-"

"No let me finish," he said, and pressed his palm against her cheek. "I know you say you don't care what I did before. But I care. Before you barged into my life, I wasn't a good person, and I never wanted to be, I never tried to be. Good people were marks. Good people were naive, ripe for the picking by people like me. I preyed on them. You understand?" She nodded, eyes huge. "But... that all changed with you. You were so... resolute? Stubbornly determined to do the right thing, maybe. At first I thought it had to be an act, that you had to be like me, playing the system somehow. After all, you threw a pretty good bluff to get me back here. There had to be an angle, or so I thought.

"But then you got into that tank for John Scott. You were willing to trust my father — who, is actually clinically insane, by the way — and you were willing to risk dying for the man you loved. And believe me, I thought the chance of you dying in there was the most likely outcome. That was when I knew I was wrong about you. I wanted to be that man. Not at first, but eventually, once I got to know you, even in spite of John, who hated me by the way, just in case you weren't aware. And everything you've done since then proves it to me, over and over." He took in a breath, filling his lungs. Olivia's face was unreadable, though he felt a slight tremor run through her. "Olivia, I've never met anyone like you before, anyone that can do the things you do. And I've never met anyone that made me want to be a better person, a better man, as utterly cliché as that sounds. But it's the truth."

Peter paused, gulping, attempting to work moisture back into his mouth which felt like an arid desert. His stomach continued to churn, twisting itself into knots. Below him, Olivia's face was frozen, a fixture of shocked surprise. Inhaling, he plunged onward. "And... and what I'm really trying to get at, is that, this thing between us..." The words caught in his throat for an instant before he finally got them out, voice cracking.

"Well... I love you, Olivia Dunham," he said in a rush, the clamor of his heart filling the inside of his head. "I'm in love with you." Her mouth dropped open, eyes bulging wide. Throwing up his hands, he shook his head and spoke quickly. "You don't have to say it back, in fact I hope you don't, 'cause if you're going to say it, I want you to say it someday when you're ready to — if you're ready to, not just 'cause I did. Does that make sense?" She nodded again, covering her mouth, and he saw a tear glisten down her cheek. He was starting to ramble now, but he couldn't stop, not until he was sure she understood him. "I guess I've been wanting to tell you that for a while now, but... it was never the right time. It finally occurred to me tonight that there would never be a right time, that with what happened at the lab, I just had to tell you, just in case one of us-"

Olivia made any further speech impossible, stopping his voice with her mouth. She pressed herself hard against him, lifting up on her toes, yanking his head down to meet her. Peter plied his lips against hers, tasting her tongue, taking in her air. The world outside grew distant, the night noises, the faint chill in the air, their mission. All that remained was her lips, the hiss of her breath, and the blood rushing through his ears. His hands were on her hips, moving beneath her coat despite him having no memory of putting them there. After an eternity, she pulled away, breathing hard, dragging her nails across his cheek.

The world came rushing back. They were in a deserted forest, standing beneath the stars and a moonlit sky. Perhaps it was romantic, after all.

"I guess there's no time like the present, is there?" she whispered, rubbing her forehead against his cheek. Her body trembled. "Oh, you make me happy, Peter. So happy, in spite of everything that's happened. But... I can't tell you the same, and not because I don't want to," she added quickly, to his great relief. "Because I do, but because, the last time I told a man I loved him, it was like a curse. I can't do that again, not when we're in the middle of all this... shit. Do you understand?" She rubbed her eyes with two fingers as she spoke, blinking rapidly. "It's not because I don't want to. I do."

Peter caught something desperate in her voice, a kind of fear, a kind of urgency that he understand. And he did. His heart felt as if might burst. It didn't matter that she was talking about John. This wasn't about him; it was about them.

He nodded, and kissed her again, softer than before, lighter. Like his body felt, as if he might float away at any moment. The sensation was one he couldn't ever recall experiencing before, not in his thirty years of life. He pulled back, dropping another kiss onto her forehead. "I understand," he said into her hair. "Whenever you're ready. I can wait forever if I have to."

"I think I can manage that," Olivia murmured. "Forever is a long time." She stepped away from him, dragging her coat sleeves across her eyes. Peter found that his own cheeks were wet, something he would have deemed impossible that morning. "C'mon, Peter. Let's get this over with," she said, taking his hand. "Turns out I'm not quite done with you yet tonight."

Unable to stop himself from grinning like a fool, he followed her up the hill.

#

The forest came to an abrupt end as they crested the rise. Ahead was an open field, surrounded by trees on all sides. Row upon row of some harvested crop lay close the ground. The rows had been orderly once, but now lay in wilted ruin.

Peter stepped out into the open. Squatting, he examined one of the dead leaves, then yanked it from the soil by its center stalk. Dangling in the middle of a mass of roots were several baseball sized lumps. "Potatoes," he said, and held them to Olivia, who had crouched down beside him. "An entire field of potatoes. Too bad they're all rotten." He wondered why they'd never been harvested, but supposed the question was moot. Nose twitching at the stink rising from the oblong vegetables, he tossed them aside and rose to his feet, wiping his hands on his jeans. "Which way now?" he asked, glancing around. Even as the words left his mouth, the answer was readily apparent

Olivia was already moving. She threw a hand to the north, where a faint light was visible through the trees. "There," she said in a tone that was all business. "Let's go. Hurry, Peter."

Trotting northward, they crossed over the potato field, then passed through a dense copse of trees, only to find another potato field on the other side. On the far side of the second field was another tree line, outlined by a halo of distant light set low to the ground on the other side. They headed toward the light, moving faster with every step until they were going at a flat out sprint.

Olivia raced ahead of him, skirting the rows of untended crops, long ponytail streaming out behind her like the tail of a comet. Reaching the tree line ahead of him, she slowed, ducking inside. Peter angled for the spot where she had disappeared, shielding his face from the snarl of branches. The tree line was barely thick enough to deserve the name, little more than ten paces deep. Moving further inside, he came close to trampling Olivia, who had thrown herself flat in the brush, and was peering over the top of a low incline. He dropped down beside her, shoving weeds and sprouting saplings from his field of view.

"This has to be it, Peter," she hissed, voice tinged with excitement. "It has to be. Look at that. It's just like Charlene Watson said."

Across another wide field were rows of long greenhouses, set slightly at an angle from their vantage. There were at least ten visible, squat and triangular-shaped, the greenhouses resembled tents from a distance, albeit extremely large tents and oddly rigid. One was larger than the others, taller and wider, with a roof that was curved at its apex instead of pointed. Their translucent skin glowed softly, lit from within. Beyond the greenhouses were a series of interconnected buildings, the largest of which was a farmhouse at least three stories tall, and clearly older, with a sharply-peaked roof broken up by gabled windows. Several windows in the big house had lights on inside, and they were real lights, Peter noted with shocked surprise. Not candles. Had Charlene Watson mentioned they had power? He couldn't recall, but thought not. Surrounding the entire area was a tall, chain-linked fence, topped with barbed-wire angled outward, the sort used to keep deer out of a particular area.

Off to their right, near what must be the main road, stood a tall grain silo, rounded on top. For an instant, Peter thought a shadow was moving up near the base of the silo's dome, but then dismissed it as a trick of the dim light. Returning his gaze to the array of greenhouses, he frowned.

"How the hell are they powering all those lights?" The question was more to himself, but he said it out loud anyway.

"A generator, maybe?" Olivia said, shifting against his side.

Peter thought for a moment. It didn't seem right. And then they why of it struck it him. "Maybe, but... that's a lot of light, a lot of power, Olivia. Those greenhouses have to have some kind of electric heat in them if they expect to grow anything in the dead of winter. So if they have a generator, why can't we hear it running?"

"Maybe... it's inside somewhere," she reasoned. "A garage or a basement or something."

"That's the thing. It can't be. A generator the size they would need is as big as a small car, minimum. They're usually mounted on a trailer, and the really big ones have to be set in place by a crane. We'd hear something. It'd chug like a diesel freight train. They could spend all their time siphoning gas and they'd still run out."

Olivia was quiet for a moment. "Then what else could it be?"

"I don't have a clue." He kept his eyes peeled on the translucent walls. Were they getting brighter? No, not brighter, but something wasn't quite right, something in conflict with what he knew about electrical power systems. The light inside the greenhouses was pulsing, as if they were on a dimmer and someone was modulating the knob, ever so slowly.

"Well... I don't care how they're getting their power," Olivia stated after several moments. "Charlene Watson's son was right. Someone wanted their greenhouses, Peter. Enough to let the infected inside, and make it look like an accident."

"Maybe, but why would anyone bother?" he argued. "Why would they go through the trouble? I mean, there's no law enforcement to speak of — except for yours truly — so there's no one around to put on a show for. It would have been easier to just go in and kill them all while they were sleeping and be done with it."

"I don't know. Crap. That makes sense, too," she said, sounding irritated by his logic. "Wait. Unless... unless it was for the benefit of their own people! Maybe not everyone in their group would have been on board for wholesale murder. Think about it, Peter. Not all of them can be psychotics. There have to be some normal people left, people unwilling to kill in cold blood. Maybe there are only just a few of them, and not enough to risk taking out Charlene and her people on their own. So they needed help. How hard would it be lure a horde this way? All you'd need is a flashlight, and persistence."

"And they get the infected to do their work for them," Peter finished for her. "All the while watching from a safe distance, of course. And then they could either lure the dead out, or just close the gate again and pick them off one by one."

He shook his head. When put side by side with Charlene Watson's story, it all fit together. He supposed the visiting stranger had been trying to entice them to leave on their own, with word of a sanctuary to the south. But why would they? They had everything they needed here. He glanced at the woman lying beside him. It was easy to be impressed by her reasoning and analytics, her ability to form a complete picture with only the barest outline of an image to start with. It was even easier to see why Broyles had placed her in charge of Fringe Division, over more experienced agents. And why he had fallen in love with her. That was easiest of all.

"Listen!" she suddenly hissed, grabbing his arm.

Peter cocked his head and heard the distinctive whine of an engine cranking over somewhere nearby. A moment later it roared to life and a pair of headlight beams exposed the side of a wide barn. Squeaks from a suspension linkage in need of grease rang out, and the outline of a truck rolled into view from where it had been parked out of sight. The truck swung around, heading toward an open gate spanning a gray strip that had to be the driveway out to the main street.

A deep bellow rang out, and the driver of the truck hit the brakes, skidding in the gravel before the gate. Then a black silhouette appeared from behind a building, and ran up alongside the stopped truck. The mumble of distant voices stretched across the field. Peter tried to pick out words, but all he got was the impression of instructions being given, perhaps orders. A moment later the truck roared off, spitting up gravel and dust as it turned onto the main road, heading north as the gate swung shut behind it.

He waited until the taillights had disappeared before turning to Olivia. "I wonder what that was about."

"Whatever it was, they sure were in a hurry," she replied, sounding troubled. The scream of the engine was still fading in the distance, bouncing off the surrounding countryside as it wound through the upper gears. "Still, they headed north, so I doubt it has anything to do with us."

"You still think these people are part of the same group that's in Worcester? Seems like an awfully long way to come, just for greenhouses. There's gotta be some closer, down south, I would think."

Olivia grunted. "Or they're just thinking ahead. And while we don't have enough information to draw a real conclusion, we do have Charlene's story. It could all be coincidence, but my gut tells me it's not. But either way, I don't see any way of finding out, short of going in there and questioning them."

"Yeah. I'm sure that'd go over well," Peter muttered. "So what then? You want to leave? Head back south to Worcester. We don't know everything, but we do know enough to be on our guard."

For a while, she didn't answer, and he could sense her racing thoughts, the dissatisfaction with loose ends coming off her in waves. After a minute or two, she sighed, and rose to her feet. Peter clambered upright beside her, and they stood together atop the low hill overlooking the field, giving the farm one more look before leaving.

The man who'd been giving orders to the driver of the truck had vanished. Was it just the two of them? Or were there more inside the house? At some point he had missed, the lights inside the big house had all turned off.

"As much as I'd like to know what's going on here," Olivia said quietly, "our real business is back south. For now, we head back to Worcester, to this sanctuary." Turning to face him, her voice dropped to a whisper. "I hope you're right, Peter. I hope more than anything you're right, that our people are there, waiting for us. But if they're not..." She turned away without finishing, leaving the rest unsaid.

Peter threw one more look toward the complex of greenhouses and their silent power source, then retraced his steps back to the potato field. Olivia joined him a moment later, and surprised him by reaching out and taking his hand. They walked that way for a while beneath the starry sky, in silence, fingers clasped together.

"So you are satisfied?" he asked as they neared the edge of the next tree line. "With coming here, I mean," he added, as the twelve-year-old inside him snickered.

"No. Not really," she replied, sounding dour. "But we don't always get what we want, do we?"

"Most of the time? No. Not in my experience, at least." Chuckling, he bumped his shoulder against hers. There was an opening in her words, and in an effort to lighten her mood, he took it. "I got you though."

Olivia stopped and faced him, cocking her head. "You did, huh? You sure about that, Bishop?"

Her face was cast in shadow, but something in her voice told him he'd accomplished his mission. There was a smile in there somewhere, he could hear it. "Yep. Pretty sure, Agent Dunham," he said nodding sagely.

"Hmm. Then I guess we'll find out, shortly."

Before he could ask what she meant, she was gone, blazing a path full tilt between the rows of dead potato plants. Peter gaped as she sped away from him, her lithe form rapidly receding into the twilight.

_What is she doing_? It wasn't quite the reaction he'd been hoping for. And then it came to him. She loved running at night; she'd just told him so, and was daring him to chase her. Well, he would just have to make do. Gathering himself, he took off after her, tearing a path through the potato plants.

They raced by the moon's light, the two of them, running like children, crashing through the underbrush, leaping over fallen logs and dodging tree trunks and low branches reaching down to ensnare. At first he had worried they might miss some landmark and become lost in the spotty darkness, but Olivia seemed to know right where she was going. The chill in the air was exhilarating, even more so as he came abreast of her as they exited the forest, neck and neck. She'd had him beat for sure, but his longer legs had aided him at the creek crossing, where with a little bit of luck, he had found a spot just narrow enough to leap across, making up for his lost time. Now, he almost had her.

The old farmhouse gleamed in the moonlight as they tore across the pasture with the sagging gate. Side by side, he and Olivia loped, chests heaving, boots stomping through the tall grasses. Peter shot glances Olivia's way between breaths, and saw her smiling, grinning like a madwoman. She met his gaze for an instant and laughed, and then, to his weary disbelief, drew from some well of strength she'd held in reserve and charged ahead, leaving him in her dust.

#

She was waiting on the front porch when he arrived a minute or so later, sitting serenely with her legs crossed, as if they hadn't just run a marathon. Her sword was lying across her lap, and she bent over it, examining its edge.

"Well, that was fun, wasn't it?" she said, looking up and grinning as he approached. She slid the blade back in its sheathe. "We should do that again sometime."

"Fun...?" Peter said between gasps for air. His legs wobbled and shook, muscles burning from his thighs down to his ankles. "If you... say so... Liv," he panted. "Next time... how about you give me some warning you're about to have a childhood reversion, or better yet, a head start."

Rising to her feet, Olivia shook her head. "A head start?" she scoffed. "Now where's the fun in that, Peter?" She held out her hand, capturing his gaze. "C'mon, there's a bed waiting for us upstairs, and I... believe we still have a date, if you're up for it. Today is still today. Tomorrow we can go back to reality."

Now how could he argue with that kind of logic? Following her inside, he found that he did indeed have his own well of strength to draw from. He passed by the dead infected on the living room floor without even seeing it, nor the head staring up at them from the kitchen floor, or horrific stink that permeated the kitchen.

"Here, take this," Olivia said, abruptly stopping and pressing her sword into his hand. "I uh... I gotta go pee, and I want to grab some food. I'll be up in just a second."

Peter nodded, grinning. If there was more light, he was sure he'd see red plastered across her cheeks. "Sure thing. I'll be upstairs."

He stepped by her, then bounded up the stairs to the second floor. Below, he heard what must be the bathroom door open, followed by a choked gasp that turned into a heaving cough. Wincing at Olivia's misfortune, he entered the spare bedroom, imagining what kind of surprise she had discovered waiting in the bathroom. Her light footsteps headed rapidly toward the front of the house, where the front door banged open. He heard her step out onto the front porch, and then a few minutes later, the door opened again, and her booted treads echoed loudly in the farmhouse's silence.

Wondering what kind of food she might return with, he laid her sword across the wide dresser, and then placed his beside it. The corn flakes? That was a bet he'd take anywhere. But what else would she surprise him with? His stomach ached at the thought of food. When was the last time he'd even eaten more than a snack? Was it the peanut butter? Or had that been two days ago? How fucked up had their lives become that he couldn't even remember what or when he'd eaten last?

In the mirror, the crumpled sheets lay partway on the floor, where Olivia had flung them earlier in her haste. Grinning, he shrugged off his leather coat and tossed it aside, then pulled his shirt over his head, letting it drop on the floor. Shivering in the cold air, he moved to the window, spreading the curtains wider.

The moon had shifted its position in the night sky, but there was still just enough light to see by. Returning to the dresser, he leaned forward, peering at his shadowed face in the mirror. The burn on his cheek was all but gone, much to his relief — and to Olivia's, more than likely — and it healed better than expected. Moving on to his shoulder, he ran his fingers over the now-familiar knots of scar tissue, examining both the front and back, feeling along the ridge's outlines. Olivia had seemed especially interested in the exit wound as she'd sat astride him that afternoon, leaving no part of him untouched. He hoped to return the favor shortly.

Frowning, he turned away from the dresser, wondering what she was doing and why it was taking her so long. He realized that he could no longer hear her moving below, and that the farmhouse seemed preternaturally still.

"Liv?" he called out. "You okay? You need any help? I got two hands, you know."

He waited for her reply, but there was none. Instead, there came an odd thump from somewhere, possibly outside, and then the creak of a loose tread on the stairwell. Peter stiffened at the sound, and was about to call out again, but her name died on his lips as another creak echoed in the silence. There was a pause, then another creak, then another, closer. Higher.

The air in the spare bedroom turned solid, freezing in his lungs. Alarms began to blare inside his head, shrieks of warning. Something was wrong. The footsteps were not at all like Olivia's determined stride over familiar ground, not unless she was playing some kind of game. And she wouldn't, not then, nor that kind of game. No, these footsteps were timid, testing. Unfamiliar with the terrain.

Which meant it wasn't her at all.

It was someone else.

Peter's mind went into high gear as the creaks came to a stop. They had reached the top of the stairs, and were now deciding which door to approach first. Tensing, he guessed they would turn right, toward the master bedroom, as right-handed people were prone, and most people were right-handed. An instant later he was proven correct when careful footsteps headed the opposite way. There was no satisfaction to be found however, only time gained, a few precious seconds, possibly a minute or two at most before he was discovered. Whoever it was, they were already inside the house, already knew he was somewhere on the second floor. And there was one other certainty.

Olivia had already fallen to them.

But she wouldn't have gone down without a fight, would she? Surely not. Yet he'd heard nothing, nothing at all. Had they hurt her?

Had they killed her?

_Oh god... Olivia..._

His vision blurred and he covered his mouth, fingernails digging into the flesh of his cheeks. If she was dead... He shook his head, denying the possibility. It couldn't be. He would know. He would feel it, wouldn't he?

And then another possibility struck, battering his senses like a hammer blow.

They'd walked into an ambush. How they'd been discovered he didn't know, nor did he care at that moment. Whoever was out there, they had been waiting for them to return, waiting for the right moment to spring their trap. When the two of them were separated. There was only one reason he could think of to do so: their intent was not to kill, but to capture.

They were taking her. Taking her away from him.

White heat pooled behind Peter's eyes, tinting his vision red. A scream gathered in his lungs. The urge to rush out of the room and tear whoever was out there apart was like a pair of hands shoving him from behind. He quashed them both ruthlessly, gaining the upper hand on the rage building in his chest.

He had to be cold. Calm. He had to use his brain to get out of this, or at least gain the upper hand. There could be multiple people in the house, in the hallway. Rushing out would only get him killed, or caught also. And neither would help Olivia, if she was still alive.

_She has to be alive_. She has to. The thought looped through his mind like a worn-out CD, skipping endlessly. He ignored it, for now. Or tried to.

The only way was to turn the ambush, to lull their attacker into a false sense of security, of success. They were undoubtedly armed with a gun — they would be fools not to be. And if they had managed to take Olivia without a sound then they were certainly no fools. He had no gun, however, only a fucking samurai sword, and almost no room to use it. Rapidly he took stock of what else he had.

Their backpacks lay on the floor in front of the dresser. He snatched up the nearest, which turned out to be Olivia's. In the main pocket all he found were spare clothes and undergarments, a bent and wrinkled photo he couldn't make out, and a nearly empty pill bottle. That was it. Nothing at all he could use. She had packed light, apparently. As he went to toss the bag aside, he felt something hard and round through the fabric. A knife? He dug into the front pocket and came away with a small maglight instead. Spinning the lens, he tested the batteries, then shoved it into his back pocket, uncertain how it might be used.

Out in the hall, the footsteps were returning. Slowly. Carefully.

There was no time. Peter's eyes flew around the room, and fell on the window with its curtains spread wide, the slash of moonlight on the floor. An idea began to form.

Darkness. Surprise. Distraction.

Lunging to the other side of the bed, he ripped the curtains closed, blanketing the room in blackness. His footsteps had been loud on the hardwood floor, but the time for hiding was past. Feeling his way back to the dresser, he wedged himself into the space between it and the door, which he pushed closed until it rested against the jamb. Breath rasping in his ears, he felt around on the dresser top until he found a sword hilt. He picked it up, turning it over and sliding the razor-sharp blade from its sheathe.

It was the crucial moment.

Swallowing, he took in a huge breath, then let it out slowly. "Liv, what took you so long?" he called out, attempting to keep his voice, light, unaware. If he'd been at audition, he would have been laughed off the stage, but it had served his purpose. "Hurry up, babe, I got a surprise for you. You're gonna love it."

Out in the hall, the footsteps paused, and then resumed their measured pace.

His would-be attacker was right outside the door. Right on the other side of the wall. Reaching out with one hand, he felt for the moment when the door began to open. His eyes were starting to adjust, enough for him to see a faint rectangle of light around the window, the white of sheets, the rumpled covers at the foot of the bed. It had to be enough.

The door began to move, ever so slowly turning back inward. Snarling silently, he raised the sword, holding it close to his chest and gripping the silk-covered hilt with fingers like iron. For a moment only, a part of him clung to the hope that it was Olivia, that she was just playing some odd game, the kind of game she'd never once hinted at being interested in. But then he peeked around the edge of the door and saw a shadow shaped like a man edging into the room.

Odd protuberances extruded from where the man's face should be. Peter started, momentarily letting the sword dip. _What the fuck?_ His mind conjured images of hideous deformities, that sort that made small children scream.

For a heartbeat, utter confusion reigned, but then he recognized what he was seeing. Not deformities, but something strapped to the fellow's head, something far more indisidious. Goggles? No. Night vision.

_Fuck._

He had seen such headgear before, on the other side of the world. The man could fucking see! Like he was in green-tinted daylight. No wonder they had taken Olivia with such ease. _Fuck. Fuck._

A new plan was in order, and quickly. But there was no time, seconds at best before he was discovered. Improvising, he snatched the flashlight from his pocket and twisted it on with his teeth, then tossed it across the room.

The flashlight spun through the air, white beam cutting wide swaths through the darkness. It crashed into the wall beside the bed and winked out, even as the stranger whirled with surprising speed, and deafening gunshots ripped holes through plaster. The window behind the curtain exploded. Plaster dust filled the air, percolating down in a fine must through a faint halo of light.

With a wordless growl, Peter stepped out of the corner and charged, control slipping for an instant, rage taking hold. He swung the sword like a club, intending to split the bastard's head down the middle. The blade swooshed through the dimness. Metal clashed, sparks flying, as a jolt traveled up both his arms. The fucking goggles! His assailant cried out, recoiling tearing the goggles off his head. At the same moment, the gun fired wildly up into the ceiling, raining more plaster down. He stepped to one side, making an awkward slash at the dark shape in front of him, and felt the blade cut into flesh. There was a gasp of pain, and then a heavy thud that could only be a gun clattering to the floor.

A fist flew out of the blackness, grazing his cheek. He slashed again and felt only air. Before he could recover, the shadowed man rushed forward. A broad shoulder slammed into his chest, driving him backward into the doorjamb.

Peter's head rung like a gong. His vision doubled in on itself, and for a heartbeat, his lungs felt as if they'd collapsed. He fought for air, and a heavy fist smashed into his sternum, followed by a right hook that nearly unhinged his jaw. White motes danced before his eyes. The sword slipped from fingers suddenly without feeling, and hands like manacles clamped about his neck.

The hands began to squeeze with incredible force. Tearing at them with little effect, he heard a faint choking sound and realized that it was him. The fellow was inhumanely strong, like wrestling with the Terminator. _Olivia, I might be in trouble here..._ The thought was distant, possibly someone else's, someone drowning at the bottom of an ocean. He fought for air, eyes bulging open wide, staring into the shadowed face of his attacker. Dimly, he noted a square jaw covered in thick stubble, largish ears that seemed to stick straight out. The world darkened. _Help, I'm getting my ass kicked by Dumbo..._

Suddenly Dumbo let out a bestial roar, and Peter felt his feet lift off the floor. Then he was flying, soaring through the air like a bird. His flight seemed to last both forever, and no time at all.

Pain exploded across his back. Glass shattered in his ear, sharp pinpricks stabbing into his left flank. Somehow he was on a narrow ledge. In daze, he tried to rise and found himself falling through the air. The floor reached up and smacked him in the face, but at least he could breathe again. The tang of iron and copper filled his mouth. He spat out a mouthful of blood, taking in huge gasps of air. Awareness returned, and with it, pain. His body hurt, everywhere, as if he'd taken a joyride in a washer's spin cycle.

In the moment's respite, two thoughts occurred to him: his plan had not been a good one; and unless he pulled off a Rocky Balboa, and soon, he was never going to see Olivia, or anyone else, again.

A boot crashed into Peter's ribcage, driving him onto his back. Spikes of agony stabbed through his chest. Groaning, on the verge of fainting, he managed to crawl forward, until his head rung off the wall, wrenching his neck. In a panic, he rolled to the side, rolling, rolling through the near pitch-blackness until he crashed into something hard and blocky, rocking it back and forth, sending shards of glass showering down on his back. The dresser. He was back where he'd started.

Time seemed to slow down, the moments between heartbeats filled with agony. His throat felt crushed in a vice, his chest like the majority of his ribs broken. Holding himself still, he hoped the bastard couldn't see him in the darkness, which now seemed slightly less dark than before.

"You think you can hide from me, boy?" a deep voice with a plain Midwestern accent said suddenly. "There's nowhere to go, and we already got your girlfriend." There was a pause, the rustle of clothing. "What is this, a fucking toy sword? Jesus. It'll make a nice souvenir, though."

A dull thud echoed in the hallway; the sword Peter guessed, tossed out of the room. He inched painfully away from the voice, praying the darkness still provided some cover. His body felt broken. Maybe he could find the gun the fellow had dropped. It had to be nearby. It had to. Pushing the pain aside, he scooted forward across the floor, until his hand landed on top of something hard and round. No, it was shaped like an oval. A tube. He felt along its length until he came to a flat disk, and then something wrapped in a soft fabric. Silk.

The other sword.

A wave of desperate giddiness stole through him, not dissimilar from a dose of ecstasy he'd once taken at a nightclub in London. How the sword had come to be there, he didn't know. Perhaps some god he knew didn't exist had chosen that moment to smile down on him anyway. He hugged the weapon to his chest, heart thudding like a drum. Now, he just had to draw it, then ram it through the son of a bitch's heart. Keeping hold of the hilt, he began sliding the sheathe free of the blade, inch by inch exposing naked steel.

Eyes wide, he searched the darkness for his attacker, and saw a glint of metal off to his right, reflecting the faintest light from the curtained window as the fellow moved nearby.

He held his breath, continuing his work.

"That blonde bitch put up a hell of a fight," the big man said, as he searched the room. "More than you did, boy. I think I busted her head. She looked nice though. Underneath all that blood. Them tits were a real nice handful, you know what I mean? Not too big, not too small." He let out a laugh, laced with cruelty. "You know what I mean, don't you?"

_Olivia!_ Peter screamed inside his head. Then the blade was free. He said a prayer of thanks to his non-existent god and rolled onto his back, ignoring the whips of fire that lashed along his spine.

"It's too bad she's going into the grid," the voice continued, drawing close to him again. A foot treaded right beside him, close enough to stir the air. A shadow moved in the center of the room, turning this way and that, before crossing over to curtains and throwing them wide, bathing the room in moonlight. "But a woman like that? They don't come around often these days. Maybe I can have some fun with her first. They won't mind. They never have before. You'd like that, wouldn't you? Too bad you won't be able to watch." The man turned around, searching the dimness. With the open window behind him, his face was veiled in darkness. "There you are, boy. You ready to take your medicine?" His hand moved near his belt, and then a knife blade flashed, catching light from the window. "Hold still, now. It won't take but a minute."

Forcing himself upright, Peter climbed to his feet opposite faceless man, hiding the sword against his leg. "Come get me then," he hissed, breathing hard through his nose. "Come get me you fucking coward."

With an incoherent roar, the man charged. The knife blade flashed like a glittering whirlwind. Peter waited until the man was almost on him, then lifted the sword, thrusting it forward in the same motion.

"Gahhh...!" The wordless roar turned into a shriek.

The shadowed man's weight struck Peter like a freight train, and the shriek transformed into a long, drawn out squeal as they crashed together. Pain erupted in his left side as the fellow's weight drove him onto his back, head rebounding off the floor. Propped above him, the man groped at the sword passing through his chest as he slowly slid downward the blade, until they were face to face. Almost like they were lovers.

Peter's breath hissed, and a trickle of a hot liquid dribbled over his left hand, still gripping the sword hilt wedged between them. "Looks like...you're the one that won't be around to watch," he whispered into the stranger's ear. He twisted the sword savagely and felt the blade grind against something solid, then grinned as the trickle of blood became a hot rush, drenching his arm and abdomen. "You like that?" he said through gritted teeth. "It feels good, doesn't it?"

The big man shuddered and gasped atop him, then let out a long, rasping exhale. With a grunt, he heaved the man to one side. Whether or not the fellow was dead or alive, he didn't know, nor care. Time was running out, and Olivia's name was written on the backs of his eyeballs. They had hurt her, and maybe bad. If she was dead, the world was going to burn, what was left of it. Every last one of them was marked.

He staggered to his feet. His attacker lay on his side, clutching at the sword in the fetal position, still twitching. The stink of blood and iron and fear filled the room. Feeling at the fire burning bright in his left side, his fingers closed around the hilt of a knife, emerging just above his left hip.

_Oh, fuck..._ Clenching his teeth, he yanked the knife free of his flesh, tossing it aside. A wave of dizziness went through him, and he came close to collapsing from the pain right alongside the dying man on the floor. Instead, he lurched out into the hall, stooping to grab the other sword on his way past.

"Olivia...," Peter whispered, stumbling down the narrow flight of stairs, nearly falling headfirst in his haste. He searched the lower level with feverish intensity, stalking from room to room.

She wasn't there.

"Olivia!" he called again, moving as fast as his battered body would carry him to the front of the house, where he crashed through the door, out onto the front porch. A pair of brake lights out in the driveway glared up at him, accompanied by the low rumble of an idling engine. It was the truck they had seen before, with dark paint and a white camper shell heading northward from the greenhouses.

Peter's heart lurched, fear driving spikes of panic through his chest. "Olivia!" he shouted, racing down the steps, sprinting down the crumbled sidewalk. He crashed through the gate in the fence bordering the gravel driveway. As he did so, the brake lights winked out. The engine roared, tires spitting out rocks and white dust as the driver floored the accelerator.

"Olivia! NO!"

He shouted again, angling toward the truck's left side. The sword was useless, so he let it drop, pumping his legs faster and faster as the truck's spinning tires fought for purchase in the thin gravel. Closer now, he could make out New York license plates, and Lady Liberty holding the torch on high. A shadow wearing a baseball hat sat in the driver's seat.

"Olivia!"

They were escaping, picking up speed. He forced himself to run faster and faster, until his legs were on fire, burning from the inside out. The fire extended up to his hip, to the hole in his side, which blazed with the heat of a sun with every footfall.

The truck was there, right in front of him. The flat knob securing the camper shell door was just inches from his outstretched fingertips. He thought there was a shape visible through the tinted glass. A body lying in disarray on the bed, bouncing limply with every bump, every divot? Oh god, was it her? He couldn't be sure. There was something. The fire in his lower half was traveling northward to his lungs, on the verge combustion.

And the inch became two, and then a foot.

"No. NO!" Peter dove forward, stretching full out, grasping for the knob.

And his fingers closed on nothing. On air.

He landed hard, breath exploding from his lungs. Gravel dug furrows of agony across his bare chest. "Olivia...," he choked through a thousand hurts.

Lifting up on both hands, he made it as far as his knees before his strength gave out. The world tottered and he tipped onto his side, agony erupting anew above his left hip. His vision doubled, blurred, and there he lay, unable to move, unable to do anything but watch the tail lights grow smaller and smaller, until they disappeared around a bend.

She was gone.

Gasping, Peter managed to turn over onto his back. The night sky glittered above him, stars and galaxies without end. The chill air gathered about his wounds, feeling with fingers like ice, adding to his misery. Olivia's voice played in his head, repeating her words from earlier over and over.

_...the last time I told a man I loved him, it was like a curse._

A curse.

He screwed his eyes shut, blotting out the sky, blotting out everything, except for her face, and wanted to die.


	27. The Mystery of the Night Terrors

**-February 2009**

The truck was gone, the roar of its engine having long faded away into silence.

After a time interminable, after the cold ground had seeped up into every part of him, after tears had dried into dusty streaks on his cheeks, Peter lifted himself slowly off the driveway. Bits of gravel pressed sharp divots into his palms, into his knees. More clung to his bare chest, glued in place by blood and by sweat, and some fell away in insignificant plinks as he staggered to his knees, groaning through a mouthful of pain.

Regaining his feet, he surveyed the barren farmyard. For the first time in months, he was alone. Truly alone. Once, he would have relished it, would have done nearly anything to achieve it. Once, but no longer.

An owl hooted off in the distance, and its curious questions seemed like accusations. The whimsical night song of a mockingbird sounded from somewhere close by, indifferent to his misery, while a westerly wind gusted with forlorn enthusiasm, shivering him to the bone.

He had lost her. They had taken her.

"Olivia..." He whispered her name like a prayer. "I'm sorry."

 _Move, Bishop_ , a voice ordered from inside. _Do something. Do anything. Just move your feet_.

Yes. He had to move. He had to save her.

Turning, he made his way down the driveway, a slow walk that soon turned into a painful and equally slow jog. The carport loomed across from the farmhouse, and inside was the black shape of the government-issued SUV, still parked where they had left it. As he approached, something long and slender lying amid the gravel captured his gaze. He came to stop and peered down at the sword. The steel blade gave off a weak glow in the pale light, except for several dark patches near its tip, which could only be his attacker's dried blood. As much good as it had done him.

Peter bent down for the sword, and a searing pain erupted in his left side, sucking his breath away. He put his hand against the spot and a dull shock went through him when his fingers came away wet, and sticky. Gingerly, he reached across his chest, feeling the spot again and gasped.

There was a hole in him, big enough for several fingers. An uncontrollable shiver racked his spine as fresh blood spilled from the gash, spilling steadily down his hip beneath the waist of his jeans.

Of course. He'd been stabbed. How the hell could he have forgotten?

"Ugh... fuck me," he hissed through teeth viced together. "That's not good. Not good at all."

Doing his best to ignore the pain, he stooped down, bending at the knees until he could retrieve the sword, and then continued on his way. The truck was a black shadow beneath the carport, dimly reflecting starlight off its back window as he approached. Deep inside there was a still-rational part of his brain that calmly informed him that the wound needed tending, and sooner than later. It needed cleaning, the voice continued. It needed stitches, staples, or just to be taped up if nothing else — anything but an open wound.

Yet he couldn't stop. There was no time. Olivia's face was all he could see, all the rest of him could think of. Was she alive? How badly was she hurt? Where were they taking her, and what did they even want her for? What were they going to do to her? The images his mind conjured stoked a black rage to life, and at the same time, a raw helplessness that slowly crushed down with impossible weight. His shoulders bent, his head drooped under the pressure.

In the end, he had failed her completely.

When he reached the truck, he found it tilted oddly to one side. Comprehension eluded him until he flipped on the headlights, and the beams scattering off the inside wall of the carport made the problem readily apparent. A sinking feel plunged downward into his gut, and he gripped his hair in both hands, pulling until his scalp burned. _No...nononono... Olivia..._

The left front wheel was resting on its rim, tire slashed to ribbons.

Lowering his hands, Peter stared down at the mangled tire. Their attackers had been nothing if not efficient. He would never catch them, now. They had made sure of that. Clearly, it was not their first foray into the people-snatching business. _Goddamnit._ His heart clenched with pain, hands balling into tight fists as he fought against an urge to scream.

What to do? He glanced around, then moved stiffly to the rear of the truck, pressing his forearm into his side to douse the fire burning there. He swung up the rear door. There was a spare tire, he assumed, buried somewhere beneath their gear. He grabbed a duffel bag and tossed it out on the driveway behind him, and then reached for another. With mounting speed, he threw it all out, bags of food, clothing, the rifles and ammunition — it all had to go. He ripped the rug up and hurled it across the driveway, followed by a thin piece of particle board with rounded edges. Beneath was the spare tire. He reached for it, but the tire was stuck fast, held in place by a circle of metal with a thick bolt down its center. He tore at the bolt until his fingers were numb, until the tips were cut and bleeding, but it held fast.

"FUCK!" The scream he'd been holding in came bursting out. As the echo of his voice died out, the blackness descended again, rage seeping into the crevices of his heart, darkness impenetrable. Shaking, he searched about for something to break, for something to vent the pressure building inside, but there was nothing within reach.

Time was ticking past, and every second the distance separating them grew wider. And he was stuck there.

In the dim glow from the truck's tiny rear door light, Peter looked down at himself. Scrapes and gouges decorated his bare chest, layers of rocks and dust crusted with blood. The wound in his side bled profusely, and now that he'd stopped, now that he was paying attention to it, he could feel a warm wetness trickling down his leg and into his boots. Blinking, he tried to analyze his situation, tried to prioritize, but pain kept intruding, blurring the edges of his thoughts.

_I have to go after them. I have to save her._

Yet he could not.

Peter's head swam, dizziness suddenly coming in rolling waves. He grabbed the truck for support, hoping it would pass. It did not. The wound in his side ached with its own heartbeat. He glanced down at it again, grimacing at the pain, grinding his teeth together. Perhaps it was worse than he'd thought. Something would have to be done about it, and now. There would be no helping Olivia if he passed out from blood loss before he even had the chance.

Moving with robotic slowness, he fit one of the two remaining headlamps over his head. He found the black medical bag among the debris scattered across the driveway, and then hobbled back through the gate up to the front door. His hand froze on the knob. Was there a fresh waiting for him inside? More than likely.

Looping the medical bag over his head and shoulder, he readied the sword, fighting through a haze of pain. In the red glare of the headlamp, he saw that it was Olivia's blade, slightly shorter than is own. The realization left him empty, desolate. He took in a ragged breath, then pushed open the door. When nothing moved, he stepped inside, and then froze.

A shadow lay across the living room floor. A shadow that was moving, grunting, reaching out.

Peter gaped at the sight before him. _What the fuck? Impossible._

But it was possible — the evidence was right before his eyes, impossible to dispute. A wide smear of blood snaked from the kitchen, then across the living room floor, where it ended beneath a heavily-muscled man with dark hair cut short, almost down to the scalp. Green camouflage covered the man from head to toe, along with a massive stain spreading across his back.

Incredibly, the son of bitch was still alive, even after having a sword driven through his chest.

 _Well that's easy to fix._ The thought reached him through a roar of static fury suddenly filling the inside of his head, through a red film tinting his vision. With a snarl, he dropped the medical kit and approached the stricken man, sword raised over his head. His fingers strained on the silken hilt, tightening until tendons bulged through the skin.

"Help me...," the dying man wheezed just as Peter was about to bring the sword down. His voice was taut, filled with pain, with agony. Blood covered his chin, formed bubbles that popped between his lips as he spoke again. "Help me... please..."

"Help you?" Peter whispered. His voice rose to a shout. "Help you! They took her! They took Olivia!"

A kind of madness took hold of him then, thoughts banished, displaced by burgeoning fury. Before he could stop himself, he booted the man in the face, knocking him over onto his side. A second kick crashed into the fellow's ribcage, doubling him over onto himself, and then the living room floor tilted as another wave of dizziness struck, sending Peter stumbling to one side.

"Where are they taking her?" he shouted, staggering back against the couch. "Where are they taking Olivia?" He waited, but there was no reply, only a weak groan, and then the fellow's eyes rolled up inside his head.

Peter pushed himself upright, still gripping the sword in his left hand, and approached the man on the floor. Was he dead? Or just unconscious? If he wasn't dead, he would be soon. He stared down at the stranger, seething. The fellow's chest rose and fell slowly, giving answer to his questions. He raised the sword again, and came close to ending it, to separating his head from his shoulders, but pain interceded at the last moment, and with the pain, reason; he needed the man alive. For now.

As the adrenaline flooding his system began to fade, the hole in his side began burning with a fury that was murderous, pulsing with every beat of his heart. Blood continued to leak out of him, dribbling down his side, soaking his jeans. He grabbed the medical kit and upended it over the coffee table. Inside were bandages and sutures, a bottle of alcohol and several compresses; all manner of things one might expect to find. Variety enough for nearly any minor injury. He wasn't sure being stabbed in the side could be classified as a minor injury, however, but he would have to make do. At least the wound was low on his left side, away from his liver and kidneys as well as several other vital organs. It was the small things that counted, he supposed.

Eyeing the small bottle of alcohol, he could already feel it, burning, scalding like acid. It was going to hurt, he suspected, and probably quite a lot. He unscrewed the disinfectant's cap, and then, before he could stop himself, he poured it down his side, spreading open the wound with two fingers.

Fire cold like ice erupted in his side. Pain stood him up on his toes, sucked the air from his lungs. Falling back on the couch, he tasted blood as his tongue began to throb. "Fuck, that hurts," he gasped, panting through the pain.

And he hadn't even started with the sutures yet. He fumbled open a package of compresses and held one hard against his side, mopping up the blood. When he looked up, the man on the floor was starting to stir, reaching out and trying to pull himself toward the door. The fellow was nothing if not persistent.

Peter ignored the man's feeble escape attempt, and reached for a package of sutures and the miniature pair of surgical pliers, curved at the tip. He ripped the sutures open with his teeth, and then peered down at the wound in his side. It looked ugly, raw flesh exposed, seeping trickles of blood, but not gushing. He thought that might be a good sign. Glancing around for something to bite down on, he settled on his leather belt. He pulled it free, and then got to work.

#

Before he started, he had thought that the pain would get better as he went on, that he might get used to it, but he was dead wrong. Instead, the pain only grew worse, as each puncture and subsequent pulling of the thread became moments of eternal torture. By the time he was finished — or as finished as he was ever going to be — he was drenched, skin slicked by rivers of sweat that mixed with his blood, that stung the open scrapes across his chest, his elbows, the palms of his hands. He fell back against the cushions lightheaded from the pain — no, the hellish agony — gasping for relief.

The job was done. It was messy, but done. He wrapped the stitches carefully with tight layers of gauze over a thick bandage, then looked up to find the dying man staring at him from the living room floor, watching his every move.

The fellow looked as if he were on death's door, skin so pale it was almost translucent, chin painted red with blood. Peter met his gaze without blinking. The two of them were going to have a little chat. He had questions, and the bastard was going to answer them, one way or another.

Unbidden, he suddenly recalled a conversation he'd once had with Charlie Francis, once upon a time, back in the old world, back when they'd interviewed Richard Stieg, the man behind the Flight 627 attack. He'd convinced Charlie to let him speak to Stieg alone, and in an effort to speed things along, he'd sort of broken the man's fingers with a coffee mug. Predictably, Olivia had been furious with him, of course she had, but the broken fingers had produced the answers they'd needed, hadn't they? That was all that mattered.

Continuing to meet the stranger's gaze, Peter's face suffused with heat, blood thinning, turning red hot in his veins. His insides felt on the verge of bursting apart at the seams, but he held the rage in check, damming it behind a hastily-erected wall of calmness. They were going to have an interview all right, but one of a different sort.

He levered himself off the couch, gasping from the effort, and at the same time sensed that the simple act of standing up had not done any favors to the shoddy workmanship on his side. But it would do, it would have to. There was no other option.

In two strides he was standing over the stranger. He hunched down awkwardly to examine the man's wounds. The guy was lucky to be alive at all, much less breathing, and still conscious. The sword had passed straight through him, entering his chest in the middle of his gut, and then exiting just to one side of his spine. Blood trickled from both wounds, in streams without end. The fellow was certainly going to die; it was just a question of how long he could hold out.

"You're going to tell me where they're taking Olivia," Peter told the man in a voice that sounded like someone else's. "You're going to tell me, or you're going to die here, and as painfully as I can manage. And I can manage a lot. Do you understand?"

The stranger grinned, showing a mouthful of red teeth. "I'm already dead you... you stupid son of a bitch," he gasped, spitting up blood. "What are you gonna do... hack my head off with that toy sword of yours? I'm already dead. Don't you get it?"

Peter shook his head. "I thought about that, believe me. But no. There's dead, and there's dead. But we'll get to that. Where are they taking her?"

"Go... fuck yourself." A crimson bubble formed between the man's lips, then popped across the stubble of his chin.

"Fine." He shrugged, straightening with a pain-filled grunt. An idea struck then, one he thought would likely shrivel the heart of any man. "You don't want to talk to me. Fine. Maybe you'll talk to her." The man blinked, eyes rolling around the darkened corners of the living room. Peter let out a harsh laugh at his confusion, gritting his teeth against the fury raging in his side. "Oh, I didn't mention my friend? Let me go get her. I'm sure she's gonna be all ears."

He strode into the kitchen, shining the light across the linoleum floor until he spotted what he was looking for beside a metal trash can, sitting disturbingly upright in a small pool of blood. Burnished eyes glared up at him. Lips and gray teeth formed into a perpetual snarl snapped open and closed.

 _Perfect_ , he thought. A savage kind of glee went through him as he picked up the severed head, fingers curled into the mop of its gray hair, and then stalked back into the living room.

"Now, let's try this again," he said, affecting a cheerful tone as he passed through the doorway.

Putting on a jovial facade was one of the harder tasks he'd accomplished in recent memory. He didn't want to be cheerful. He wanted to tear the bastard's heart out and feed it to him. But even more than that, he wanted to see the faint curl at the corner of Olivia's lips, the one that would blossom into a smile, lightening up her face like a rising sun. He wanted to hear her honeyed voice again, feel the brush of her fingers, the warmth of her breath on his skin. _Olivia..._ So he would do what had to be done, play whatever role was required of him in order to do that.

He stopped above the dying man, swinging the infected head like a lunch box. "Meet my friend," he said, putting on an amicable grin. "She's very interested in hearing what you have to say. Just how interested is up to you."

"What the fuck is that?" the man whispered. He shrank back against the floor, as if he might find escape there. When Peter lowered the leering face toward him, his voice rose to a shriek. Blood began bubbling up, spewing between his lips. "What... what are you doing? You crazy... fuck! What is that? What are you doing?"

"Let's just cut to the chase, shall we?" Peter said, kneeling down beside him. "You're gonna tell me what I want to know. Or, I'm going to pull off your pants, and my friend here is gonna go downtown, you know what I mean? On you. I hope she's careful with those teeth, man they look a bit sharp. You could be in for a rough ride." He set the severed head atop the man's chest. There was an audible snap as its teeth gnashed together, inches from the man's face.

The stranger's eyes appeared on the verge of popping out of their sockets. "What... what do you want...to know?" he gurgled, flinching away from the biting teeth. His chest rose and fell rapidly, oozing precious life's blood.

"I thought you'd see it my way," Peter said, forced his lips into a grin that he suspected was more of a rictus than anything else. "We'll start simple, and then proceed from there. What's your name?"

"D... Dale," came the man's shaky reply.

"Just Dale? You got a last name?"

"Dale... Mueller."

"You got any family left, Dale Mueller?"

The man shook his head. "No. Not... not anymore."

"That's too bad," Peter said. "What'd you do before?"

"I... I was a cop. Middlesex, Connecticut."

A fucking cop. Peter resisted the urge to let the infected tear his face off. "So let me get this straight. Once the world ended, you just said fuck it, anything goes? Kidnapping? Rape? It's all fair game, huh?"

The man named Dale Mueller coughed up a mouthful of blood. "What's it... matter? Everything is gone. My wife... my son. I did what I had to. I had orders, a... place. You telling me you haven't done anything... you regretted?"

"Me?" Peter chuckled harshly. "More than you can possibly imagine. But that woman you took? She was a cop, too. FBI. And you know what she didn't do? She didn't let the world tear her apart on the inside. She didn't become you."

His grip on the stringy gray hair tightened until his knuckles hurt. His skin grew hot again, anger burning through all of his aches and pains. "She was trying to save the fucking world!" he roared. "Trying to save pieces of shit like you. Because that's who she is — who she's always been." He lifted the head and held it over the terrified man's face, close enough that their noses seemed to touch. "Now, I'm going to ask you one more time," he said, forcing calmness back into his voice. "And if you don't answer me, Dale, you're gonna be on the receiving end of the worst blowjob in human history. You understand?

"Where are they taking Olivia?"

The man's eyes bled tears. "Okay... okay," he gasped. "If... if I tell you, promise me to make it quick... don't let me turn into... one of those... things, and I'll... I'll tell you..."

Peter pulled the head away and tossed it aside. "Deal. You tell me something I don't know, and I'll end it quickly. You won't feel a thing, I promise."

Dale groaned, coughing up more blood. "There's a place... down south. Worcester. An old hospital. There's... a man there. A doctor. Only I don't think he's a doctor at all. He does things... to people. Changes them."

Worcester. Just as Olivia had suspected. She'd been right all along. Peter reached behind for Olivia's sword, pulling it toward him across the floor, blade scratching lightly on the hardwood. "What does this doctor do exactly? What kind of... things?"

"I dunno, man... Experiments. Some kind of research. I've heard... screaming, sometimes. Late at night. He made... the... grid. That's where your girlfriend will end up."

A grid? He didn't like the sound of that. Not one bit. "And this is where they're... they're taking Olivia?" he asked, struggling to remain calm. Pressure was building, in his chest, inside his head. A kind of muted, anguished roar in the background of his thoughts. "Will they... kill her?" Just saying the words out loud made him want to scream.

"No, uh...," the man grunted. "They shouldn't. The Doc... the doctor keeps 'em alive. For the... grid. But she won't be your girlfriend anymore. Drives them... crazy, that's what I heard." He began to cough, blood spilling down his cheeks. "That's... all I know. I swear. They don't let me in there, man. Now do it... you promised... me..."

Peter rose to his feet, groaning at the pain in his side. "Yeah... about that. Turns out I'm a bit of a liar." He raised the sword, meeting Dale Mueller's terrified gaze. "You should have never laid a finger on her."

Whipping the blade downward, he sliced through the man's right wrist, shearing through meat and bone. The man named Dale shrieked, his throat-tearing screams reverberating through the old farmhouse. His back arched off the floor. Blood poured from the stump of his wrist, arm flailing about.

"See, it's your lucky day, Dale," he growled in a furious whisper, crouching down beside him. The man's face was a white sheet, tendons stretching out his neck. He let the mask of joviality he'd been wearing fall away, and let loose the rage and all the festering darkness. "You get to participate in a little science experiment. You see, my father, he was a doctor, too. And he had a theory about the undead, about the way the infection spread from them to us. It was his hypothesis that the infection wasn't biological at all, but a kind of corruption that spread by way of quantum entanglement of the blood. Now I'm sure you don't have the slightest idea what any of that means, but that doesn't matter. What does matter is that we didn't have any way to test the theory, because, you know, the only way to test it was on a real live person. And since we weren't twisted, sadistic fucks...," he shouted, and then let his vice drop, "there was nothing we could do. But the way I see it, you work for this crazy doctor, so that means you must be okay with it. Thanks for volunteering. I'm told it's for the betterment of mankind."

Dale's head shook, breath coming in rapid wheezes. "No... no... I don't... I didn't..."

Peter stopped listening. The roar in his head drowned out everything, even thought. Even feelings. He grabbed the severed head, and then sprayed gushes of blood between the infected's snapping lips, holding Dale's wrist, sans hand, like a watering hose. For some reason he couldn't stop grinning. Somewhere, far away, a voice inside his head screamed that this was all wrong, that it wasn't the right way, that it wasn't what Olivia would want, and that he was hurting himself as much as the man on the floor. But he shut that voice away, walling it off, banishing it to the far recesses. He didn't need that Peter right now. That Peter was weak. That Peter had become soft. That Peter had allowed them take Olivia. He needed to be hard for what was coming.

"See that wasn't so bad, was it, Dale?" he hissed, dropping the limp wrist with a wet thud. He tossed the severed head across the room, then stared down at his foe, chest heaving.

The man's shrieks had faded away, replaced by low murmurs that were mostly incoherent, babbles, or perhaps even prayers to some unhelpful god. His eyes were focused on nothing, his skin on the verge of translucence, veins visible through the epidermis. Death was hovering over the man, moments from claiming his victim, unless he did something to staunch the flow of blood from the gaping wrist. _We can't have that, can we?_ The experiment would be ruined. He searched around, then grabbed his leather belt and tied a tourniquet around the dying man's stump.

Less than a minute later, the man formerly known as Dale Mueller began to convulse, booted heels rebounding off hardwood. His eyes captured Peter's, and in them he saw the flare of all too human awareness, and the glint of unbridled terror. Eyes that were brown, he noticed for the first time, the color of chocolate, or shit. An instant later they turned a burnished gold, starting at the pupils and melting outward through the irises like a diffusing ink blot. He had never seen the change happen firsthand before, and couldn't imagine what it might signify, except for one thing.

"Well, what do you know?" Peter whispered to the empty living room. He picked up Olivia's sword, turning the hilt over in his hand, blade pointed downward. "Turns out you were right, Walter."

He slammed the sword home as the fresh went to sit up, then left it quivering there, upright in the hardwood, and hobbled up the steps to collect their gear.

#

The divot, hidden behind a sudden dip in the road, sent a jolt of pain flaring through Peter's left side, hunching him over the steering wheel and sending the SUV swerving toward the shoulder. He jerked the wheel back the other way. The tires squealed their protest and the truck whipped back and forth before he managed to bring it back under control. Gritting his teeth, he snaked a hand inside his coat and winced at the warm wetness soaking into his shirt. When he held the hand up for inspection, the dark smears coating his fingers and palms evoked an intense bout of nausea that left his head spinning. His vision blurred, and in the cone of the truck's headlights, the double yellow lines running down the center of Route 117 began to unzip, splitting apart as if reality were unweaving. Taking his foot off the accelerator, he stretched his eyes wide open, and then smacked a stinging slap across his cheek, ringing his ears. When he could see clearly again, he lowered the window, letting in cool blasts of air turned frigid by the dead of night as he hit the gas.

Wind roared through the cabin, whipping his hair into his eyes, and filling his nose with the faint mint of pine needles. Trees blurred past on either side, walls of shapeless darkness. The view through the windshield canted downward on the driver's side, courtesy of the narrow donut he'd somehow managed to install without tearing his impromptu stitches apart, just before leaving Peterborough behind, along with the corpse of one Dale Mueller, minus one hand. A glance in the rearview mirror revealed only blackness, just as it had since he'd fled south after Olivia.

He didn't think anyone was following him, but couldn't be one-hundred-percent sure. According to the center dash, it was just past two in the morning. Was that the right time? He couldn't remember. Keeping track of the time, the date — that had always been Olivia's forte. He wished he had, now. How long had it been? How many hours had passed since the taillights had vanished?

Unable to resist, his mind summoned images of what might be happening to her at that moment. She had fallen into the hands of ruthless men, men capable of anything, of any depravity. They would hurt her.

They would _use_ her.

Dale Mueller had admitted as much, hadn't he? And he couldn't save her. He was in no shape for it, a child could likely overwhelm him as he was now, and likely would be for days.

"Fuck!" he shouted at the windshield, and smashed his fist across the leather steering wheel. His reward for such stupidity was a surge of pain shooting through his left side. He hunched forward again gasping, and eyes stinging at the sudden beads of sweat dropping from his brow.

By the time he reached the safety of the Marlborough house, not even the wind's roar or slaps across the face were enough to keep his eyes open. Turning the wheel sharply, he lurched the truck up the driveway, screeching to a halt in front of the closed garage door. He tore loose the ignition wires and then grabbed one of the assault rifles from the back of the truck before stumbling through the front door.

Inside, a mound of twisted blankets and pillows lay spread across the floor in front of the fireplace, highlighted in a slant of moonlight. He paused on the threshold into the living room, eyes frozen on the rumpled mound of quilts. A tightening lump of pain emerged in the back of his throat, cutting off his air. _Goddamnit..._ With a strangled gasp, he forced himself to move, to look away from their bedding. He had to sleep, but not there. After all, there was only so much pain a person could absorb at one time.

Sitting adjacent to a wide couch of beige leather was brown recliner, worn and tired-looking, no doubt some long-dead person's favorite chair. He eyed the distance between the front and rear sliding door, then dragged the chair to a spot against one wall that would provide a clear view of each. With that task accomplished, Peter dropped down onto the recliner with a groan, letting loose the exhaustion he'd been holding at bay.

The house was silent, filled with shadows. Across his lap sat the loaded M4, finger resting alongside the trigger guard. Pain throbbed in his side, counterpoint to the deeper pain coming to life somewhere along his right ribcage, from the scrapes and furrows gouged into his chest.

He felt at the thick bandage beneath his shirt again, shivering at the persistent wetness. It was getting worse. Wasn't it? He couldn't be sure. The shivers began to escalate, graduating to wholesale shakes that rattled his teeth together. Nostrils flaring, his jaw tightened with under the strain. Suddenly his heart was pounding, booming with resounding echoes as another wave of dizziness crashed down with all the force of a descending funnel cloud.

Peter shut his eyes and sank back into the plushness of the recliner. _Get a hold of yourself, Bishop. Breath. Just breath. For Olivia. You have to. Just breath._

Concentrating with every ounce of his will, he forced his body to stillness, gradually, limb by limb, breath by breath. After a while, the shakes began to diminish, and his restless heart steadied. He tried to open his eyes but the force required to do so was beyond him. Drifting through deepening blackness, he dreamt of sad, green eyes, and heard the sound of low, distant laughter.

#

* * *

#

Footsteps approached, crunching softly in the dry grass.

Closer and they came, one after another. Shortly, a tall spear appeared, resting on the shoulder of a tall, bearded guard. The guard paused, head swiveling as he peered about, eyes roving for movement ahead along his path. The morning air was chilly, and puffs of breath rose from his lips. After a time, he started up again, resuming his measured steps along the well-trodden path that encircled the wall.

The wall was a buffer against the outside world. The wall held back the monsters with eyes of gold, and all the other creatures that stalked at night, creeping and crawling, searching for a way into the light. And sometimes, the wall held back men. Men were the most dangerous of all; the knights with black armor riding liked carved wings on their shoulders; the helmets of black iron, jagged, with thin slits that revealed only cold, empty eyes — or maybe no eyes at all, only endless, cavernous darkness — and only grills of sinuous metal where a mouth should be.

Or at least, that was how they appeared in Ella's imagination.

She waited until the noise of the guard's passing receded to a faint whisper, and then raced down the head-high row of bushes that ran alongside the ancient bricks until she reached the entrance to the castle — or the laundry building — as it was otherwise known. She pushed through the branches carefully, shielding her eyes, until she reached the end of the row. Beyond was a stone pathway, leading out from the door to the yard beyond.

A round face appeared, pressing through the twigs and sticks on the other side of the stone path. A hand motioned her forward, gesturing with waggling fingers for her to follow.

"C'mon, Ella!" Gina's voice carried across the gap. "Quick! Before he comes back!" The face and hands disappeared.

Ella darted across the walkway, keeping her head down. She ducked into the narrow space between brick and branch. Inside, she found her friend waiting for her a few paces back, crouched down on the balls of her feet.

"Did he see you?" she whispered, squinting through a curtain of needles that were mostly brown instead of green.

Gina shook her head. "Nah. Jonah never even looked over here or anything. He was too busy lookin' at Claire up in front of him. Let's follow him. I bet we can make it to the kitchens without him even knowing we were there."

They crept along the line of bushes, until they reached the far edge of the row, where they peeked out, one high, one low. Jonas had reached the drawbridge — also known as the gate — and was busy talking to another guard named Claire, who Ella had met a few times, mostly when she would get together with her mom and Astrid and Sonia to play card games. Claire seemed nice enough for an adult, but for some reason would never look her in the eye — her or Gina, she had noticed. The woman wielded a wide blade as long as her arm, and curved near the tip on one side.

Ella watched as the man named Jonas reached out, touching the woman's arm as they spoke. He was asking question, she thought, and didn't like the answer he got in return. The woman laughed, and swatted his hand aside. She was young, closer to her mom's age, or Astrid's, with long, black hair pulled back in a ponytail like her aunt's. Jonas grinned, laughing also, and reached around, putting his hand on her bottom. The black-haired woman jumped, trying to get away, and Jonas finally let go. He laughed again, Ella heard him say that he would see her later before he turned and walked away, passing right beside their hiding spot.

Jonas whistled to himself as he walked, some tune that made her think of old cartoons, the kind that didn't tell stories or anything, but were just funny to watch. The woman Claire kept her eyes on him until he was long gone. She wasn't laughing anymore, and wiped her hands on her jeans over and over before turning and going the other way down the fence.

"She don't like him much," Gina said, watching beside her.

"My mom doesn't like him, either," Ella whispered. "She said he was too touchy-feely, and that he only wanted to go to bed with her. I heard her tell Sonia."

Ella wasn't sure, but she didn't think her mom meant to sleep. But what else was there to do in a bed besides sleep? Sometimes, she liked to snuggle, was that it? The thought of her mother and Jonas snuggling made an icky taste in her mouth. But she didn't know, not for sure, and couldn't ask. It was one of those things Mom would either say it wasn't for her to know, or that she had to wait until she was older to find out. There were a lot of things like that, she'd come to realize. Why was growing up such a secret?

"That's how they make babies," Gina said with a knowing tone. "They go to bed together, and then they have a baby. That's what Chris told me, and he knows everything." Her friend reached out, taking her hand. "Let's go. I got an idea."

She let herself be pulled along. That was how they made babies? Possibilities unfolded before her. She thought of her aunt and Peter. They had gone to sleep together all the time back at the lab. Did that mean Aunt Liv was going to have a baby now? That she was going to have a little baby cousin? A persistent smile curled Ella's lips as they went along, her mind adrift. Would it be a girl, or a boy? Would it have light hair like her aunt's or dark hair like Peter's? Would they be friends? It would be like having a little sister of her own, or a brother. She could show them everything, all the strange places inside their new home. And she would protect them, too, like a big sister should. Like her aunt did. When would it come? Her mom would know, wouldn't she? No. She would ask Astrid. They were friends, and Astrid was the only one who knew what she'd done back at the lab.

Having lost interest in their game, she was still thinking about the possibility of a new baby cousin when they exited the bushes, onto a wide pad of faded asphalt. It had been a parking lot once, long ago, but was now bent and buckled, lined with wavy cracks, pocked with rows of dead weeds and grass. They had arrived at the rear of the cafeteria, at a gray door that opened into the old kitchen, flanked by rows of low, clouded windows, set back into uneven rows of bricks the color of wet sand. Dull light filtered through the windows, broken by the occasional silhouette moving inside.

They hurried across the parking lot, and Gina, looking first to either side, knocked quietly on the metal door. The door opened almost at once, and a stern face gazed down on them for a moment before cracking into a wide grin.

"Hi, Mister Broyles," Ella said. She lifted her chin, giving him her best smile.

"Hey, Mister B," Gina said at almost the same moment.

"Hey, you two." His eyes went past them, out over the parking lot toward the fence, where the men and women walked day and night. "You kids staying out of trouble, right?"

"Yes, sir," Gina told him. "My Gram here? She told me she was working today, and they were making donuts."

"Donuts, huh?" Mister Broyles grinned, showing all of his teeth.

A smiling black-haired woman peeked around Mister Broyles's shoulder. "Hey there, sugar," Gina's grandma said. "You two stayin' out of trouble? Not bothering the guards, are you? And you're staying out of Mister Overbeek's way?"

That was important, so Ella had been told. Mister Overbeek was busy. He had little time or patience for children. They had both been warned, repeatedly. Busy with what, she wasn't sure. People had mentioned the power grid, whatever that was, and the water; and that both were hard to keep working. Most of the time though, he wasn't even around, so how would they even get in his way?

" _We are_ ," she and Gina said in unison.

"Good. Then I guess you're both here to work?" Gina's grandma asked as Mister Broyles stepped aside. "We got dishes to do — a stack bigger then both of you."

Ella exchanged a look with Gina. Dishes? She hoped that wasn't her friend's idea.

Mrs. Watson's eyebrows climbed up her forehead. "Oh? That's not why you're here, girls?"

"Uh uh." Gina shook her head. "We're hungry!"

"Oh really, is that so? Now isn't that a surprise?" She glanced at Mister Broyles. "Isn't that a surprise, Phillip?"

"It is indeed, Charlene," he said, eying them both.

"Can we have a snack, Gram?" Gina whined.

"Please?" Ella added.

"I don't know, it'll be lunch before long. You both gonna have enough room to eat still? We're havin' chili mac'n'cheese today. I expect you both to clean your plates, or you can forget about knocking on this door again. You get me?"

After they had both nodded, Gina's grandmother turned away for a moment, reaching behind her. When she turned back, she wore a wide smile and two perfectly shaped — if slightly flat — donuts, each coated with a layer of glaze that glistened with sugary freshness.

"Donuts!" Gina exclaimed, clapping her hands together. "See! I told you Ell."

"Now, they're not quite how I used to make them. Almond milk is no substitute for the real thing. Or powdered eggs. Mister Overbeek said they were gonna bring in chickens, but they ain't here yet. I guess beggars can't be choosers, can they?"

Ella's mouth watered as the donuts were handed out, along with a paper napkin that Gina's grandmother extracted a promise from the both to make use of. Real donuts! How long had it been since she'd had anything sweet, other than candy? It seemed like forever, years and years. She tried to remember when she'd eaten a donut last, but her memory didn't go back that far.

Had it been back home in Chicago? With her Daddy? Mom? Maybe it had been both. Maybe they had been together. She had a cloudy memory of eating a donut, pressed between her parents' legs. The floor had been rumbling beneath her feet. The train? Subway? Sticky fingers and face, a crumb-filled lap, and watching the faces around her, the buildings and people and cars and trucks passing by outside the window, the sun beaming down, shining off the glass walls of towers so tall they seemed buried in the clouds. The memory grew clearer. There had been snow on the ground. A giant Christmas tree, huge, bigger than her house, bigger than ten houses. Full of blues and reds and oranges and greens and purples. Glowing lights and noise and singing. Strings of sparkling garland blowing in a freezing wind. Santa Claus — not the real Santa, of course, but one of his helpers, or so she'd thought back then. He was sitting on a wide chair of red velvet. Where was it? Outside? Inside? She'd stood in a line. Other kids had been crying, trying to get away, trying to get down from a bright red lap. But she hadn't. She had told the not-real Santa what she'd wanted, whispering it in his bushy ear. What had it been? Her parents had been smiling, holding hands. They'd been happy.

"You coming, Ella?" Gina said. She was standing a few steps away, peering back over her shoulder, eyes curious. "If you don't look out, you're gonna drop that."

Ella shook herself free of the past, pulling in a deep breath. She saw that the donut was balanced on the edge of her palm, and quickly grabbed it with her other hand.

"You two don't go far," Mister Broyles told them, staring out at the fence again. He seemed about to say more, but instead drew his lips together into a frown and pulled the door shut.

 _He hates working in the kitchen_ , Ella intuited, remembering Walter's surprise the day he'd woken up. _He wants to be out there, with the others. Out in the open. Doing something._ Sometimes, Mister Broyles reminded her of her aunt. Ella wondered if he'd ever been a soldier too.

They found a spot to eat their donuts, sitting atop the crumbled remains of a low, block wall located alone in the middle of the open field behind the kitchen. The wall formed a broad circle, and inside was a mound of rocks and bricks, heaps of rusting metal and the wilted remnants of tall weeds and grasses. She thought it had been a building once, just like a tall circular building with a pointed roof that was part of the hospital grounds, but outside the fence. Straight across from where they were sitting rose a puff of blackish smoke, drifting from the top of the chimney pipe sticking out of the small and short building — the boiler house, she had come to learn — where they made electricity. To the left and almost touching the boiler house was the Doctor's special building, where he was busy working on a cure for the infection. In front of either building stood a pair of men holding machine guns, each staring not outward, but in, toward the buildings.

Ella found a comfortable seat beside Gina, wedge into the low spot between two weathered blocks taller than her hip. Feet dangling, she tore off a bite of her donut and gasped, tongue tingling with forgotten delights. She bit off another mouthful without even waiting to swallow, and then another, until her mouth was stuffed full, cheeks puffing outward like a cartoon squirrel hoarding its dinner. She met Gina's gaze and found her friends face stuffed too. They both grinned, and began to chuckle, and then laugh, shoulders bumping, mouths full of sugary sweetness.

Across the field, a door opened in the Doctor's building, and the bald man everyone called Overbeek stepped outside. He looked like he was unarmed, but she knew that it was only the distance between them. He always had a big pistol strapped under his arm, one that sometimes reflected sunlight like a mirror. Ella took another bite and watched as he called both guards over to him, gesturing to the door he'd just exited as he spoke. The guards nodded when he finished, and then returned to their posts in front of the walk up to each building. For a moment, however, before Overbeek turned and walked back inside, it seemed as though their eyes met across the field.

Ella paused, with a dollop of gooey donut resting on her tongue. He had been looking at her? At them? Why? He was rarely around, but sometimes, she would look up and find him watching her, watching her and Gina both; from across the cafeteria at dinner, from the other end of a hallway, or out through an open window. He hardly ever spoke to them though, other than to give out warnings. They were to stay out of the way, to stay out of trouble, to keep away from the fence, to stay indoors when the big light was on. He had been a soldier once. Astrid had told her. It was what the big skull picture painted onto his arm meant. A tattoo.

 _He may have been soldier, but he's not like Aunt Liv_. And that was truth as she saw it.

"Were you afraid, Ella," Gina suddenly said, "when all the demons got into your building?" Her voice quiet, puny, like when they had first met and she would hardly say a word out loud. "Were you scared?"

Ella nodded, chewing and swallowing. "Yeah. So scared I could barely think." A shiver ran down her spine, sitting up straight as the things that happened that night in the lab came back in a rush. The rotting, peeling faces, the pounding of gunfire, the flashing and blinking and blinking in the darkness, the explosion bucking the gun in her hand. And more than anything, the taste of dead blood. The taste of death. "I thought I was gonna be dead...," she whispered. "I thought we all were."

"It was like that for me, too," Gina murmured so quiet that Ella could barely hear her speak. "I slept through the beginning... and when I woke up, they were screaming, everybody was shouting, and shooting... and the dead ones were in the big house. They were in the hallways, eating people in their bedrooms. It was so dark. My mom... she got bit. On the leg." Ella held still as her friend paused, wiping at her eyes. She had never spoken of what had happened to them before. "...But she didn't change right away. It took a while, and she didn't tell nobody, either, and nobody noticed. She just..." Gina's face crumpled and she sniffled, holding her fingers to her nose. "We had rooms on the top floor, and were trying to find a way out with Gram and Chris and she just... dropped me, and then... and then..." Her eyes screwed shut, forcing out a fresh gush of tears. "Mommy..."

Listening to her friend weep, Ella's gaze fell on the half-eaten donut on her lap. What could she tell her that would make her feel better? Maybe there was nothing. Maybe the only way to feel better was to fall apart on the inside, to let all the tears drain out of you, and take the sadness with them. She thought of her Daddy, and how she had cried when Mom had begun pounding on the bedroom door, begging him to come out. She'd been sitting at her aunt's tiny kitchen table, coloring, filling in the inside of a house — their house, back in Chicago — with a brown marker. Daddy had rushed past, dropping a bag of water bottles and food on the floor, like he had done almost every day since they had run out. But this time he hadn't stopped to talk to her, hadn't stopped to show her the treats he'd found, just for her. She could remember the exact moment when she had finally understood what was happening, and how she had gone still, unable to move, unable to breathe, the brown marker frozen in her hand. Mommy's screams had filled the apartment, and her eyes had fallen to the marker's tip, to the blot of brown ink spreading out on the paper, growing bigger and bigger, until it was bigger than her fingertip. And then something had broken inside of her. There had been pain, everywhere, only it was on the inside. And then the tears had come, tears she'd thought would never end, nor the pain. But they had ended, eventually, and the pain faded, leaving only emptiness. A hole, inside of her.

"I'm sorry about your mom," Ella said quietly, after some time had passed. She took a bite of her donut, but it didn't taste quite as sweet as it had before.

Gina's tears had finally ended, and she was staring at the ground between her feet. "Yeah. Sometimes I miss her a lot." She wiped her face with her sleeve, then took a bite of her donut, chewing silently.

The pair of guards across the field had come together, and were busy talking, peering back at the building where Mister Overbeek and the Doctor were doing whatever they did. After a few minutes, they separated, moving back into position before each door.

"What do you think they do in there?" Ella said, eying the men. She couldn't tell who they were, just that they were men.

Gina shrugged, twisting a braid of her black hair. "Um... I don't know. I guess they're working on the cure, like everybody says."

Time passed. Gusts of chilly wind blew her hair across her face, and that same chill inside the stone wall began seeping through the fabric of Ella's jeans. It was getting cold again. The thought was an unhappy one, but Walter had said it might happen, that it probably would happen. Why was he always right? She was about to hop down, when Gina spoke.

"Can I tell you a secret, Ella?"

"A secret?" Ella paused, on the verge of slipping off the stone wall. "What's it about?"

"You gotta promise not to tell nobody," Gina hissed, glancing toward the guards. "Not your mom or Walter. Or Astrid."

Ella looked toward the guards also, but surely they were much too far away to hear. There was no one, not anywhere near them. "Okay, I promise. What's it about?"

"Cross your heart and hope to die?"

Ella frowned, wrinkling her nose. "What does that mean? I don't want to die."

Gina shook her head. "It means you can't tell nobody. Chris told me that was what he and mom used to say when they were kids. It means you hope you'll die before you tell the secret."

"I don't know, Gina... can't I just promise?"

"Fine," Gina huffed. "But you gotta say it out loud."

"I promise I won't tell anyone," Ella promised. "Now what's the secret about?"

"All right. It happened a couple of days after we got here," she started. "I woke up in the night, had to go pee. Everybody was sleeping, but I had to go so bad. So I tried to find the bathroom by myself. The lights were all out, and I got lost, ended up in the kitchen. By then I was almost going in my pants, so I just went outside, over there by them bushes." She glanced back behind them, toward a clump of overgrown bushes bunched together not far from the kitchen's back door. "It was dark out, no moon or nothing. But the lights were on, over there." She pointed a hand toward the two men and the Doctor's special building. "I heard something. It sounded like somebody was screaming, like they were dying. It kept going on and on... until I got scared and ran back inside."

"What did you do?" Ella whispered. Her chest was suddenly tight, her mouth dry. Smoke rose from the distant chimney, like it had every day since they'd arrived. "Do you know who it was? What happened?"

"Don't know," Gina said. "But you know what else? Every time the scream happened, the lights, they got brighter and brighter. Sometimes the screaming would stop for a second, and when they did, the lights would turn off." She turned to Ella, eyes spread all the way open. "Like they were alive."

Ella gasped, fear shooting an icy jolt down her back. She covered her mouth, breath hissing between her fingers. "What should we do, Gina? We should tell someone. Mister Broyles. He was Aunt Liv's boss. He'll know what to do."

"Nuh uh, we can't tell nobody," Gina insisted, shaking her head, flinging her braids all over. "I'll get in trouble. They might even kick us out of here. We aren't supposed to go outside at night. And you promised, Ella. You promised you wouldn't tell!"

But what if it was important? What if they were all in danger? What if the Home wasn't safe like they thought it was? Shouldn't she tell someone? An adult? But she had made a promise to her friend, too. And you weren't supposed to break promises. Aunt Liv never did, not ever.

She glanced at her friend. "What should we do then? We gotta do something, don't we? What if they're doing bad things in there? My mom will want to leave. And so will I."

"What can we do? We're just kids, Ella. They'd never even believe us anyway."

Ella fell silent. Gina was wrong. Some things, you had to tell. And sometimes, if it was bad enough, the adults _would_ listen. Or at least she hoped they would. She just had to get their attention. They just had to show them. But how could they? She studied the two buildings across the way, and it came to her. She knew what her aunt would do. Was she brave enough to do the same? _I killed an infected. Shot it in the head... POW!_ It had been the hardest thing she could ever remember doing. It had to mean something. It had to mean she was brave, didn't it?

"I heard they're turning the light on tonight," she said. "Everyone is busy then, when the lights are on. We can find out what's happening. No one will notice if we're gone for a little while."

"What do you mean...?" Gina's eyes grew huge. Her hand flashed out, closing around Ella's arm. "Gone where? You don't mean over there, do you?" she asked, motioning with her head. "You crazy? We'd never make it. And we'd get in trouble bad, besides. Really bad. They might even shoot us."

Ella shook her head. "We're just kids, Gina," she told her anxious friend. "I don't think they would shoot us, not even Mister Overbeek." And he was the worst of them. The others just did what he said, as far as she could tell.

"They won't even know we're gone," she said again, and reached inside her coat for the tiny, golden cross looped about her neck.

#

* * *

#

Silence blanketed the hallway. Varying shades of sunlight emanated from an unbroken line of open doorways, slashing right to left across a colorless tile floor. Walls varying shades of limestone completed the picture, paint shriveled, disintegrating, peeling off in strips. Like a moulting reptile, it was. Or, perhaps, a decaying carcass. The faint but still-pungent aroma singed the inside of Walter's nose, along with some other odor he had yet to distinguish.

 _Sodium Hydroxide? Yes. More than likely._ Some perfunctory attempt at cleansing the ancient walls of the asylum had been made, but quickly abandoned. That fact was quite obvious.

He peered around the corner with one squinted eye, tilting his head just enough to allow a blurry glimpse of the view down the long corridor before him. Taking in a breath, he held still, watching.

It was there.

A shudder tore through him as formless shadow passed through one of the slants of light playing across the hall, no more than five or six doors away. Accompanying the moving shadow were the tinny clicks of plastic heels treading stolidly across concrete. As always, the footsteps drew ever closer.

Wheeling around, Walter limped back the way he had come, back into the confounding maze of intersecting hallways and silent corridors — all of which appeared much the same as those preceding. He pictured hidden lines of demarcation spread throughout the facility, portals that once stepped through provided instantaneous transport back to the beginning of an endless loop. It was an unnerving thought and sensation, and similar he imagined, to being trapped inside the surface of a mirror.

Pushing such dark thoughts aside, he hobbled toward a doorway that seemed different than the others. With luck, it would lead to the same stairwell he had taken before. Patient rooms little larger than holding cells passed by on either side. All were vacant, in this wing, at least so far. Vacant, but not entirely empty. Unidentifiable bits of trash were scattered about. Narrow bed frames of corroded angle iron leaned like drunkards on arthritic joints. Tattered remnants of cloth clung to bed springs so pitted with rust a single breath might well banish their corporeal forms to the mists of time. He passed them all by, nostrils flaring, throwing darting glances over his shoulder.

He saw a different kind of darkness emanating from the doorway ahead, and plunged inside. It was the stairwell he'd been searching for, and he hurried down to the floor below as quickly as his aching knee would allow. Pausing on the threshold of another corridor, he gripped the door frame, puffing to catch his breath, and waited for his racing heart to still. He peered back up into the dimness of the stairwell, listening for the inevitable fall of _his_ footsteps, echoing singularly down from above, but to his surprise, they never came.

With a sigh, he dropped his head, taking in a lungful of musty air. Perhaps his personal demon had chosen to relent, just this once.

He stepped carefully out of the stairwell. The long corridor was a near-perfect replica of the one he'd just fled, complete with checkerboard patterns of light and darkness emitting from open doorways. In an attempt to break out of the loop, he chose a door at random and walked inside, then swung a corroded metal door quietly closed behind him.

Walter found himself in a tiny room, even smaller than those above, little more than a closet. He might have even thought it was a closet, perhaps even a janitor's room, if not for the single window centered in the wall opposite the door. Beneath a rotting window sill, yellowed cigarette butts and speckles of ash littered the floor surrounding a worn, wooden office chair. He doubted the chair's structural integrity and shoved it aside as he approached the window. Clouding the inside of the glass was a thick layer of dirt and grime. Grimacing with distaste, he scrubbed away at it with his sleeve.

Facing northward, the window provided a view of the asylum complex's back side. Below was a wide parking lot dotted with potholes, and then a field of brown grass bisected by overgrown and crumbling walkways that lead nowhere. From his high vantage point, he could make out the remnants of long-demolished structures torn down at some point in the past; jagged foundation walls and heaps of rubble all that remained of their former glory. Beyond were the pair of buildings that were off limits, standing not far from the back fence. As always, the buildings were under guard — for everyone's safety, of course — by a pair of men wielding rifles. Walter's gaze was drawn downward, closer, however, to the two children sitting atop a low circular foundation wall.

Agent Dunham's niece and her friend were eating something, most likely a mid-morning snack. The sight spurred his stomach awake. A low rumble filled the tiny room, an unpleasant reminder that he had not eaten anything since breakfast. From the look of them, the two girls were having an animated discussion, and about something they deemed of the utmost importance from the way they were gesturing. He wondered what it was all about. Some enterprise for after lunch? They had been joined at the hip since he'd awoken from his recent sickness, often to be found having some adventure or another all over the asylum grounds. As he watched, the girl, Gina, suddenly pointed across the field at the armed men and little Ella stiffened visibly in response, hand flying to her mouth.

Walter frowned. What were those two planning? Sure nothing that involved those buildings, for their sakes. The burly bald fellow whose name he could never quite recall had been rather stern; anyone caught trying to enter either of those buildings unauthorized would be punished. Severely. Whether that meant being turned out of the Home — as most of the others were wont to call the former insane asylum — or being shot dead on the spot, had not been made clear.

He swept his gaze from the girls to the pair of armed men, and the structures in which the man everyone simply referred to as, ' _the Doctor_ ', conducted his research on the infection.

 _A cure._ He snorted, shaking his head. _Preposterous. There is no cure because there is nothing_ to _cure. The problem lies much deeper, in the substrate, and what we refer to so blithely as the infection is merely a symptom of a much larger malady affecting all of our reality. Like a runny nose._ That this supposed Doctor, had yet to realize this fact did not speak well of his chances, or to his overall acumen as a scientist, if a scientist he even was.

For someone who was supposedly in charge, the man was a positive recluse. He had yet to even meet him. Not that he was all that eager to. Suppose he was recognized? The fellow was not young by all accounts, so he had been told, and once upon a time the name of Dr. Walter Bishop had not been unknown in certain circles, even among mainstream practitioners of medicine, much less a scientist who thought he might have a handle on a cure for the infection, even erroneous as he was. Why it would matter, he wasn't sure, but something — perhaps his own paranoia — told him that anonymity was the safer course.

" _Your arrogance knows no bounds, does it, Walter?_ "

Walter flinched, fingernails gouging into the rotting wood of the window sill at the sudden voice. Jaw trembling, he shook his dead, denying the voice's existence. No. _He_ wasn't real. _He_ didn't exist. _He_ was a memory, a manifestation of guilty psychosis. There was no one in the room with him, certainly not a shade wearing his face and speaking in his voice. Speaking accusations.

But then why did the man refuse to leave him alone?

_Why does the past haunt me so? Haven't I paid enough? Everyone I loved is gone. Elizabeth, my love. Peter. Even old Rufus has left me_ _._

It was this place, he decided. This prison in which he found himself, so much like another he had known. Every day was the same, dreary and monotonous. Like before. Time passed by with excruciating slowness, with boredom lulling intellect to sleep, leeches lapping at his very soul, it seemed.

_I have to get out of here. I have to get away._

" _There is nowhere to go, Walter_ ," the voice behind him said, closer than before. Phantom breaths stirred the air on the back of his neck, whispering beside his ear. " _This is where you belong. This is what you deserve_."

Walter shuddered, squeezing his eyes shut. He drew in a hitched breath, then stepped backward toward the door, feeling with hands stretched outward behind him. His skin crawled with icy ripples as he passed through the spot he was certain the apparition was standing. What was it he was feeling, exactly? If he opened his eyes would he see his ghost, or nothing at all? How far would his brain insist on carrying out the charade? His fingers touched upon cool plaster, and then the door frame. He found the handle and yanked open the door.

" _You can't run from it, Walter_."

The voice followed him as he spun out into the hall, left knee shooting spikes of pain up and down his leg. Turning to the right, he hobbled rapidly toward the far end of the corridor, where a blazing square of daylight shone like a beacon. If the compass in his head was accurate, there was another staircase nearby that would lead him down to the more populated wing of the complex, where his tormentor seemed unwilling to follow. Yet.

His memory proved accurate, and he plunged into another darkened stairwell. Winding his way downward, a gaggle of voices floated up from below. Men mostly, but at least one was of a higher octave belonging to a woman. The murmurs grew louder as he descended, until he could pick out a few snippets of conversation. One voice in particular — a soprano with a delightful and mellifluous laugh — captured his attention.

Agent Farnsworth. The sound of her voice spurred him onward.

His young assistant was getting on well with their fellow survivors, and with most of her time spent manning the perimeter fence, he rarely saw her anymore. Or any of the others, except for in the buffet line. They were busy, constantly; manning the fences, helping with repairs, getting to know their fellow survivors. He had come to miss her, he realized, working his way down the last few steps to the first floor. He missed her laugh, and the way she had always humored him back at the lab, putting up with all manner of his shenanigans, taking it all in stride. He missed her, despite of her being right there, easily within reach. He missed them all, but none more so than Peter — and Olive, of course — but there had been no sign of either.

Were they ever coming? How many weeks had passed? Were they okay? Was his son still alive? Somewhere out there, in the wilds beyond the fence, did Peter ever think of his father? Did he ever wonder?

Walter sighed, and rubbed at an arthritic ache throbbing deep in the knuckles of his left hand. He was afraid to know the answer. If only Peter had let him explain. If only he could have made his son understand the necessity. But he had not — he could not; an explanation would have led inevitably to another, far more sordid truth, and dash any hope of reconciliation.

He left the stairwell and followed the sound of voices to what must have been a lobby or visitor sitting area at some point far in the past, but was now the de facto place of gathering. Like everything else, the room was in dreadful condition, drab walls and floors pocked with holes and gouges, and was as visually unappealing as any space he could recall. But it was their home, for now, at least, and none of the men and women lounging on threadbare couches and metal folding chairs appeared to notice their dour surroundings. They were strangers, all of them, except for one, sitting on a sagging love-seat that faced away from the corridor.

He stopped just short of the room's threshold watched Agent Farnsworth's curls bounce as she threw her head back, letting out a guffaw at something the young man sitting across from her had just said. The man in question was grinning, leaning forward. Beside him sat a young woman with ebon hair, also laughing. Both the man and woman were clearly enamored by his assistant's unassuming charms.

Walter didn't know the young woman, but he recognized the young man as the woman Charlotte's boy. Were they of an age? The woman too? He'd have thought Astrid was the older but such things were difficult to ascertain at a glance. Nor did age necessarily matter, among friends, or among lovers. What wasn't difficult to understand was nature, taking its inevitable course.

 _Let her be a young woman again_ , he mused darkly. _She doesn't need an old man, and old fool, dragging her down_.

He watched her for a moment more, and then turned away, leaving the young people behind.

#

* * *

#

The white needle whirled, squeaking quietly as it spun about, a white blur no longer then Ella's finger. Round and round it went, whizzing past the red rectangle, the purple, and then the green and double orange. The needle slowed as it reached the double blue, slowing further at yellow, before finally coming to a stop a hair short of the ice cream cone sandwiched between the single orange and blue rectangles. As it did so, Gina grimaced, swinging her dark braids from side to side.

Ella grinned, and then slid her game piece — a flat, green figurine shaped more like a little boy than a girl, for some dumb reason — forward to the next blue spot on the path, just around the corner from King Candy's Castle. One or two more turns, and the game would be hers.

Lying on the floor beside her, Gina spun the needle, letting out a squeal when the needle stopped on the tiny ice cream cone. "Ha. I'm gonna catch you, Ell, " she snickered, moving her red piece forward to the ice cream cone tile just a few spaces behind Ella's.

"Nuhuh," she said with a giggle. "I'm way too close."

She reached for the spinner and gave it a flick. As it blurred into motion, her mind went back to her own _Candyland_ game, sitting on a shelf in her closet back home in Chicago. Was it still there? Would anyone ever play it again? It was strange to think it might sit there forever. Her game was better, in her opinion, even if it was old, with its cards instead of a spinning wheel, and the pieces were made of cardboard — two boys and two girls. And there were more shortcuts and special cards, like Lord Licorice and Plumpy and Jolly at Gumpdrop Mountain. Why were they missing? Why had the makers changed the way the game was played? It felt lesser somehow, like she was only playing part of the game. She didn't like it.

The spinner came to a stop on top of the double-red square.

"I win!" she said, pumping her fist, before pushing her piece on top of the fat king standing beside his castle.

Gina's face turned sour, and she knocked her little red person over on its side with the backs of her fingers. Mister Broyles glanced over at them, eyes narrowing before he turned back to the window beside Walter. "You want to play again?" she asked in a hopeful tone. "Two out of three"

"Looks like they're starting," Mister Broyles said in the background. Overhead, the dangling light bulbs suddenly dimmed.

Walter leaned forward, cupping the glass. "How long does it take for them to appear, typically? More than a few minutes? What kind of numbers does the light draw? Surely they must be diminished, if they've been doing this for months. Wouldn't you agree, Agent Broyles?"

Ella gave her friend an intent look, rolling her eyes to where the two adults were discussing what was happening outside. It was time, now or never. Who knew when they would turn the light on again? It could be days, or weeks.

Picking up her game piece, Gina turned it over with hands that shook. "Are you sure?" she whispered so quietly Ella could barely hear her voice. "I don't want to get in trouble, Ella."

"We won't," she whispered a reply, and quickly replaced all of the game pieces back into their box. She reached out for the last piece, still held between Gina's reluctant fingers. "We'll be careful. But how else can we know what's in there? Don't you want to know? What if they're doing bad things? What if they're hurting people? It could be your Gram next, or Chris. Or my mom or Astrid. We can tell someone and we won't get in trouble, I promise."

Looking unhappy, Gina finally released her grip on the little red man. Ella put it away, and then carried the game box over to where Mister Broyles and Walter were standing in front of the window. Up close, the beam from the searchlight appeared more white than blue, and blazed like the sun against the night sky through the glass. Glancing back at Gina, she cleared her throat.

"Um... Mister Broyles?" she said, touching the back of his sleeve.

The bald man glanced down from the window, meeting her gaze. "What is it, Ella? You need something?"

Ella's stomach rolled over in her belly. A foul taste spread across her tongue, and for a moment, she thought she might sick up. But then she forced herself to swallow, to take in a deep breath, and managed to get the words out. "We uh... we're done with Candyland," she said with increasing speed. "Can we get Chutes and Ladders from my room? I was playing with Mom before bed last night and forgot to put it back. Can we go get it? We'll come right back."

Mister Broyles's sharp eyes glanced between them. "You both need to go?"

"Well... um uh..." Ella floundered for an answer. He was supposed to just say it was okay, but hadn't. Suspicion began to cloud his features, eyes narrowing as she floundered for a reply. "We... I mean, uh I—"

"She asked me to go with her," Gina said suddenly. "'Cause they turn most of the lights off when the big light goes on. She's... scared, and didn't want to say."

"Yeah...," Ella squeaked with an accompanying nod. At least it was true, partly. Most of the lights did go dark when the searchlight turned on, and the walk back to the tiny room she shared with her mother on the second floor would be long and dark.

"It that all, Ella?" Mister Broyles gave her an amused smile. "You should have just told me. Go ahead and go, you two. Just make sure you come right back."

Beside him, Walter inhaled a gasp. "I see them!" he said, sounding almost breathless. "My goodness. There are more than a few, aren't there? I wonder. Have they ever broken through? That fence doesn't look nearly so solid as ours was at the lab."

Mister Broyles gave the both a glance before turning back to the window. "Hurry up, now both of you," he said, but already he was distracted. Ella doubted he would even notice if they stayed or went.

Ella turned and hurried out of the big meeting room, clutching the board game against her chest. "I told you it was gonna work," she whispered as they entered the darkness of the adjoining corridor.

"Well it almost didn't," Gina shot back, catching up with her. "And we ain't even done anything wrong yet."

No, they hadn't yet. But that would soon change. There was still time to turn back, to forget it all and pretend that everything was normal, that she had never heard Gina's story about screams in the middle of the night. She was only a kid after all, even if she was going to be six any day now according to her mother, and Gina was only seven. What could they even do? She almost turned back then, but something stopped her, a hardness perhaps, something stiffening inside her, straightening her back. It was the right thing to do, she reasoned. _It's what Aunt Liv would do_ _._

They rushed through corridors lit by glittering rays of starlight, to the game room where Ella swapped out Candyland for the slightly smaller box belonging to Chutes and Ladders. She hesitated on her way out of the room, stopping beside Gina. "Are you ready?" she asked. Her heart was a pounding drum, and she wondered how her friend couldn't hear it also, so loud it seemed inside her head. And there was a slight tingle racing across her skin, that seemed to come from everywhere at once. She felt wide awake, more awake than she could ever remember feeling before. Maybe it was what being alive felt like.

Gina lifted her shoulders. "No. Not really. I still think we're gonna get in trouble. But... let's go."

Ella nodded and they raced toward the kitchen, flying through silent and shadowed hallways, patters of running feet chasing after them. If not for her friend, she would've probably been lost in all the twists and turns, and they arrived abruptly before the doorway into the kitchen without meeting another soul. She yanked the door open, and upon seeing only more darkness, stepped inside with Gina just behind her.

A narrow window on the far wall cast pale light across the tiled floor. Making their way through the gloom, they passed between rows of counters and stoves, past hulking refrigerators that looked older than time in the daylight. None of the old refrigerators still worked, but a shiny brand new one sitting out of sight in the corner did, and the faint hum of electricity accompanied the silence. Beside the starlit window was a dark rectangle that led outside. She set the game box down on a counter top and approached the door.

She twisted the knob and, glanced back at Gina. "It's unlocked," she whispered, pushing the door open.

Outside, the sky was a dark shade of gray. Layers of clouds blotted out the stars. A chill breeze whined in her ear, whipping Ella's hair across her face. She tucked the loose strand of hair behind her ears, and zipped her coat up to her chin. Why hadn't she thought to bring her gloves? The weather was turning cold, like in the weeks leading up to the attack on the lab. She wished spring would come again, or even summer, even if it meant roasting inside her tiny room.

Ella stepped through the door, out onto the wavy parking lot. A few birds chirped and tweeted somewhere, playing their question and answer games. Peering to either side, she found no one nearby, though a distant figure stood near the fence off the right, staring outward. Another stood some distance away from the first, peering out through the fence also, and not inward. And why would they look inward? All the danger was on the outside, she reasoned. They wouldn't be looking for infected inside the fence, or for two kids outside in the dark, would they?

She went to ask Gina but found herself alone in the parking lot. Looking back, she found her friend's shadow still inside the doorway. "Aren't you coming?" she hissed, squinting to get a look at her face.

Gina shook her head. "I'm scared, Ella," she said in a hushed voice. "We shouldn't be doing this. We're just kids. I... I don't wanna go. I'm sorry."

Ella swallowed down a hard lump. The thought of going alone turned her stomach into a knot in her belly. But she had to go, didn't she? Aunt Liv would go, even if it was dangerous, even if it meant breaking the rules. Her aunt would do her best to protect her family, her friends, like Astrid and Sonia, and Mister Broyles and Walter. Just like she had all along. _But Aunt Liv isn't here_ , a tiny voice protested. _Aunt Liv might even be dead. She and Peter both. And you are just a kid_.

No. Aunt Liv was alive. She was too smart and too strong to get eaten by the dead people. _I have to be strong, too_ _._

"It's okay, Gina," she said, staring down at the asphalt beneath her feet. She lifted her head. "I... I can just go by myself. You can keep watch, and I'll be back in a little while."

Before her friend could reply, she turned and loped across the parking lot, angling toward the circle of stones where they'd eaten their donuts earlier that day. Ahead and across the field lay her goal, the pair of off-limit buildings standing alone near the back edge of the fence. The buildings were dark, with no traces of light leaking out into the night. Were they empty? Maybe no one was in them when the big light was on. She could only hope so.

Upon reaching the circular ruins, she squatted down among the tall weeds, pressing up against the rough and uneven blocks. She lifted up, eyeing the shadowed buildings. Where were the guards? Were they there? She couldn't tell. Faint voices reached her ears. A glance over her shoulder revealed the beam of light rising straight above the kitchen roof, like a blue-white lightsaber stabbing into the clouds. Indecipherable shouts echoed in the distance. Everyone was busy.

_It's gonna work. It has to work._

Ella turned away from the blazing light, peering back toward her destination. The pair of buildings had vanished, replaced by a shadowy blob, as if she were looking through a cloud of black ink. She waited for the darkness to get brighter, like it always did in her bedroom at night, and after a few moments of waiting, their outlines were visible once more. And something else also.

Tensing, she held her breath as a shadow separated from the blackness, a shadow that became a man with a gun. A guard. The guard took a few steps from the entrance to the Doctor's building, looking out at the fence far off the right. She waited for the other guard to show up, but he never did. She smacked her palm against the guard, when she'd been hoping for none, but still better than two.

Feeling along the rough edge of the bricks, she began working her way around the curved wall. _I can still do it_ , she told herself in a fierce voice. She would just have to be even more careful.

A hand fell across her shoulder.

Ella whirled around, terror stabbing sharp daggers through her chest, only to find Gina crouched behind her among the tall weeds. The scream building in her lungs deflated into a hoarse exhale. "Gina...!" she started with a gasp, and fell back on her rear. She sat up, pulling on the wall for help. "You scared the crap outta me! What are you doing here? I didn't think you were coming?"

"Sorry," Gina whispered. "I wasn't gonna, but, then... I thought about what you said. I do want to know. You're right. It could be Gram next, or Chris. Or your mom, like you said, or Walter. It could be any of us. That scream I heard, it wasn't normal. Somebody was hurting, and I don't remember nobody being sick, or injured at the fence or anything."

Smiling, Ella reached out, taking her friend's hand. "Thanks for coming with me," she said. "Now we should hurry, I don't think we have much time. I could only see one guard, and I think we can sneak past him if we stay far enough away. Maybe we can look in a window or something."

They started forward together into the night, padding through the dead grass. Cold air blew across the left side of Ella's face, stinging her ear, whipping her hair about. As they neared the halfway point between the kitchen and the two buildings, the wind carried voices in its grasp; shouts and screams, rings of metal reverberating in the distance. The sounds of battle.

Ella suddenly found herself thinking of her mother. Was one of the voices hers? Somehow, she had forgotten what was happening at the front fence. That the monsters were there, fighting, clawing to get in. Was her mom okay? It didn't seem all that hard, killing the infected through the fence with the long poles they all used. But the fence did need repairs, sometimes. What if it broke where her mom was? _She'll be okay. She's getting stronger. Like Aunt Liv. She's okay. Maybe she's been strong all along,_ _and I just never saw it_ _._

They crept closer and closer, staying low among the tall grass and staying well clear of the guard, who never even cast a glance in their direction. The pair of buildings and the secrets they contained reared up in the darkness. She could make out their sand-colored bricks punctured by rows of blackened windows, the small roof that jutted out over the steps up to the Doctor's building.

Suddenly, light glared off their left, and she saw the guard's bearded face clearly. He was raising his hands to his mouth, as if preparing to scream. Fear rose up Ella's throat as she and Gina crouched down in the knee-high weeds, cutting off her air like throw-up. She expected a cry of alarm, a shout demanding the two of them explain their disobedience. But the light went out almost as quickly as it had appeared. Left behind in its place was a tiny orange dot, barely visible in the darkness. The dot flared for a heartbeat, growing bright like a star, before returning to its former muted dimness.

Ella sighed, and tried to reason with her racing heart. He hadn't seen them. He wasn't going to sound the alarm. It was a lighter. He was just smoking a cigarette. Even as the thought crossed her mind, her nose detected the acrid smell of cigarette smoke on the wind.

She rose from her crouch, pulling Gina after her, through the tall grass and weeds, until they reached a narrow driveway that cut across the yard. Why it was there, inside the fence, she couldn't say. She hesitated on the edge of the weeds, studying the asphalt. Cracked and broken, it was more like gravel than a solid surface. She glanced between the guard and the nearest man or woman watching the fence, who was still staring outward, searching for infected. The silent watcher was even closer than the guard.

There was no avoiding it; they would have to cross, no matter that they would be out in the open. "C'mon," she whispered. "We have to be really quiet, now."

Gina nodded, and Ella stepped out of the weeds, onto the driveway, cringing at the crunch of tiny rocks beneath her shoes, swinging her gaze between the distant adults. But even though each step seemed to scream in her own ears, neither of them appeared to hear a thing. Crossing as quickly as they could manage, hunched over, hands nearly scraping the broken asphalt, they reached the far side and then sprinted for the shadows draped over the edges of the boiler house.

They plunged into inky darkness, hugging up against smooth bricks, rounded on the corners. Ella peered around the corner and at the lone guard, who was little more than a black shape standing between the two buildings. A tiny red point floated where his head should have been. She watched the light flare as he breathed for a moment, before turning away.

"What now?" Gina's voice said in her ear.

"We can't see anything from here," she whispered back. "Let's try around back. Maybe there's a way inside."

She led her friend along the bricks, toward the rear of the building. Windows set low near the ground brought back memories of infected forcing themselves in through the tiny frames, eyes burning with hunger. Stopping for a moment, she pressed her face to the glass, but there was nothing to see. Not even a hint of a light glowed inside, not even a shadow. Or was there something? A shape? Shapes? Formless black blobs, down low near the floor? She pressed harder, until it seemed her eyeballs were touching the cold glass. She had the impression of something, that brought to mind images of a room back at the lab, full of pipes and all sorts of machines with knobs and switches and tiny little clocks, only they hadn't been clocks at all but some kind of way to measure stuff. Pressure, or so Peter had said. Was it the same here?

"Ella! Are you coming or what?" Gina's hoarse voice was followed by a tug on Ella's coat sleeve. "C'mon. They're gonna know we're gone!"

Rubbing her eyes, Ella turned from the window. Gina was right. They were running out of time. It seemed like they'd been gone for hours already. She followed her friend around to the backside of the building, where they found another parking lot, much smaller than the one near the kitchen. Running alongside the parking lot's far edge was the fence, and to her surprise, another gate. It was locked tight by coils of thick chain, but it was another way in. She was about to ask Gina if she'd known about this second gate, but movement caught her eye.

She pressed up against the bricks, pulling Gina down beside her. A black silhouette was moving toward them along the fence, with a tall spear rising over their shoulder. From the figure's height and hair, she thought it was a girl — which meant it was either her mother or Astrid or Sonia, or one of the three other girls that lived there among all the men inside the Home. Trying to make herself smaller, Ella drew in a breath. _Don't be Mom, please don't be Mom._ Somehow, her mother always seemed to know right where to find her when they had played hide and seek, before, back in the old world.

The crunch of footsteps grew louder. When the unknown woman was nearly even with their hiding place, the distant crack of a gunshot suddenly rang out, shattering the silence and stopping her in her tracks. As if she'd changed her mind, the shadowed woman abruptly turned and rushed back the way she'd come, spear lowered in a charge.

"Let's go!" Ella hissed, straightening.

Rushing headlong across the parking lot, they passed by a tall garage door, and then came to a narrow space, a gap between the two buildings. A space filled with darkness, and small enough that she could touch both sides just by lifting her arms. She hesitated, imagining what kind of creatures might live there. Spiders with thick, sticky webs, crawlies with quivering nests, on the brink of bursting, waiting to shower down onto anyone who walked by with all manner of disgusting creatures.

Gina took one look at the gap and stepped back, shaking her head. "I ain't going in there. No way."

"Me neither," Ella agreed.

She had discovered there were limits to her bravery, limits to what she could make herself do, and stepping into that darkened gap wasn't one of them. There were no complaints from Gina when she moved on, heading deeper into the shadows behind the Doctor's building. A door appeared, locked, and frozen in place as if it had last been opened centuries ago, followed by a row of windows. The windows were almost over her head, and were covered by something she couldn't quite make out in the dark. She reached up, standing on her tippy toes, and her fingers closed around a metal sheet, covered with sharp holes that felt shaped like diamonds.

Was it a jail? Did hospitals have jails? It was a question for an adult, but in the end it didn't matter. There was no way they would be able to climb in through one of the windows, which left the front door as the only way in.

Trying to fend off a bad feeling in her belly, she continued following the bricks until they reached the far side of the Doctor's building, and then sidled into a row of overgrown bushes pressing up against the building around the corner. The beam of light shooting up into the clouds was visible again, tinting the darkness with a bluish haze. They moved carefully through the branches, heading back toward the front, where the lone guard waited.

Focusing on keeping the branches from her eyes, Ella suddenly found herself falling forward through the air. With a strangled yelp, she landed hard an instant later. Pain lanced through her palms, up her wrists, shot through her knees, drawing tears from her eyes.

"Ella!" Gina's frantic whisper came from somewhere above. "What happened? You okay?"

"I'm here. I'm okay," she sniffled, rubbing the aches in her knees. "I... fell into something," Had her jeans ripped? Was there blood? She felt around with shaking hands, but could tell nothing in the darkness. Her palms were on fire, and she balled her hands into tight fists. _You're okay. You can't cry, not right now._ She wiped her eyes with her sleeve, and climbed to her feet.

Gina knelt down, and her knees were on the same level as Ella's eyes. "What is this?"

"I don't know what it is," Ella said, feeling around with her closed fists. "It's just a hole, I guess." The strangely-placed hole was lined with a half-circle of some kind of grooved metal, and filled with rocks as big as her fist, along with wet leaves that reeked of dirt and something else that stung the inside of her nose.

"What about that window? Is it open?"

A window? Ella turned around and found a small window she had somehow missed before, set below the level of the ground. A spark of hope ignited for a heartbeat, only to fizzle when she reached out and felt yet another grate covering this window also. "It's covered by some kind of metal sheet," she reported. "Like all the others. I wonder if it used to be a jail."

Squatting down in front of the window, she went to look through it only to feel something sticky and wet at the same time pressing across her face, her lips. Instantly her mind summoned images thick cobwebs and hairy spiders in her hair. In a panic, she scrubbed the filigree from her face, shuddering, skin crawling with the sensation of tiny, pointed legs traveling beneath her shirt and down her back. Finally, when she judged the spiderwebs were gone, Ella pressed her face against the grate, hoping to see some glimpse of the inside like before.

Stark blackness greeted her inquisitive eyes, and along with a ghostly reflection of herself in the glass, there was nothing to see. Only darkness. Staring at her own dim outline, a thought that had been growing in the back of her mind came to the fore: they were never going to see anything from the outside, and even worse, they would never make it past the guard without being seen. She let out a dejected sigh, and pushed her hair back behind her ears. What would her aunt do? Would she give up?

No, of course she wouldn't. _Aunt Liv would find a way in. But I'm not Aunt Liv._

"What are we doing, Ella?" Gina asked in a whisper, still kneeling beside the hole. Her swiveled back and forth as she peered about. "We've been gone too long. Somebody's gonna know! Somebody's gonna come looking for us. I know it! They're gonna know!"

Ella pounding the side of her fist against a brick, then winced, shaking her hand. It had been a stupid idea. Had she actually thought they would be able to discover anything? They _were_ just kids. Not adults. She wasn't her aunt. She wasn't a secret agent.

"You're right," she admitted softly, staring at her blurry reflection through the metal grate. "I'm sorry, Gina. This is my fault. I should have listened to you. We should go back, before we get in trouble."

As she went to stand up, to begin the disheartening journey back to the kitchen, the constant beam of the searchlight suddenly went dark, only to turn on again an instant later. The light began to stutter, to blink, repeating like a flashing camera. At the same time, her pale reflection in the window vanished, replaced by an image inside the glass. Inside, several bare light bulbs hung down. The dangling bulbs flickered, keeping perfect time with the bright slashes of light in the night sky on the edge of her vision. The lights were connected, she realized at that moment, they were the same, somehow. And beneath the bright flashes, Ella saw the room and all it contained.

Fear spread through her chest, like cold fingers of ice pressing into her skin. Time seemed to slow down, with each successive flash lasting longer than the previous. She felt her mouth drop open, felt the air pulled from her lungs, but was too afraid to move, too scared to even take a breath.

 _What are they?_ a puny voice whimpered inside her head. _Oh God...oh god... oh god..._ The voice kept repeating.

The room was filled with beds. Rows and rows of beds, from wall to wall, tightly packed together. Beds filled with people. They were lying still, as if they were asleep. As if they were dead. Strung between the beds and the people were knots of black wire or cable perhaps, hung between tall poles, looped and curled around the tops of each bed. Or maybe they were massive, black threads of an impossibly huge web, made by an ever huger, an even more terrible spider, big enough to swallow her whole. Strange and horrible masks covered the people's faces, pale masks with hoses coming out where mouths should be, where noses should be; masks with masses of writhing wires stabbing into where hair should be, only it wasn't hair at all.

Ella took in a breath, filling her lungs. Her hand flew to her mouth. What was happening? The strobing image burned into her retinas, into her brain, perfect imprints that held the promise of a deluge of nightmares, waiting when she closed her eyes.

Suddenly one of the figures — a man or woman, it was impossible to tell any of them apart — began to squirm. The body rose up, back arching off a bed with no mattress, and she saw that its hand and feet were bound in place. A cloud of smoke rose up, from a ball of flame that appeared out of nowhere. Then an arc of what could only be lighting zapped across the grid of beds, spraying a shower of sparks in all directions.

Gasping, she jerked away from the window, falling back, crashing her head against the metal edge of the hole. Pain shot across her scalp. She sat up with a groan, head bowed, rubbing at a stinging spot behind her left ear. When she lifted her head, the window was dark once more, its terrible mysteries hidden away. How long had it been out? How much time had passed? Overhead, the blue-white beam shot up into the clouds, steady, casting its paltry haze.

She reached up, feeling at her throbbing head again as the room inside the window hung in her mind's eye. What had she just seen? Was it real? Maybe she had imagined it when she'd knocked her head. _I could have. Maybe. But it seemed real. And terrible_ _._

Struggling to her feet, Ella reached out, touching Gina's knee. Her friend was still kneeling beside the hole's lip, peering up at the searchlight. "Did you see them?" she whispered, tugging on her leg. "Did you see the people in there?"

"What people?" Gina replied, glancing around. "Where? All I saw was that light goin' crazy."

"In there! When the light turned on! You didn't see them? They were all..." She trailed off. What had they been? What had she even seen? "...they were all, tied up by wires or in a web or something. And they were in beds, just lying there."

"In there?" Gina nodded toward the window. "People? I didn't see nobody. You sure?"

"Yeah, I'm sure. I think. I only saw them for a second. The lights were flashing, just like the big light was."

Gina grunted. "They see you?"

See her? Could they have seen her? It had never occurred to her. She saw the strange, pale masks again, how they covered their faces, their mouths and noses and eyes. They couldn't have seen her. Or at least she didn't think so. She opened her mouth to tell Gina, but a shout rang out, so loud it seemed to come from directly beside them, right on the other side of the bushes.

_"Dead at the fence! Dead at the fence!"_

Another voice answered, echoing out from the front of the building. The guard, Ella thought, hunkering down as Gina threw herself down flat beside the lip of the hole. "How many?"

"At least twenty. Maybe more!"

Ella and Gina waited, holding each other's hands in panicked grips as the guard's voice drew closer. He was talking quietly now, pausing every so often. A radio crackled, and then a third voice reached their ears, a voice filled with static. The guard spoke again.

"Yeah. At least twenty. Better send a few civvies this way."

The radio crackled again, asking a question.

"Yeah. Northwest flank."

A pause, filled with static crackles and hisses.

"Yeah. Y'all about done up front?" Pause. "Ten-four, Mister Overbeek."

The guard's shadow moved on the other side of the bushes, footsteps receding. Ella reached up, pushing a low branch aside to get a better look. He was moving away from them, heading out toward the fence, where a man or woman with a tall pole was stabbing it through the fence at a number of moving shadows. Which meant the entrance was unwatched. It was their chance.

"C'mon, Ella," Gina hissed, rising to her feet. "Get out of that hole." She took a few steps back the way they had come, shifting her wide eyes between the fence and the search light. "You heard 'em. They're almost done up front. We have to go back now or they're gonna know! They're gonna know, Ella!"

She nodded slowly, eyeing the window. The image of the bed and the bodies atop them floated in front of her eyes. It all felt like a nightmare, like a bad dream she still hadn't woken up from. Something _was_ going on. Something bad, something horrible. But it had been real. Hadn't it. She had to find out. She had to get inside and see for herself.

"Ella! Please!" It was the panic in her friend's voice the finally got her attention.

Ella pulled herself out of the strange hole. Gina was right. The light would go out at any moment, and when it did, the adults would return, and with them, her mother.

She hurried after Gina, retracing their path back around the pair of buildings. Staying in the shadows, they crossed over the cracked asphalt drive, then raced across the field, hand in hand, homing in on a tiny square of light ahead in the main building. The low circle of bricks emerged from the darkness.

Voices echoed out on the left and right. People were coming, men and women.

Searching for somewhere to hide, Ella slipped over the wall, then yanked Gina down beside her among the mounds of debris. Shaking, they held their breaths, and waited for the adults to pass them by. Footsteps rushed past outside the wall, footsteps and voices — one of which surely belonged to her mother, from a glint of blonde hair when the group rushed past. When they were gone, they vaulted over the wall and sprinted for the door into the kitchen, fear of discovery supplying a fresh burst of energy.

Ella smiled as the main building's shape grew larger and larger. Her heart pounded, rattling the inside of her skull. They were going to make it. It was going to be okay!

Gina reached the door first and threw it wide open. Gasping for breath, they stumbled inside, closing the door with a bang behind them. On the counter beside the door was the Chutes and Ladders game, right where they'd left it, and Ella snatched it up, hugging it to her chest.

"We made it, Gina," she said, taking in huge gulps of air. "We made it."

A voice echoed in the darkness. "Who... who's there?"

Gina let out a surprised squeak. They whirled around, and Ella found a hunched shape standing in the doorway out to the cafeteria, wreathed in shadow. She knew that voice, however, and that shape. A wave of relief went through her. Of all the adults that might have found them, Walter was the least likely to get them in trouble.

"It's just us, Walter," she said. "Me and Gina."

"Oh... I see." Walter sounded strange to her ears, confused. "For a moment, I thought you two were... someone else." His voice faltered, then fell silent. After an odd silence in which Ella and Gina exchanged worried glances, he spoke again, louder than before. "What are you two children doing down here in the dark? This is no place for you, not at this time of night."

For an instant, Ella considered telling him what she'd seen through that window, but then rejected the idea. She'd hit her head, after all. Maybe she hadn't seen anything. A giant spiderweb, filled with people? Lightning inside a building? Now that they were back indoors, it all seemed like a dream, and impossible in real life. He would never believe her. "We... um, got lost and I really had to pee," she told him, and then swallowed. "So I, uh... just used the one down here."

"I see," Walter said again. As he glanced between them, it struck Ella that she'd just told her friend a lie. A lie. The second lie she'd told that night. She wasn't supposed to lie, not ever, but what else could she do? "Well, I trust you found it," he continued, "or else you'd be hopping about like a rabbit. My Peter was the same way, back when he was near your age." He chuckled then, scratching his chin, and his laughter echoed through the dimness. "His mother and I used to call him Peter Rabbit, from the children's books, always hopping about he was, holding onto his genitalia. Do you either of you know them?"

After they both assured him that neither of them had ever read a Peter Rabbit book, Ella let out a relieved breath. He believed her lie. Her tummy felt bad about it, way down at the bottom, where there was a kind of icky, twisting feeling, getting tighter and tighter. But it was the only way, especially if she wanted to continue her investigation. Did she want to?

 _I do_ , she decided as they crossed over to Walter and left the kitchen behind.

They began the long trek back to the lobby, walking in silence. As they neared their destination, Gina suddenly spoke. "Who'd you think we were, Walter? When you came down? There's nobody in here but us and Mister Broyles."

Walter seemed to tremble at the question; Ella could hear it in his voice. "Ah, well...," he shrugged, rubbing his hands together. "As to that, no one. No one at all."


	28. A Dark Room

**-February 2009**

Peter woke to blinding sunlight creeping slowly toward him across white carpet, and the persistent tweet of a song bird plying its trade from somewhere nearby, outside the house.

A yawn stretched his mouth open, and he wiped the crumbs of sleep from his eyes. For several confused heartbeats, he wasn't sure where he was, or what was happening. He was seated in a recliner with brown leather. On the floor at his feet lay one of the assault rifles. Gazing down at the weapon, it all came rushing back.

The man Dale Mueller. A frantic drive through the countryside of Massachusetts in the middle of the night. Olivia was gone, and he was alone in an almost empty world.

He went to get up and gasped, falling back into the cushions, fingernails gouging into the soft leather. Pain bulged his eyes wide open. _Of course, you got stabbed, you idiot_ _._ His entire body seemed to hurt in some way or another, encompassing a deep ache emanating from his lower left side to scrapes of fire blazing across his chest, his elbows and forearms. Even the soles of his feet seemed tender.

There were problems ahead, without a doubt.

Hissing through clenched teeth, Peter lifted his shirt and inspected the bandage covering his makeshift stitches. The gauze fabric was stained a dark maroon color, and crusted over, almost flaky to the touch. The bleeding had stopped, which was good news, no matter that the slightest amount of pressure sent flares of agony shooting across his chest. He pulled his shirt down and took in a deep breath.

How much time had passed? How long had he slept? Was it even the same day? It was an odd and unnerving feeling to be unsure.

Holding himself still, he stared up at the popcorn ceiling. However bad his problems were, they paled beside whatever nightmares Olivia was being subjected to. For a few minutes, he allowed himself to think of her, and to relive their moments together in an abandoned potato field beneath the starry night sky. For a few minutes only he allowed himself, and when his emotions threatened to unravel, he steeled himself, clamping his jaw, and shut that Peter away again. He served no purpose, not here, not now.

Gripping the arms of the recliner, he managed to lever himself into the upright position, and then struggled to his feet, swaying at a wave of lightheadedness. He swept his gaze around the living room, avoiding the mound of blankets on the floor in front of the cold fireplace, before making his way toward the rear of the house.

Painkillers were what he needed. Any, and all.

The medicine cabinet in the hall bathroom contained nothing useful but antiseptic mouthwash, which he took a swig of before heading to the master bedroom. In the master bath, he found the mother lode; a half-bottle of expired Vicodin and an unopened bottle of ibuprofen. Percocet would have been preferable, but he wasn't exactly in a position to complain, now was he? He swallowed three of the small, white pills, followed by two ibuprofens, and then shoved both bottles into the pocket of his coat.

He headed for the garage. Inside was the maroon suburban, safely out of sight where they had left it before heading north for their disastrous outing to Peterborough. Reaching up, he grabbed the manual pull cord yanked the garage door open. Outside, the black SUV sat off to one side, leaning on its front tire. Now that it was sporting a donut, its usefulness had come to an end.

Peter went about transferring their gear into the back of the suburban. Guns and ammo, spare clothes, the trusty crowbar he and Olivia had both once claimed ownership of. He set the broken nightvision goggles aside, then picked up Olivia's sword, running his gaze over the lacquered sheathe, the silk-wrapped hilt. His hand began to shake, and he quickly laid the weapon across the backseat beside his own and slammed the door shut.

Above all, he had to stay calm, in control. Focused on the tasks that lay ahead. Vengeance was a goal, but not at the expense of everything else. The constant rage simmering on the outskirts of his thoughts had to be contained, controlled. Along with the persistent slivers of fear that kept intruding, the images his subconscious mind continually served up to him, of Olivia, and the unknown horrors that might well be being visited upon her at that very moment. He had to ignore all such thoughts. They were distractions. They were weaknesses.

By the time he was finished loading the truck, the painkillers were beginning to take effect, dulling his aches and pains, or at least taking the sharp edges off. He returned to the kitchen and ate several tasteless granola bars dipped in peanut butter, chewing methodically, staring at the pale reflection of his face in the granite countertop. He washed it all down with a stale bottle of water and then got to work.

He had to think. He had to make plans. He had to save her.

He spread what little tools he had and the remains of Dale Mueller's broken nightvision goggles across the island countertop. He turned them over in his hands, examining the damage. Dried blood and hair were glued to the goggle's frame, marking the path of his sword. It was no wonder they no longer worked. The battery casing was almost sheared through completely, along with the power leads. He picked the blood and hair off, letting his mind wander as he went making the repairs.

As he began stripping the wire ends so he could splice them back together, two questions occurred to him. Did they know he'd killed their man? And would they be expecting him to attack?

The first had an easy answer, as the driver of the truck that had taken Olivia had obviously seen him emerge from the house, him, and not Dale Mueller. But second was more nebulous, more worrisome. Had someone found Dale's body? Would they suspect that he had broken in the end, that he'd been tortured? If they had found the body, sans its right hand, then perhaps. But if not?

Peter shook his head, pressing his lips together in annoyance. He should have done something more with the body. Hidden it, burned it, burned the house down around it. Anything. Something. But he'd been too dazed to think straight, too shocked by Olivia's abduction, too consumed with rage and fear. So he'd left it there, lying in the middle of the living room floor. He had to assume the worst then; that someone had found the body, devoid of its right hand, and had drawn the correct conclusion that Dale Mueller had been a spigot of information at the end. Well, not a spigot, exactly. More like a slight trickle.

They would be expecting him to attack, wouldn't they? After all, they had stolen his woman. That was the kind of men he was dealing with, the kind of men he'd dealt with before, in his old life. And they were right. He yearned to go in gun blazing, to kill each and every one of them. But that was the surest way to fail, to die himself. The surest way to fail Olivia. And there were the innocents to consider. People like Charlene Watson and her family. There had to be others. Surely not everyone inside their compound was part of it.

Perhaps a more brazen approach. What if he were to walk right up to their gate and ask for admittance? He doubted the driver of the truck could ID him, but surely Charlene Watson could and would. And there was the other possibility. What if the others were there? He would be putting them in danger also.

No. He could not walk right in. Not yet, or maybe ever. But neither was the guns blazing approach likely to succeed. There was too much randomness in a gun fight, too many chances for a stray bullet, a ricochet; too many variables to account for. Nor was he a crack shot — far from it. Which left only stealth. It was his best chance, his only option. The cover of darkness. Distraction. Feint, and misdirection. He just had to figure out what, and how. There had to be a way. There had to.

Peter twisted the last of the power leads together, and then turned the goggles on, holding them up for inspection. Green static erupted in the right lens, but the left remained stubbornly dark. He fiddled with the power leads for a moment, then set the goggles aside, unwilling to waste any more time on them. One lens would just have to suffice.

With nothing else to do but wait, he paced a slow circle around the island and listened to the deafening silence. His gaze fell on an empty box of saltines sitting on the counter beside the sink, where Olivia had left it two nights ago. It turned out she had a thing for peanut butter and crackers. He could still see the lingering excitement in her eyes as she'd devoured them by candlelight, a moment frozen in time. She'd met his gaze, and her wide lips had curled into a grin, the soft lines of her beautiful face highlighted in the flickering yellow flame. He could see her, as clear as the sunrise on a cloudless day.

A shuddering pang went through his chest. He covered his face, breathing into his palms, and then shifted his fingers back into his hair, pulling hard at the roots. A sudden cramp flared along his jaw, and then down his neck and shoulder. He pulled harder, until the pain became exquisite, white heat spreading across his scalp.

He turned away slowly, peering out the window above the kitchen sink. Outside, the sun had barely breached the horizon. The urge to act, to do something, anything, was more than he could bear. It was killing him, slowly. But the daylight was useless. What lay ahead required shadows, the blanket of night. Better to wait, to sleep if he could. Sleep was a weapon like any other — he'd read that somewhere, somewhen, some story from the old world, back in his old life. It didn't matter where it came from. The advice was good.

Returning to the living room, Peter eyed the mess of their blankets. Steeling himself, tightening his gut, he lay down among them in front of the fireplace, draping the quilts and pillow about him like a cocoon. He pulled Olivia's pillow against his chest and buried his nose in the cool fabric, breathing in, possibly catching a hint of her scent. For an instant, he let the other Peter come forward, the weak one, and let him feel, and let him take in the searing pain and swallow it hole. For an instant.

#

* * *

#

"No. Absolutely not."

Astrid blinked, and then stared down at the older man, focusing on the overhead light glinting off his bald pate. "Excuse me?" She couldn't believe what she was hearing. They weren't allowed to leave. "No? But why not? Are you saying we're prisoners here?"

The man everyone simply referred to as Overbeek, looked up from the pad of a yellow notepaper on which he'd been jotting down a list of names and numbers with a stubby pencil that looked as if it had been sharpened with a knife. His angular face was naturally tan, with only a hint of wrinkles creasing his forehead. From the look of it, he was making a schedule of some sort.

"Prisoners? Nah..." Leaning back in his chair, he crooked a smile that never quite reached his eyes, which were gray to the point of being colorless, she noticed. "It's just our policy... Astrid, is it? Newcomers have to wait at least a month before we let them back outside. It's just safer that way. For us. We've had... let's just call them problems, in the past."

"You might have mentioned that when we first arrived," she said, doing little to hide her annoyance. "Nobody said anything about us not being allowed to leave once we were inside."

"Well I'm mentioning it now." His tan face grew taut, and his smile suddenly seemed utterly false, the toothy grin of a prowling wolf. "Is this gonna be a problem?"

Astrid's stomach did a somersault at the coldness emanating from his gray eyes. Swallowing, she crossed her arms, rubbing her elbows absently as a disquieting knot of queasiness settled in her gut. She thought back to the night they'd arrived, pulling up the long driveway, headlights encompassing the scores of undead attacking the fence, with even more on the ground in long mounds. A battle had just been finishing up, a battle fought with long poles, tipped with spikes, with makeshift spears, able to slip through the links in the fence. When it was over, the survivors inside the fence had stared out at them for a long while, until the gate had finally been unchained, and the man seated before had slipped out, unarmed. He'd waved her closer, and she'd rolled down her window for him like she was getting her car serviced at one of those quick-lube shops. _Can I help you?_ he'd said, as if the scene of carnage was the most normal thing in the world. _We saw your light. We need help._ Overbeek had peered inside her window then, taking in their sorry states, including Walter's haggard face in the back seat, still asleep, breath bubbling audibly. _Well come on in. We've got room for everybody_. The man had seemed so pleasant then, friendly even, and she'd been sure she'd made the right decision. Now, however, with that same man staring up at her like he was a shark and she a baby seal, she was beginning to wonder.

"No... it's no problem, I just...," she started, unnerved by his sudden stillness. "It's just that we still have a few of our people out there. They were outside the city when the undead attacked our place. I was thinking they might have gone back to find us."

Overbeek's eyes dipped downward for a moment, lingering where her arms were crossed beneath her breasts, before rising again to meet her gaze. "Back to the city?" His eyebrows shot upward. "City ain't safe," he said, shaking his head. "Look, Miss Astrid, if your friends are still alive out there somewhere, they'll find their way here. Just like you all did. That's what the light's for."

Then where the hell were they? If that was the case, then Olivia and Peter would have shown up already. The steel had left Overbeek's voice, but it still lingered in his gaze. He wasn't going to give in. And as it was his men that exclusively guarded the gate day and night, it seemed she was stuck.

"You're probably right," she said, turning away from him. "They'll probably show up any day now. Thank you for your time." She started toward the door out of his tiny office, but his voice called her back.

"Oh. Astrid?"

She turned back, narrowing her eyes at his odd tone. "Yeah...?"

Overbeek hesitated, then shrugged. "There's no delicate way to put this," he said, scratching one cheek. "Some of my men, they're... lonely. Not many women here as you might have noticed. An arrangement might be made, an exception, perhaps, if you, or some of your friends were willing to..." He paused, meeting her gaze, eyes dead and emotionless as ever. "Do I need to elaborate?"

Astrid stiffened. Was he serious? The disquieting knot in her stomach became a red-hot ball of fury, turning her insides into a blast furnace. Heat bloomed in cheeks, climbed up the back of her neck. "No. There's no need to elaborate," she said coldly through clenched teeth. "Looks like I have a few more weeks to wait then."

Before he could reply, she spun out of his office, past the startled face of one of his stooges, a Midwesterner named Daniel who always reeked of cigarette smoke. The man caught one look at her face and stepped back, eyes widening in surprise. She brushed past him, refusing to acknowledge in the slightest the fellow's tip of his baseball cap.

Was he one of the _lonely_ men? The nerve of the man. Did she have a for sale sign written across her forehead? Did he think she, or any of the other women, were going to pay their way with their bodies? If so, he was going to learn differently. They all were.

_That son of a bitch. That fucking son of a bitch._

From the looks she received as she stalked through the corridors, her face must have been a storm cloud. At first, she wasn't sure where she was going, not exactly, but when she ended up outside the cafeteria doors, she supposed it was where she'd intended all along. Ever since Overbeek had made it clear they wouldn't be allowed to leave in search of Olivia and Peter, even before his disgusting proposition. For a moment, she stood before the double doors, seething, struggling to regain control of her emotions. A shudder went through her, and she took in a lungful of air.

"That fucking asshole," Astrid whispered in an exhale. "If he touches me, or any of us, I'll kill him."

She wasn't sure she had ever thought that about another human being before and actually meant it. But she did now. They were in a different world. It was a disconcerting feeling, to be so angry, to be so furious with another living person, especially now, when there were so few left. When was the last time she had been that way? Had she ever? She thought that maybe she had, once, back in her first year of high school, when the realities of overt racism had first become a part of her everyday life. They had been too busy surviving to do much in the way of quarreling, or infighting back at the lab. And as for Overbeek's proposition, none of the men from her group would have dared such a thing. Not in a million years. Suddenly she missed Olivia, more than ever before. Not that she couldn't take care of herself, but just knowing Agent Dunham had her back would have been a massive relief. Reaching for the door on the right, she supposed she would just have to settle for the next best thing, instead.

The doors let out a vicious squeal as she shoved through them, and the man and woman standing near the doorway into the kitchen jerked at the sudden noise. Agent Broyles twisted around, swiveling on his bad foot. His sharp eyes darted past her, then swung back, locking on her face as she stomped toward them.

Charlene Watson's dark eyes grew huge. "Astrid? Whatever is the matter, honey? I'll wager somebody's put a burr under your covers, or do you always walk around like that?"

Giving the older woman a thin smile, she turned to her former boss. "Sir... Phillip, can I talk to you?" she asked, tilting her head to one side.

Agent Broyles's brows lifted. "Give me a second, Charlene," he said, giving her a look. "I'll be right back to help with those potatoes." He led Astrid a short distance away, limping noticeably. "What's the problem Agent Farnsworth? From the look on your face, I assume it's serious. Charlene wasn't kidding."

"Did you know we aren't allowed to leave?" she asked bluntly.

"No... I did not know that," he replied, eyes slowly narrowing. "Where'd you hear that?"

"From that asshole, Overbeek," she growled.

"Asshole...?" Broyles's eyes shifted around the cafeteria once more before coming back to her. "Keep your voice down, Agent," he ordered softly. "Now tell me what happened."

Astrid described her encounter with the Doctor's right-hand man, and of his refusal to allow her and Sonia to leave so they could search for Peter and Olivia. When she came to the part where Overbeek had more or less propositioned her, and the other women also, Broyles's eyes turned to iron.

"He said that?" he said in deadly whisper.

"Yeah," she hissed. "Can you believe the nerve of that son of a bitch?" She pursed her lips, shaking her head. The worst part was that she wasn't even opposed to becoming romantically involved with someone, only if it was on her terms, of course. She had even met one woman who seemed more than interested, and there was also Charlene's son who she had also been hanging out with between shifts at the fence and helping out with repairs. But that was it. "Like I'd even give him the time of day," she added darkly under her breath.

Broyles was silent for a moment, lips pinched together in a thin line. "You got any weapons?" he asked suddenly. "Anything at all you were able to keep back when we arrived? Guns? Knives? Anything at all?"

Astrid hung her head. "No. Nothing. I gave up everything when we got here. I guess that was stupid of me. I should have known better."

"We had no choice in the matter. Not if we wanted to be allowed inside. There was no way we could know how thorough they'd be. You can't blame yourself, Astrid. I don't have anything either."

"I'm sorry," she said. "Maybe I shouldn't have brought us here. This is my fault."

Broyles shook his head. "It's no one's fault, Agent Farnsworth. Pull yourself together. Doctor Bishop needed help, and they gave it. So in that sense, coming here probably saved his life. And nothing has happened yet. But just to be sure, I want you ladies to stick together when you're not on duty at the fence, when you go to the bathroom, when you go to dinner. Whenever. You get the idea?"

Astrid nodded. "I understand. I'll let the others know."

A throat cleared behind them, and they turned to find Charlene standing not far away, concern etched plainly across her face. "I don't mean to pry into y'all's business," she said, "but from the looks on both your faces, is there anything I need to be concerned about?"

Astrid glanced at her boss, passing him the initiative. Broyles hesitated, running his fingertips over the crown of his bald head. "When you first arrived here, Charlene, did Kyle Overbeek tell you that you weren't allowed to leave for at least a month?"

Charlene seemed taken aback by the question. "No, he didn't say anything like that," she said after a moment, sounding confused. "But then again, I never had a reason to ask. Why? Are y'all leaving? What's happened?"

"Nothing's happened," Astrid told her. "We just have people on the outside still, that's all. I was hoping to go out and look for them, but that guy Overbeek said I wasn't allowed outside yet." She thought about mentioning what else the bastard had said, but who knew how the other woman would react? Who knew with whom her loyalties lay? Certainly not with people she barely knew. There were hidden undercurrents woven throughout the different groups of survivors living at the Home, and she was still learning the best way to navigate those waters, they all were. And it was her word against his. If the old world was anything to go by, she already knew the outcome of that scenario.

"Just wait the month out, Astrid," Broyles said. "If Olivia and Peter haven't shown up by then, take Sonia and go."

Charlene's hand flew to her mouth, beneath widening eyes. "Wait a minute. Did you say Peter and Olivia...?" she squawked. "But I know them! They were a couple, right?"

Astrid froze, too stunned to respond. Charlene knew Peter and Olivia? How was that even possible? From the look on Broyles's face, he was just as surprised as she. "How... how can you know them?" she asked in bewilderment.

"We met them on the road — me, and Christopher and Gina. Nearly had a tussle, too. The woman, Olivia, she's tall and slender, with blonde hair and as cute as a button? And Peter? Boy, he was tall, too, and handsome, with those eyes and that smile of his. I've seen his type before. Trouble, don't you know it."

"Where did you see them, Charlene?" Broyles asked, having recovered from the shock of the revelation. "And how long ago was this?"

"Why it was the day we got here, not more than three weeks ago. And we met them right outside of town, no more than a mile or two from where we're standing. I asked them to come in with us, but they wouldn't hear of it. Said they had to get back to their people first. Back to y'all, I reckon. They never made it?"

"No, they didn't," Broyles replied, looking concerned.

"We don't know that, sir," Astrid countered quickly. "They might have tried to contact us, but I didn't answer. Maybe they went back to the city. Agent Dun... er, I mean, Olivia, she would have gone back straight away if she thought something was wrong. You know how she is. Nothing on earth would stop her. Certainly not Peter."

Agent Broyles nodded, stroking his chin. "You may be right, but it doesn't matter. There's nothing we can do about it right now." He turned to Charlene. "Did they know this place was here?"

"I don't see how they couldn't have. I remember the big light was on the night before, guiding us in. We saw it from miles and miles away. I don't see how they couldn't have, too, not unless they were asleep."

Astrid smiled inwardly. _Or if they were too busy getting it on somewhere_. She suspected the two of them had gone at it like rabbits once they'd gotten away from the lab and its lack of privacy. She sure would have in Olivia's place. And for god's sake she hoped one of them was coherent enough to use protection. On the heels of that thought, her mind went to Sonia, and her friend's curious behavior as of late. Something was going on there. Maybe Sonia shouldn't be the one to go outside. But then who? Walter? That idea seemed laughable, though he was no doubt eager to find Peter. Broyles then? One of the others? Maybe Claire, or Chris, if either of her new friends were willing.

Voices approaching from the corridor outside drew her attention back to the cafeteria. "We should get back to work," Broyles said, eyeing the double doors. "Those potatoes won't peel themselves, will they, Charlene?"

"They certainly will not, Phillip," Charlene replied with chuckle, already heading toward the kitchen. "I'll get started."

Broyles watched her departure for a moment, face blank of emotion, before turning back to Astrid. "Watch yourself, Agent Farnsworth," he said softly, and then limped away.

Now it was Astrid's turn to watch, following her boss's halting progress until he disappeared through the kitchen door after Charlene. She shook her head, and then made her exit, stopping first by the table where the buffet line would normally start. A tray full of random metal table knives and forks sat at one end.

She grabbed a dull knife and slid it into her pocket, already fishing about in her head for a means to sharpen it to a fine point.

#

* * *

#

When Peter opened his eyes again, the white carpet was tinted with an orange hue by the fading daylight.

Blinking with eyes that felt bloodshot and full of grit, he lay still for a moment, confused and disoriented, until the last dregs of sleep began to dissipate. He let out a wide yawn, then sat up with a groan. His body ached no less than it had when he'd laid down, the hole in his side the most vociferous of his injuries. He lifted his shirt, inspecting the bandage taped across his left side, touching the saturated fabric gently.

"Shit...," he muttered, letting the shirt drop, and then rising carefully to his feet. On his way to the kitchen he peered out into the backyard and found the sun floating a few inches above the trees to the west, with the pinks and oranges of dusk just starting to bleed through the veil of blue sky. _Perfect._ He couldn't have timed it better, even with an alarm.

His bandage needed changing, that was his first priority, but not exactly a task he was at all looking forward to. He searched through the medical bag and came up with only a single bandage large enough to cover the wound in his side. He was going to need more of them, possibly many more. But what the wound needed most, however, was for him to rest, to lie still. But he could do neither, unfortunately. He popped three more Vicodin, then got to work, opening all the blinds in the kitchen to let in as much sunlight as possible.

When he peeled the old and crusty bandage away, the skin surrounding his poor attempt at self-suturing was an angry pink, and burned like it was doused in acid at the slightest touch. A thin trickle of blood seeped from one corner, where another stitch would have been advised in hindsight. By all appearances, it was not doing well. _Not good, Bishop_ , he told himself. _Not good at all_. He dabbed at the stitches with a cotton swab dipped in rubbing alcohol, and then began taping the new bandage in place. It probably wasn't good nursing practice, he surmised, but such was life in a world without doctors or real nurses, much less emergency rooms or urgent care stations. So he went about it, thoughts drifting to the tasks that lay ahead, and how best to proceed.

After he finished changing the dressing, he searched the house for a phone book and found a dusty yellow pages on the top shelf of the front entryway coat closet. He flipped rapidly through the pages, until he found what he'd been hoping to find; an ad for an army surplus store with a Worcester address. Ripping the page free, he stuffed it in his pocket and headed outside to the waiting suburban.

A wave of exhaustion went through him as he slid into the driver's seat, despite his having slept the day away. When he glanced in the rearview mirror, the face staring back at him was one he hardly recognized. When had his skin turned so pale? Like he was a dead man walking? The glassy eyes with exploded irises surely belonged to someone else, some other Peter Bishop. He swallowed down a hard lump in his throat. In his mind he saw another pair of eyes staring out of the mirror, eyes a pale jade flecked with speckles of gold, eyes that would sometimes change color depending on the light, or even her mood, seeming almost gray at times, or in the other direction, on the verge of hazel or brown.

How the hell had it come to this? He tried to pinpoint when everything had begun to go wrong, but there was no beginning. The train bad been wrecking, plowing a messy groove through the mud, flattening everything in its path, ever since a dead boy had sat up on the street outside the lab, so many months ago. If there was any beginning, it was there. Or had it begun even earlier? In the instant his gaze had first fallen upon an attractive blonde waiting for him at the foot of the hotel stairs back in Iraq? It didn't matter, the selfish part of him decided. He would change nothing.

Olivia's voice echoed in the silence of the truck's cabin. _...the last time I told a man I loved him, it was like a curse..._

Nothing that is, except for the last twenty-four hours.

Clamping his teeth together, Peter turned the ignition and put the big suburban in reverse, backing it out of the garage. He glanced at the black government issued SUV parked to one side, leaning like a drunk on its front tire. Something told him he would never see it again, one way or another. He certainly didn't plan on returning, not without Olivia, at least. When he reached the bottom of the driveway, an infected lurched out of the woods, homing in on the truck like a magnet. He drove over it without slowing, wincing at the jostle of the body crunching beneath the tires.

He turned west toward Worcester and set out, hunched over the steering wheel, checking the road atlas on the empty seat beside him occasionally. The route he took was different than before, angling for the northern edge of the city. The brown countryside rolled past, but he saw none of it. Nor did the gaping buildings and businesses that flashed by make an impression, or the homes boarded up, the crashed vehicles choking off intersections, the herds of infected stirred up in his wake. In the space behind his eyes there was nothing, only a singular point of determination. All thoughts led inevitably to Olivia, and it was easier to not think at all than to let himself dwell on the unknown. If he let it, his imagination would play out in vivid detail untold horrors being visited upon her his every waking moment.

Upon reaching the address listed in the yellow pages ad, he pulled off to the side of the road and parked, staring doubtfully across at the wide plaza in which the army surplus store was located. Contrary to what the garish advertisement had claimed, the size of the smashed storefront did little inspire confidence that inside he would find the most expansive stock of military gear on the East Coast.

The tiny outlet store was crammed between the ruins of an aquarium supply store — why anyone would bother looting such a place when the world was falling down around them, he didn't at all understand — and a candy shop with a rainbow lettered sign written across a field of mustard yellow. None of them had been prime real estate before the apocalypse, and now they were positively decrepit. He noticed a narrow sandwich shop a little further down that looked as if it had been the recipient of a full-scale SWAT assault, riddled with bullets, front facade disintegrated by a massive explosion. Debris littered the parking lot; glass and wood framing members, bits of clothing torn to shreds.

With a sigh, Peter slid out of the truck, side aching. Unwilling to risk a gunshot, he grabbed his sword from the back seat. The area appeared clear, though he had learned that appearances meant little. Infected were particularly adept at finding dark hiding spots and waiting patiently for the unwary, perhaps forever, if necessary. He crossed the parking lot, darting glances all about, then approached the entrance. Shadows filled the spaces between the missing panes of glass, between the warped and bent door frame. He recognized the efficient handiwork of a crowbar, not unlike his own. He pulled the door open, grinding bits of glass between the metal frame and the rough concrete, and then stepped back. Waiting, he raised the sword, squeezing the hilt until his knuckles ached.

A low hissing preceded the infected that stumbled through the open door. Tall and lanky, the undead man's eyes gleamed hunger and animal lust. The creature zeroed in on him at once and lunged forward, blackened teeth gaping.

Peter waited until it was almost on him, then whipped the sword down in a diagonal slice, sheering through flesh and bone with a gleeful kind of ease. The infected stumbled and the top quarter of its head came away, flopping down over its left ear like a hacked open coconut shell dangling by its rind for an instant, and then it fell forward onto its face, gushing a river of blood from the open maw of its skull.

Gasping, he lowered the sword. Stabs of pain flared all through his left side. The injury wasn't going away, not anytime soon, that much was certain. He waited a few more minutes, nostrils flaring as the pain slowly subsided to a low furor. When it was apparent that there were no stragglers remaining, he strode inside, absently pressing his hand against the bandage through his coat.

The interior of the army surplus store looked as if a bomb had gone off. Lines of disjointed product shelves leaned haphazardly, or were upended entirely, contents spilled across the floor among mounds of trash and windblown leaves. He pulled a flashlight from his pocket, dragging the beam over the detritus until he found the clothing section against the back wall. After grabbing a plastic tote from an oddly undisturbed stack sitting just inside the entrance, he kicked his way through the muck. With any luck, the items he was looking for had not been hot commodities in the surplus store's final hours.

At the back of the store he found camouflage pants and a jacket among a mountain of tattered clothing. Despite being used and a bit threadbare, they were near enough his own size. The fact that they were covered in mouse shit, and had possibly been used as a nest, didn't bother him in the slightest. None of it mattered. Nothing mattered but saving her. He shook them out as best he could, turning his face away at the tiny black pellets that flew in all directions.

With one item from his shopping list secured, he poked around among the rubble, searching for the rest. Where the first aid kids should have resided were nothing but empty shelves. He shined his light around the vicinity and cursed. Of course they were gone. Guns. Bullets. Food. Medicine — bandages included. Those were the new currency of the apocalypse. So much for a one-stop shopping trip. More than likely it would be difficult to locate them in any kind of retail setting. He would have to search houses, apartments. But it was a problem for later. He found more batteries compatible with the repaired nightvision gear, and a pair of long-handled bolt cutters that would be more than useful, capable of snipping through even the thickest gauge of chain-linked fencing like butter.

On his way out, his gaze fell across a random box among the debris, no larger than a shoebox. He snatched the up box, reading the description again under his light, just to make sure his eyes hadn't deceived him. They had not.

The words _Military Grade Smoke Flares_ were printed across the side of the box in bold. Underneath, someone's excited scrawl slanted downward. _Just like the real thing! Burns for at least 90 seconds! Guaranteed!_ He looked inside and found the box full of tan cylinders that looked eerily like sticks of dynamite. Each stick had a yellow label, F _or Maritime Use Only_ , running down its length.

Smoke flares. They weren't on his list, but he dug into them greedily anyway, counting at least ten in all. Scenarios in which a dense cloud of smoke might well be useful flashed through his mind. They would be more than useful. Plans began to form, hypothetical methods of distraction, and subsequent extraction. It was all speculation, however. In order to proceed, more data was required. More information.

Tossing the smoke flares in his shopping tote, he headed for the exit.

#

Back in the truck, Peter headed south into the heart of Worcester. On his right, the sun was dipping below the horizon, painting the sky in swaths of red and orange and pink. He made good time, as the streets were abnormally clear of obstructions, whether stopped vehicles or infected. Not that the dead weren't present, of course. They could be seen here and there, but nearly all were solitary, and not part of larger groups.

Was it the effect of the searchlight he was seeing? He wondered how long it would take to thin out the numbers in a city the size of Worcester. Was that even these people's goal? Try as he might, he could think of no reason why anyone with any semblance of intelligence would encourage the undead to attack the place where they lived and slept. It was like shitting where you ate — it just wasn't done — and it was just begging for the gods of chance to exert their will, to boot. A simple chain-linked fence wasn't strong enough, not by far. If a large enough horde came along — not unlike the horde that had swept over the lab — they were all doomed, fence or not. The thought lingered in the back of his mind as he watched several infected recede in the rearview mirror.

The sky crept steadily toward darkness, the titian hues of dusk giving way to the inevitable onslaught of blackness. When he reached Interstate 290, only a mere sliver of the sun's rubicund disk blazed through the trees to the west, its final gasp before the curtain of night descended. He located a clear bridge over the highway, and soon found himself in a little rundown neighborhood with a smattering of cars and trucks parked along the street.

Pulling over in front of a bungalow the color of a rotting lime, he consulted the road atlas, running a finger southward over the zoomed-in map of the city to an open space that seemed near the approximate location of the former insane asylum. An unlabeled wide patch of green covered the northern portion of the map, not far from where he was parked. The green meant it was a forest, or some kind of wooded area, he assumed, and perfect for what he had in mind. How far away was it? He tried to gauge the distance with two fingers over the scale. A mile? Maybe less.

His side ached throbbing like a heartbeat. The painkillers were wearing off despite it only being an hour or two since he'd taken them. What did that mean? Could it be infected already? He had tried to be careful, but he was no doctor, much less a nurse or a technician. Who knew were Dale Mueller's knife had been before it was inside of him?

With a grunting sigh, he pressed a palm against his wound and let his forehead fall to the steering wheel. _You can do this, Bishop. You have to do it. She would do it for you. Olivia would do it for you_.

A tapping sound interrupted his pleading thoughts.

He lifted his head and found the idling truck surrounded by at least a dozen sets of teeth gnashing open and closed below pairs of eyes of burnished gold. The infected were all rotted, skin peeling — all except one. The white-faced fresh was directly in front of him, scratching at the suburban's hood with bloodied fingernails. He heard the faint screak through the glass, raising the hair on his neck like fingernails scraping down a dry chalkboard. Even more disturbing than the fresh's furious gaze as it peered in at him was the wide gash across its throat, from ear to ear, and the bib of dull crimson painted across its bare chest.

_Where the fuck is its clothes?_ Peter swallowed, glancing around. Whispers of unease tingled down his spine. Could there be other survivors around? Other than those at the asylum? Clearly, the fellow gnawing on the hood ornament had not died of natural causes, or even those unnatural. Other than the dead, however, the neighborhood appeared deserted, blanketed in layers of decaying leaves and windblown refuse. Dust covered the few cars and trucks parked nearby, collecting in a fine patina on the edges of the windows, filling in the gaps between body panels. From the deflated wilt of their tires, none of the vehicles had moved in months.

The naked fresh snarled as he put the truck in gear. Who had killed him? And why? The deed must have happened nearby for it to still be in the area. And recently. Not knowing the answer left him uneasy, but there was nothing to do but press forward, and adapt however was required.

Pressing hard on the gas, the fresh and those of its fellows foolish enough to stand in front of a motor vehicle vanished silently below the front end. He drove over them, with the faint bumps barely even registering as bodies were crushed beneath the tires. As he neared the next block, the crumpled bodies in the street began to stir. Some made feeble attempts to rise, while others lay still, and those still standing rushed after him as quickly as their stilted gaits would allow. A moment later he rounded a corner and they disappeared from sight and from his mind.

He wound his way through the neighborhood, past weatherbeaten homes, holding the atlas open against the steering wheel, all the while looking for some hint of a forest, or whatever it was the green spot on the map represented. Then he rounded another corner and saw it; a wall of tall trees at the far end of the next block. Leaning forward over the steering wheel, he peered ahead into the burgeoning dimness, searching for a likely place to hide the suburban.

There were no garages in the area, but there were several covered car ports. The thought of leaving the truck out in the open, didn't sit well with him but he had no choice in the matter. He pulled into a driveway that lead up to a low ranch with white paint peeling from its siding, and parked beneath the green fiberglass roof of its car port. Eying the house, he grabbed the crowbar from the back seat, then jimmied open the front door.

The house was empty of both the dead and the living, despite there being an unpleasant smell in the air he failed to find the source of. The smell didn't matter. The house would be his home until he found Olivia, but he wouldn't be spending much time there — none at all if he could help it.

Seated at a low kitchen table, he swallowed two more of his rapidly depleting supply of Vicodin, chasing them down with another stale granola bar and a strawberry-kiwi Capri-Sun. By the time he was finished getting ready, stars were peeking out through their pinholes, twinkling incandescences flashing across the night sky. A brisk wind was blowing out of the west when he finally left the house, tumbling errant leaves in lazy fashion down the street outside.

It was time.

Peter checked his gear; his pistol, his backpack and its contents, the sword strapped over his right shoulder, and then cinched his belt tighter over the green and tan fatigues, which despite being his size, felt like he was swimming in them. When had he grown so thin? The fucking granola bars were to blame, he had no doubt, along with the end of the world and the subsequent lack of stocked grocery stores.

As he crossed the street, angling for the wall of trees, he thought about taking up hunting someday, and envisioned returning to a home somewhere with a fat deer carcass slung over his shoulders. Olivia would be waiting for him. No. Who was he kidding? He and Olivia would return together. When had she ever sat anything out? Had it ever happened? Maybe some of the others would be waiting for them instead. Ella and Rachel. Sonia and Broyles. Maybe a farm somewhere, far out in the back country, away from people, away from population centers. Maybe they could have a life, maybe even a family. Such thoughts had always felt alien to him, almost anathema, yet he found that they no longer did. There was something enticing about the idea. He found himself yearning for it. It was something to shoot for. A goal to strive for.

He forced such thoughts away from him. They were useless thoughts, without meaning. He had an entirely different goal to meet. For a brief moment, he had thought about leaving Olivia's black automatic behind before setting out, but then had thought better of it, and buckled on its holster. Not that he planned on killing anyone — not yet, at least — but he wasn't going to make that mistake again. Not ever. Who knew what lay ahead? Who knew what opportunities might open before him? Could he resist rushing in if he saw a glimpse of her? The truth was that he wasn't certain that he could stop himself, no matter the consequences. Someone was going to pay.

It struck him then that he was thinking about killing people, about assaults and battle tactics as if they were subjects he were intimately familiar with. But in truth, what did he know of such things? Beyond a single reading of _The Art of War_ long ago, what did he actually know? Before Dale Mueller, he had never killed anyone. Not anyone alive, at least. And not in cold blood, and certainly not by his own hand. It should mean something. He should feel it, shouldn't he? But there was nothing inside, nothing but a distant kind of numbness and ever-present exhaustion.

Images flashed across the backs of his eyeballs. Memories of Baghdad, of black smoke suffocating the hot air, searing into his lungs. Licks of roiling flames reaching for the scorched sky. Tear-streaked faces cased in dust. Screaming. Cries of lamentation fading behind him as he raced through a choked alleyway. Perhaps he wasn't so innocent. He shook his head, pushing the images into the far recesses of his mind. Baghdad was the past, and part of another world, one that no longer existed. He couldn't change what had happened, no more than he could have predicted the insurgent's utter and complete overreaction to the rabbit hole he'd led them down. If there was blood on his hands, it was from another epoch.

He reached the wall of trees and forced his way into the chaparral, through evergreen branches with thick needles and branches sticky with wet sap. A moment later he found that tree line was indeed a wall, and not part of a forest at all, cordoning off a sprawling golf course from the common dregs of society. But, far across the sinuous greens and wild roughs, across curving cart tracks that glowed palely under the starlight and the rolling fairways with bunkers of white sand that gleamed faintly, was the forest he had seen on the map. And beyond, the silhouetted back drop of the asylum rose in the distance at the top of an incline.

And Olivia. In the silence of his head, her voice screamed. Untold agonies shredded her throat raw, buffeting his mind as he stepped out of the trees. The overgrown golf course spread out before him.

Peter started forward, jogging at a moderate gait, stabs of dull pain piercing his side. He pressed his forearm against the spot, applying steady pressure. Gasping, hunched to one side, he passed over a narrow fairway, then through a dividing line of prickly bramble and out onto another fairway. He crossed two more holes, and then plunged into a thick forest, not unlike the forest through which he had chased a laughing Olivia less than twenty-four hours ago.

Not unlike the forest in which he'd lain a curse upon her, veiled in the guise of love.

The voice whispering discontent in his ear belonged to the other Peter, the weak Peter, and with an effort, he shoved it back down into the far recesses, back into the dark hole where he refused to stay put. Such thoughts were useless. He didn't need that Peter, nor did he need his distracting pulings filling the inside of his head.

He raced a serpentine path through the trees, through weeds and vines reaching out to ensnare. The stretch of woods seemed fairly narrow, no more than a quarter of a mile, he guessed. The forest was alive with sound, chirps and squalls repeating without end. If there were infected nearby, he never saw them. Soon, he caught glimpses of light through the spaces between the rows of tree trunks. The lights grew brighter, until he could make out their shapes; narrow rectangles elevated off the ground at uneven intervals, and then the wide facades of bricks and tall, peaked roofs. Slowing, stepping carefully, he pushed through the interwoven branches doing their best to block his path until, abruptly, the trees came to an end. Approaching the forest's edge, he ducked beneath the low branches of a wide oak tree, crouching down in its shadow. Ahead, just beyond a narrow strip of overgrown grass and weeds, lay the gray strip of a narrow roadway, and then a tall, chain-linked fence with rows of barbed-wire slanted outward running across the top. The moon shone down, providing a dim haze of light.

On the other side of the fence was an open space large enough for a football field, and then the sprawling Kirkbride complex. It had been larger once, a massive triangle of interconnected buildings with the tall and picturesque clock tower at its center. But those days were gone. Buildings had been torn down over the years, entire wings gone missing. What was left was still impressive, however, a scatter of structures of varying shapes and heights, but all with a uniform architectural style that had a harsh, almost ominous aspect. He supposed it was that sense of menace that had prompted so many filmmakers to feature such places in countless horror and psychological thrillers.

Far to the left he recognized the building he and Olivia had first come upon before. From the lack of lights in any of its windows, it still wasn't in use, and perhaps never would be considering how close to the fence it lay. Nearer however, was another structure, one he'd missed on their prior visit. It was tall and round, with a pointed roof that reminded him of a wizard's tower out of fantasy. More importantly, it lay outside the fence, nestled back near the tree line. Why it had never been torn down along with the other outlying buildings, he didn't know, but from the top floor he would have a view of the entire rear of the complex. He would come back to it, later.

Peter headed to his right, following the edge of the forest and the fence and the narrow drive which curved between the two. Soon, a dark structure came into view, along with a small parking area just on the other side of the fence. He saw that there was gate in the fence there, secured by chains that looked thick enough to hold back any number of gorillas, and far more durable than the gate itself. The dark building was oddly shaped, with one half short and squat, and the other several stories tall with an angled roof line. Columns of gray smoke or steam rose up from the shorter, from a pair of tall chimneys or smoke stacks. He kept moving, until the unknown structure was directly opposite.

He crouched down, studying the lower half of the building and the smoke curling upward. They were obviously heating something in there, but what? And why? Were they running boilers? It seemed impossible that any of the utilities could possibly be working. Yet they had electricity. He recalled seeing power lines on their first visit, but surely the facility was no longer connected to the electrical grid, even if the power was on. Which it wasn't. What was left of the asylum had been scheduled for demolition, the site razed for a new medical facility. He had read that, hadn't he? Back in the old world. And yet the asylum grounds were utterly silent. If there was a generator on hand, it wasn't running. Just like at the farm with all the greenhouses, he realized. There was a mystery there, but he didn't have nearly enough clues to go about solving it.

Continuing westward, he followed the curve of the fence, staying just inside the forest. More structures came into view, each tall and monolithic, like they'd been carved from massive blocks of granite. Lit windows sprinkled the upper floors here and there, though far less than the other occupied buildings. In some of them, black silhouettes moved about.

He held still for a moment, shifting his gaze from window to window. There were people in them. Other survivors. Were any of them aware of what had transpired at a little farm outside Peterborough. Were they all part of it? Was one of them his father? Or little Ella, or Rachel? Or any of the others? Were they even alive? With a grimace, he resumed his surveillance, continuing around the perimeter. Such speculation was useless, and distracting. Until he had concrete information, wondering was a waste of time and energy.

The stars were out fully now, puncturing the blackness of night with glittering pinpricks. Thin strands of clouds that looked like cotton candy all angled southward, as if drawn and stretched by some kind of intense gravity well somewhere below the horizon. From this different perspective, he could see the entire compound, spread out before him. The wide field was even deeper than he'd thought, and the odd-shaped building with its pair of smokestacks was rather isolated, set far away from all the others.

He was pushing a low tree limb out of his way, when a series of deep, hacking coughs shattered the silence.

Peter jerked at the sound, heart leaping up his throat. He recovered quickly, however, and ducked down into undergrowth, hissing through gritted teeth at the surge of pain such rapid movement ignited in his side. Reaching out, he parted the tall grasses, peering out into the dimness beyond the fence.

Where the hell were they? There was nothing, no movement anywhere. He leaned forward, craning his neck and sweeping his gaze from side to side, looking for shapes in the shadows. Where were they?

At the weight of his backpack shifting about, it occurred to him then that he'd been a fool. He slid the bag down off his shoulders and removed the nightvision goggles, fitting them over his head. He turned them on, blinking at the gaze of green static that filled his right eye as he turned the focusing knob this way and that. The image sharpened into an ancient brick building; doors, windows, peaked roof with missing shingle, all tinted varying shades of green. Over in the other buildings, individual white suns blazed forth from those rooms which were occupied. He swung the view lower, back to the sequestered building — which as it turned out, was actually two separate buildings, albeit set extremely close to each other — and found a pair of men standing before the entrance to each.

Men armed with automatic rifles.

"And what have we here?" he whispered, dropping his hand to the pistol on his belt.

His blood began to surge, filling his ears with static. Studying the two men, he fought against the urge to claw his way through the fence. Even with the zoom on the goggles, the men were too far away for him to make out their faces, but he could tell they were talking, could see them gesticulating as if they were old friends. Were they guards? Why would they be guarding a building inside the compound? And against what?

Before he could contemplate this oddity any further, a shadow crossed in front of the goggle's view screen, seemingly on top of him, close enough to touch.

Recoiling out of pure reflex, he lost his balance slowly tipped backward, crashing through twigs and sticks alike. The goggles slipped off his head, falling into the brush. Pain shot across his abdomen, and something dug into his back, bulging his eyes open.

"Who's there?" The woman's voice sounded as if she were standing right beside him. "Somebody out there? Come on out, you dead fuckers! I got your medicine right here!"

Through the cloud of pain radiating from his side, he tried to identify the voice, but he knew no one left alive with a South Jersey accent. A brilliant flashlight flicked on, sweeping over the area to his left, moving slowly over the trees and the layers of brush. Peter lay still, holding his breath. Then he noticed a green light glowing faintly on the edge of his vision, off to his right. _Shit!_ He cursed in the confines of his head _. The fucking goggles!_ A surge of panic muted the pain to a dull roar.

Doing his best to remain silent, he lifted his arm and carefully turned the goggles over, pressing the lenses into the dirt just as the flashlight beam swept over his location. He held perfectly still, holding his breath, and peering out through slitted eyelids at the black shadow behind the blinding light.

"You got something there?" a man's voice called out. The voice wasn't close, but neither was it far. Footsteps approached, swishing through tall grass. One of the armed guards.

The silhouetted woman kept her light on him. She seemed frozen in place. "Thought I heard something out there," she said. "Just inside those trees."

"You want me to call it in?" the guard asked, his voice drawing closer.

The flashlight hovered over Peter for several more heartbeats, and then winked out. "Nah. I guess it was nothing," the woman replied shortly, her voice quieting as she turned away. "If it was one of _them_ , they'd be biting at the fence already. Coulda been a deer, I guess. Claire told me she's seen some up close to the fence on her watch."

"Could be," the male voice muttered, clearly losing interest. "Hey uh, Jules? What are you doing tonight after your shift? You uh... you got any big plans?"

The woman named Jules's voice sounded different when she replied, touched with wariness. "Big plans...?" she repeated, then let out a grunt. "Um... I dunno. One of them new girls was playing spades tonight. Needed another person, and I was thinking about joining them. Why?" she asked in a tone laced with caution.

The voices receded, footsteps dwindling across the gravel drive. Peter exhaled a long breath, continuing to listen as the woman attempted to fend off the fellow's advances without trying to sound like she was doing so. She had a tough road ahead of her, he suspected. When he could no longer hear them, he sat up, stifling a groan. He snaked a hand inside coat and felt hot wetness through his shirt. The metallic tang of blood drifted up to his nose.

"Fuck me," he murmured, climbing carefully to his feet.

Raising the goggles once more, he spotted the woman striding away from him through the green haze, staying on her path around the fence. Her hair was cut short and tinted green, though it could have been any number of colors under normal light. On her shoulder, she carried some kind of tall spear or possibly a medieval polearm. Hurrying back to the entrance of the taller building was a man with a rifle tucked beneath one arm.

It seemed like a good time to leave the area, so he fitted the goggles back in place, readjusting the straps until he was satisfied they would support themselves. Continuing his surveillance, he crept along the forest's edge, slipping from tree to tree toward the front of the compound and the cluster of occupied buildings where shadows were still moving inside, cutting through the blazing window like moons eclipsing the sun. The searchlight came into view, with its massive canister pointing straight upward. It sat on a wide trailer in front the asylum's main entrance, where more people were walking the fence, all carrying weapons for stabbing through chain-links. There was another gate, manned by more men armed with rifles.

A moment later he ran out of forest, though the narrow roadway continued until it eventually emptied out into a large parking lot — the same parking lot he had seen on his prior visit. Pulling branches aside, he ran his gaze over the cars and trucks and found the Watson's blue Dodge Ram parked where he'd seen it last. Beside it was a light-colored Mercedes SUV. Had it been there before? Olivia would have known in an instant, but he wasn't sure. The brown four-by-four they had followed out of Marlborough was gone however, just as there was no sign of the truck that had taken Olivia.

It didn't necessarily mean anything, but the possibility that Dale Mueller had lied crossed his mind, wreaking havoc before he managed to calm himself. It didn't seem likely that he had lied. There had been real terror in the man's eyes at the end. The fear of _un-being_ , of becoming something other. He had wanted to die cleanly, as himself, and enough to bargain for it.

_She has to be here._ Because if she wasn't here, he was lost, utterly. _She has to._

Before turning back, he stared up at the center Kirkbride building, with its enormous clock tower stretching up into the night sky. Up close, it was even more unnerving to look at, as if it gave off a peculiar kind of taint, but at the same time seemed almost familiar, as if he should know it from somewhere. It was not the kind of place he would have chosen to live, not willingly, at least. So why had these people? It made even less sense when there was a plethora of more modern structures all over, including a modern hospital perhaps a mile or two away. Why had they chosen here? What was so special about a rotting insane asylum left over from the nineteenth century?

Peter started back, retracing his route through the underbrush. Making his way through the green-tinted night, his thoughts returned to the guarded buildings. Why guard a building inside a fenced compound? Were they keeping other survivors away? Or were they guarding against what was inside? Or both?

The pair of isolated buildings came back into view, blurry smudges in the distance. He moved closer, pausing only when a man in a Red Sox hat walking the fence passed by, until he was staring at their backsides. Was the fence under watch all night? More than likely it was — it was what he would do if he were in charge. How many at once and how often were there shift changes? With the temperature dropping again, probably fairly often. He watched the wisping plumes of the guard's exhales vanish. It _was_ cold out. He rubbed his palms together and shivered, noticing the chill for the first time since he'd begun his surveillance.

The guard moved on, unware he'd been under watch, and Peter hunkered down in the cold, peering out through the goggles. He zoomed in, looking the isolated buildings over carefully. They were newer constructions, he realized, with bricks that were more uniform in size and shape than the other buildings — but new was only a relative term. He doubted either of them were under a century old.

Other details he'd missed on his first pass stood out to him. The taller building's windows were covered by thick metal grates, the sort he'd seen before in old jails and prisons, and generally anyplace that required containment of undesirables. St. Claire's had had similar grates, he clearly recalled seeing such when he and Olivia had sprung his father. Had this been the high security wing of the asylum? That might explain its isolation. If Olivia was anywhere, surely it was in there. She had to be. Why else have guards? He needed to find a way inside.

The taller structure had no doors on its backside, which left only the front entrance, and the shorter had a tall overhead door wide enough for a truck to pass through. The horizontal slats were caked with corrosion, and he guessed they had last been opened decades ago. In addition to housing boilers or furnaces of some sort, the building had probably served as a maintenance shed as well, long ago. Frustratingly, there seemed no easy way into either of the buildings, not without making enough noise to bring the entire compound down on him. He eyed the narrow gap between them, just wide enough for a person to shimmy through. Could they be connected somehow? Underground? In modern construction, medical facilities frequently had connecting tunnels, but was it the same here? He didn't know, and he would have to be inside the compound to find out.

He had to find a way inside. He had to. Olivia's life depended on it. She was counting on him to save her, just as she had saved his worthless life so many times before. His debt to her was miles wide, fathoms deep.

Another fence guard passed by, another man, with a thick triangular beard jutting down from his chin. How many fucking guards were there? They seemed endless. Was their movement random? Or was there a pattern to it? They were questions that needed answers before he could formulate any kind of plan.

Misdirection was the key that would unlock the doors of opportunity. It was always the key, in any play worth making. Once upon a time, he had been a master of it; of the long game, of distraction, of sleight of hand, of forcing a mark into a box of their own making, and of convincing his prey the idea was theirs all along — as with the insurgents, whose retribution had been far swifter and more brutal than he could have ever anticipated. Such skills were not the precise ones that would avail him now, but they were in the same ballpark, part of the same set.

No, what he needed was a simple diversion. A manipulation of interest. And, now that he'd thought about it, the answer was intuitively obvious, and more importantly, it couldn't help but work. Indeed, most of the groundwork was already laid out, and all without him even lifting a finger.

All he had to do, was wait.

What better time to make his assault then when the entire compound was consumed by a distraction of their own making? When the big light was on, when the men and women were defending their home. If there were any time the guards would be lax, or even pulled from their posts if the danger was great enough, it was then. And then he would strike.

He pulled off the goggles and shoved them into his backpack, jaw tightening into a sardonic grin. Perhaps he could make sure the danger was great enough. It would be as easy as turning on a light. Had they not used a similar tactic themselves? Fair was fair, after all.

_But what about the innocents in there?_ an irritating voice chimed in, the voice of his weaker self. _Olivia thought they couldn't all be bad. And what if the others are here? Rachel and Ella? Astrid? Sonia? Even Walter. Will you kill them all to save her? You think she would thank you? Get real, Bishop._

He grimaced, unable to deny such logic, although Walter could rot for all he cared. But the others? He would have to be careful. Very careful. Just a little nudge to get their hearts racing, to get their blood pumping, but not quite enough to overwhelm. Enough to make the man in charge sweat, just a little bit. The margins for error were exceedingly narrow, but he managed such before, hadn't he? The disaster in Baghdad had been his only misstep and he could never have planned for, could have never predicted such irrationality and blind rage. The situation here was entirely different.

_Oh, is it now? Is it really?_

Peter suppressed the nagging voice of doubt, and then settled back into the undergrowth. He waited for another guard to pass by, and then began to count.

#

* * *

#

The screaming continued

Rising and falling, it was a scream of desperation, raw with pain. Pain beyond all limits, all endurance. Neverending, not even for an intake of breath, the shrieks continued unabated. Pain beyond pain, beyond the threshold of sanity.

Clouded mists of confusion began to dissipate in infinitesimal increments. Dull stabs of pain became something less than dull, somehow more real, more personal. And with the recognition of pain, awareness began to return, the melding of senses and self coming together to form a greater whole. With awareness came a series of blooming realizations; that the pain was part of a self, like a hand or a foot; that it emanated from a spot on the back of a head; that it pulsed in tight bands about wrists and ankles, about a waist; from a dry throat covered in grit like sandpaper. That it belonged.

The wails of agony continued, rising and falling. They were lead lines, drawing consciousness forth from a dark, dream-filled haze where the arrow of time manifested in singular moments of blurred paralyzation, by distant throbs and muted terror, by harmonic voices whispering words unintelligible in the depths of bemusement. The voices were gone, however, replaced by the unending din of torture.

Who could scream so? Was it even a person? What pair of lungs could contain such capacity? With that thought floating in her mind, Olivia opened her eyes.

A single, bare light bulb flickered dimly overhead, buzzing faintly.

Frozen, afraid to move or even to blink, she focused on the light. It moved in tiny hypnotic intervals, pendulum-like, swinging silently to and fro from a black cord that stretched across an arched ceiling of gray bricks rounded on the corners by age and time, dark gaps between where mortar had once resided but had long since eroded into dust.

Olivia's breath caught in her throat. _Where am I?_

The bed beneath her felt made of iron. Was it even a bed? She went to sit up and gasped, falling back, and full awareness of her own body returned. She couldn't get up. She couldn't move. Something was holding her down. Struggling to control a rising panic, she lifted her head again, straining to see.

Her clothes were missing, down to the skin, replaced by a blue patient gown blotched with dark stains and clearly not new, or sterile. Strapped across her chest was a wide belt, cinched tight against the underside of her breast. Her wrists were bound also, and her ankles, each wrapped in thick straps of brown leather, with buckles of tarnished bronze. The straps were tightly secured to metal bars running down either side of what appeared to be an ancient gurney. On her left forearm was an IV cannula, held in place by a strip of white medical tape. Heart thundering, her bulging eyes followed the clear tubing from her wrist to an IV pole over her left shoulder, where a bag of some clear liquid dangled. The bag was nearly empty, with no label of any kind. For several hollow heartbeats, she was mesmerized by the anonymous liquid's steady drip before finally tearing her gaze away.

Thoughts stampeded through her head. W _hat's happening? Why am I here? What are they doing to me? Oh god, where's Peter_ _?_ She jerked against her bonds, pulling, kicking, in a full-blown panic now, muscles straining. The leather belts creaked under the pressure, but held fast. She fell back, gasping, and pain bloomed on the back of her head, blotting out thought like spilled wine.

When she could think again, pain doubled her vision. It wasn't just her head that hurt — she hurt all over, particularly her face, which felt as if she'd gone ten rounds in the sparring ring, with bare fists and no headgear. Even her lips hurt. She moved her tongue over them and felt lumps and swollen lacerations. Had she been in a fight? A car accident? Something was on the back of her head, something heavy stuck in her hair. Tape? No. A bandage. She'd suffered some kind of head injury. A concussion? It might explain her confusion.

She thought back to the last thing she could remember before opening her eyes. They had gone north into New Hampshire. They'd seen the farm Charlene Watson had told them about, outside of Peterborough. They'd seen the greenhouses, seen them in use by perpetrators unknown. _And then I was in the forest with Peter. We were running, racing in the dark, he was chasing me._ She'd been laughing, and happy for the first time since the vanishing of her family. Something else had happened, before that. Something unexpected, something that had filled her simultaneously with both joy and fear. _He told me he loved me. Peter, where are you? Are you okay? Are you even alive? You have to be alive._

Pressure built in her chest, and she thought her heart might burst apart. He had to be alive. She could remember being pleased with herself for winning their little race, and waiting for him on the little farmhouse's front porch. She could remember feeling more than a little horny, could even remember being hungry, and needing to go pee, and then... and then nothing. Something had happened. There was a blank spot, a gaping, black hole in her memory.

Her eyes shifted around her cell. Like the arched ceiling above her, the windowless walls seemed from another age, bricks crumbling, pitted with cracks and divots. Visible between her feet was a squat door of black metal, a door out of nightmares, a door with a tiny window filled with vertical iron bars. Pale light filtered in from outside. The air reeked of mold and dust and blood, of urine and shit, both of which appeared to be wafting from herself, much to her dismay. The air was cool, and reminded her of a time she'd been caving in her youth, the chill slightly too cold for comfort. Was she underground? It seemed incredible, and at the same time spread a sick feeling through her gut. Images of dungeons and possible tortures to come filled her mind.

Heart starting to pound again, she wondered how long she'd been here, wherever here was. Days? Weeks? How much time had passed? When had she eaten last? Or had anything to drink? Her throat was parched, and in the place of her stomach was an angry knot of hunger. Panic began creeping back in, blanking her mind of thought. Panting, each intake of breath rasping in her ears, she screwed her eyes shut and was suddenly aware that the constant screaming in the background had fallen silent. Left in its place was an ominous silence, until a faint tapping started up somewhere outside her cell.

_I have to get out of here, now_. She had to escape, before whoever was holding her returned and found her awake. There had to be a way.

Olivia lifted her head, trying to get a better view of the belts securing her hands. She pulled upward on the straps, pulled with all her might, but it was useless. The thick leather gave not an inch, not a millimeter, no matter how hard she pulled, and the metal buckles were well out of reach of her fingertips — even if she were capable of bending them backwards and around in a circle.

Her captors were no fools. There would be no escape. Not as she was now, weak with hunger and injury. The dull ache behind her eyes began to take on form, coming alive, pulsing with promises of further pain to come. Other injuries were becoming apparent, particularly a sharp sting deep in her right side. Breathing made the pain worse, and she suspected it was a rib injury, bruised or broken, it mattered not. A broken rib was the least of her worries.

Tears welled in her eyes. "Fuck...," she whispered, laying her head back gently and letting her eyes fall closed once more. She was well and truly caught. The tears made tracks down her cheeks, down into the clefts of her ears.

All of a sudden a horrible screech carried in from outside of her cell, the sound of a door opening, unoiled hinges whining in protest. Footsteps reverberated, drawing closer. Someone was coming! She yanked at the straps again, kicking and pulling. Her eyes darted for succor but there was none to be found. A metallic clang rang out, followed by a low, heavy thud. Silence followed, and then a sudden, a horrible shout.

"NO!"

Olivia gasped. Currents of fear shot down her spine. Tendrils of cold ice wrapped around her insides, squeezing, constricting. The shout had come from somewhere nearby, not close, exactly, but neither had it been far. From another cell. Another prisoner. It had been a man's voice. Was it Peter?

"Get away from me!" the voice shouted again. "I won't let you! Not again! Gah... it hurts! I can't take it! Stop! Please! NO! Wait! Wait! I'll do it. I'll do it! No... no... no... NOOOO! Gahhhh! Gahhhh!"

The shriek went on and on, standing her hair on end, turning high-pitched with raw desperation. It was the same as before, when she'd first awoken, but clearly from a different set of lungs. And neither belonged to Peter, of that she was certain. But then who? And what horrors were being visited upon them? Was she next? Her mind conjured images of sharp pincers, of flesh being peeled back, strip by strip, of clamps and screws and razors and blood and faceless men with cold gray eyes, like dead things, implacable, without feeling.

She took in ragged, saw-tooth breaths, eyes rolling toward the window in the door between her bare feet. The room shrank around her, walls drawing in, compressing like she was on a bad acid trip. The bulb dangling overhead began to buzz, louder than before, growing brighter and brighter, like a star about to burst.

Without warning, it exploded with a dull pop, showering down in a multitude of sharp fragments. She yanked her head to the side, squeezing her eyes closed as the shards of hot glass fell across her face and into her hair. At the same instant, the screaming turned off like a switch, cutting off mid-shriek.

Olivia nearly cried out in the stillness that came after, an utter lack of sound, surely not unlike the vacuum of space. Inside her head, the rampant beats of her hears thudded over top the silence. Beads of sweat slid down into her eyes, the salt burning at the edge of her corneas.

Whatever had happened, someone had just died. Someone had just been tortured until they were dead. She was sure of it. Had their heart given out? Or was it something else, something even worse?

The thunk of a door slamming shut rang out, followed by the echo of boots striding over a stone floor. They were getting louder. Choking fear rose up her throat like vomit. Her mouth worked and she tried to draw in breaths. She was at the bottom of an abyss, with an ocean of weight crushing down. She was next. She didn't know how she knew, but she did. They were coming for her. Soon, the terrible screams reverberating through the corridors would be her own.

The footsteps grew louder and louder, until they were almost right outside her cell door. Under a haze of dread, she let her head loll to one side, closing her eyes, holding herself still and supple. A possum playing dead. It was her only option. Her only defense. To be asleep. Would they wake her? Maybe they wouldn't. Maybe they were waiting for her to wake up on her own. A torrent of thoughts raced through her mind. What if they had already woken her? What if she had already undergone whatever had happened to the other prisoner and she'd merely forgotten? Somehow she thought not, but how would she truly know? How? Enough drugs could blot out anything, any memory? Who knew what had been done to her already?

She heard a hiss of breath outside her cell and then a muttered curse. Suddenly the footsteps were moving rapidly away from her cell, the strides determined. She opened her eyes and saw the faint shape of the exploded light bulb hanging above her in a ray of dim light from the cell door window.

Was that it? _Maybe they aren't coming back_ , she thought, inhaling a huge breath of relief. _Maybe they were just checking on me. Checking to see if I was awake._

But a few minutes later she was proved wrong by the clack of returning footsteps. Feigning sleep again, she willed her body to stillness, praying they would pass by her door. They did not. When the footsteps reached her cell, she recognized the scrape of a bolt being drawn back.

The door swung open with a squeal. Footsteps crossed the room, coming to a stop at her side. She sensed movement above her, in the currents of air shifting against her skin. Floating in the blackness behind her eyelids, she heard a low grunt, and then a series of faint, metallic squeaks. And then light blared in front of her face, turning the blackness red. She made her chest rise and fall at slow, regular intervals.

Her unknown captor moved around the gurney, stopping near her left shoulder. She heard the crinkle of plastic, and a slosh that sounded like liquid in a container. Her IV bag was being replaced, but that was better than the alternative, wasn't it? She prayed to any god that would listen that that was all that would happen, that her captor would leave her in peace, that he — and it was definitely a man, from the grunt she had heard — would leave her alone and come back later, or never at all if she had her way.

It took several minutes for him to change the bag out, and he finished by tossing the old one on the floor somewhere to her left. For a heartbeat, she heard only breathing above her, and then he moved again, brushing up against her left side, near where her arm was strapped down.

A warm hand fell across her forehead. Olivia bit down on the tip of her tongue. She summoned every ounce of her will to remain utterly still as fingers began pulling and plucking at her hairline. _What the hell is he doing?_ she wondered, suddenly more angry than afraid, and growing more so by the second. The answer came to her a moment later when the fingers moved down to her gown, plucking at the fabric. It was the broken light bulb. _He's removing the shards of glass. But why? Why bother if he's just going to kill me? And why did the light bulb explode anyway?_

The move was oddly generous for someone holding another person against their will, and who, just a few minutes prior had just been torturing another person, perhaps even unto death. The plucking went on for a few more minutes before stopping. She thought he would leave then, but he didn't. Instead, he stood over her, breathing in and out. She could almost feel the heat of him radiating through the thin threading of her gown.

Her mind summoned images of a man with no face staring down at her, colorless eyes moving greedily over her skin. The fear began to return then, as the silence stretched out, as goosebumps and prickles popped up all over her bare skin. She was at his mercy. Whatever he had planned for her, there was not a thing she could do to stop it. Supposedly Walter had given her these _abilities_ , but the reality of actually using them seemed utterly absurd. What was she going to do? Wish him to death? It had never worked when she'd thought about it, never when she'd consciously wanted it to.

The hand returned to her face, fingertips lightly touching, almost caressing. A pool of icy dread formed in her gut as the fingers traced a slow path down her cheek, down into the hollow of her shoulder. Then the fingers moved southward, over the fabric of her gown. _No. Please don't_ , Olivia shouted inside her head. Her mind began to buckle, fraying strand by strand. Comingling waves of terror and disgust filled her as the roving fingers closed about the mound of her right breast, squeezing, cupping possessively. _Please don't please don't please don't please don't..._ Screaming on the inside, she somehow managed to maintain her limp placidity, even when she felt the air of someone's breath on her lips. Something warm and wet landed on her cheek. Bile rose up her throat. It was a tongue. He was licking her. The tongue scraped roughly across her flesh, leaving a wet track of saliva behind that turned cold against her skin in the dungeon air.

"I've wanted to do that for a long time," a whispering voice admitted, lips feathering against her ear. The voice had no accent, no defining characteristics. "I've always wondered what you'd taste like, ever since I first saw you. You were on TV." There was a pause, and the man let out a satisfied grunt. "I wish we had more time, but the doctor will be here soon." The hand gripping her breast suddenly released her, and footsteps led away from the gurney.

He was leaving! A relieved sob rose up Olivia's throat, but she crushed it down ruthlessly. Fury ignited in her chest, so hot it scoured away the fear, the terror and disgust. She cracked her eyes open and saw the blurry silhouette of a man through her eyelashes, highlighted in the open doorway. He was of middling height, and either bald or with hair cut close to the scalp. In the raging inferno of her mind's eye, she saw him dead on the floor. He was dead. If a god existed anywhere, in any universe, he would die, and by her hand. The man turned, glancing back before leaving the cell, and for a split second, she caught a clear glimpse of his profile.

Her mind recoiled at the face, fury transforming into shock and then into confusion. The man was already dead. He'd been murdered. His body had been stuffed into a cabinet. And then he had died again beneath a mob of infected, according to Charlie and Sonia. She had seen his bloated corpse, smelled the stink of his decay.

The door swung shut, and the man, the thing, that was wearing Agent Rodriguez's face was gone.

She waited until the sound of his footsteps receded, diminishing into silence, and then turned her head and vomited on the floor. The spew was gritty, little more than stomach bile, like spitting up chalkdust mixed with wet sand. When she was finished, everything she'd been holding at bay came out at once; all the fear, the pain and confusion, the horror of violation. It all came rushing forward, traveling up her throat in a massive sob that left her gasping. Another sob followed, and then another.

In the quiet of her cell, Olivia began to cry.


	29. The Doctor

**-March 2009**

Walter started at a sudden rush of footsteps in the corridor outside his tiny room, accompanied by the murmur of excited voices passing by. There was a rhythmic thudding, as if a ball were being bounced down the hallway, and then a gush of raucous laughter. Glancing back at the door, he frowned shaking his head at the interruption, before returning to the view outside his window.

He'd been pondering the dreariness of life, the colorless day to day existence of living inside the fenced in borders of the Home, as they all called it. It was not the name he would have chosen, nor the name he used in the private recesses of the internal monologue of his thoughts. A home was a place one lived. A place where families came together, a place where one felt safe and secure.

 _These people have the secure part correct_ , he thought as he rubbed his palms together to fight off the chill in his room, _but little else_.

A prison by another name was still a prison, and his own knowledge of this fact was firsthand. As for the rest, where was _his_ family? Peter was gone. Elizabeth was gone. He had lost both of them, years ago. Living required more than tepid water and the pale illumination of light bulbs. As if in response to his disagreement, the single bare light bulb dangling down from the cracked plaster ceiling grew strangely bright, and then went dark for the span of a heartbeat before resuming its dim luminance.

His frown deepened as more footsteps echoed outside his room. Would no one leave him in peace? There were dozens of halls and corridors throughout the asylum that anyone might choose from to stroll down, without his room. He had chosen this particular room on the third floor for its remoteness from the others, a sanctuary where he might find solitude. It seemed it was not to be on this day, as the footsteps came to a stop outside his door.

What was it now? Time for dish duty already? It seemed he'd only just finished, the flesh of his fingertips still tender and waterlogged. Or perhaps it was some new task they wanted of him. Perhaps to sweep the floors as if he were some uneducated custodian? He had been the Chairman of Biochemistry at a world-renowned university, not some janitor or dishwasher to be ordered about.

The ensuing knock on his door tore his gaze from the view of the yard below, where little Ella and her friend were booting a checkered soccer ball back and forth. The knocks were loud and official-sounding, and there was hardly a pause between the last echoing thud before the door swung open.

Walter recoiled at the intrusion, shrinking back against the window as the man everyone referred to as Overbeek swept into the room. He wore a blank expression and a tight, black t-shirt despite the chill in the air. Hanging below his left arm was a menacing-looking pistol that shone like silver. Slate gray eyes surveyed the room, giving away not a hint of his intentions.

"Umm... hello there," Walter said, working the sudden dryness from his throat. Fidgeting under the man's gaze, his fingers closed on the hem of his pants, squeezing. "Can I help you, Mister-"

"Walter, is it?" the burly man cut in, eyes narrowing. "You came in with the last group?"

"Yes, Walter," he nodded. "By which I mean to say the _I_ am Walter. Obviously, you're, you... and, not me. Obviously. And I came here only recently, but whether or not we were the last group to arrive, I can't say. You would need to ask Astro... or... perhaps Miss Francis or..." Falling silent, he offered the fellow a tremulous smile. "...And how may I help you?"

"You have a visitor," the man said.

"Oh? A visitor?" he said, clapping his palms together. "How exciting!"

Overbeek merely grunted in reply, then stepped to one side. Behind him stood a shorter man wearing a gray lab coat. The dome of his receding hairline gleamed faintly above a gray-streaked beard. His face was of a droopy sort, not unlike a bloodhound. He held a clipboard against his chest, beside a black pen cap and thin medical light in his lab coat's breast pocket. A green stethoscope looped around his neck was the final piece of his attire.

The man stepped into the room.

 _So. This is the so-called Doctor_ _. It's about time you showed your face_ _._ He proffered his counterpart a smile. "Ah. You must be the doctor I've heard so much about," he said, stepping away from the window. The fellow was clearly younger than himself, by at least a decade or more, he judged from his lack of significant signs of rhytides in his facial region. "The one who started this place. I've never had a chance to thank you for your treatment of my... infirmity, when we first arrived here. For doctoring me back to health, as it were. I'd thought it was merely a chest cold at the time, perhaps even atypical pneumonia."

The Doctor's eyebrows lifted. "There's was nothing common about your condition, sir." His voice was cultured but bland, almost nasally. The sort of voices Walter had heard most of his adult life, populating the halls and classrooms of Ivy League schools up and down the East Coast. "You were a sick man. Nor was it the walking variety of pneumonia," he continued. "Yours was a case of full-blown pneumococcus. Another day or two, and you might have numbered among the dead yourself. It is fortunate for you indeed that my men acquired a large supply of amoxicillin some time ago."

"Then I must thank you for saving my life, sir," Walter beamed. He held out his hand.

The Doctor reached out, giving him a perfunctory shake, and then hesitated, eyes sharpening. "You are Walter...?" he asked. "I'm afraid I never caught your full name. Have we met before? Your face seems... familiar in some way. I thought so when you first arrived here, but now even more so."

Walter swallowed. His mouth went dry, immediately followed by an intense tightening in his rectum. Did the fellow know him? Could he have been recognized? Why it should matter, he wasn't sure, but for some reason he very much did not want this man to know his true identity. The name Walter Bishop was not unknown in certain circles.

"My name?" Panicking, he gently disengaged his hand, and turned away, swerving over to his narrow bed. "My name is Walter... Bentley. And I don't believe we've met before. It seems unlikely," he added quickly. "You see, I was... out of the country for some number of years, and had only just returned before the outbreak." He waited for the other man to reciprocate with his own name, but his eyebrows merely shot upward in response before shrugging as if it were all of no consequence.

"Bentley, is it?" the Doctor said. "I see." The curiosity faded from his eyes, and he threw his bald underling who was watching from off to one side a pointed glance. "I'll be fine here, Kyle. Go make sure Joseph is still on task. Several links in the grid have been acting up as of late. They may need replacement. Remind him I'll be there to check on him shortly, after I finish my examination of Mister Bentley, here."

Overbeek nodded, then gave Walter a hard look before leaving the room.

When he was gone, the Doctor turned back to him. "Do you have any family left?" he asked. "Any loved ones?"

"I... have a son. He's out there. Outside the fence. I'm afraid I... I haven't seen him in some time. Astro... she told me she wasn't allowed to leave and go search for him. I would so very much like to find him."

"Astro...?" The Doctor frowned, and then nodded. "Ah. The girl. Yes, I'm afraid that will have to wait. Outside of the hunting parties, we can't have anyone leaving just yet. Maybe in a few weeks." He stepped closer, unwinding the stethoscope from where it dangled over his shoulders as if the matter were settled. "How have you been feeling?" he asked in a bland voice. "Have any of your symptoms returned? Coughing, sore throat? Drowsiness? Any heaviness on your chest?"

"No, none of those things," Walter replied, hoping the man would simply take his word for it. "I've been feeling quite well as of late. Better than ever, in fact."

"I see. I'd like to do a full examination, in any case. Please remove your shirt, sir."

Walter opened his mouth to protest, but something in the other man's gaze announced that it was not a request. Something cold, almost reptilian. As if he thought Walter Bentley was no longer worthy of consideration, or even a person. A dull shock went through him. Was that what he'd been like? Was this what his test subjects had felt like? What if he refused? Out in the corridor, another man waited, a disagreeable-looking fellow lounging idly against the wall opposite the door. The man seemed to sense his gaze, and smirked. Was he a guard? Or was he there to provide assistance, if the Doctor required it. No. He couldn't refuse. It was best to lay low, and do as required of him.

"Of course," he said, trying to sound casual. "Whatever you like."

The Doctor nodded as if his compliance was a given, a matter of course. Which it was, he supposed. He peeled off his flannel shirt and sat down on the edge of the bed. The air in his room was chilly, and the stethoscope felt like an ice cube against his back as the doctor listened to his heart, his breathing, and then proceeded to perform a full physical exam, from his head down to his toes, followed up with a series of inquiries regarding his medical history.

"No heart disease? No cancer in your bloodline? Mother or father? Grandparents?"

Walter shook his head. "None that I'm aware of," he answered truthfully as he rebuttoned his shirt. "My mother died of natural causes, and my father was killed in the war."

"I see." The Doctor marked something down on his clipboard, out of sight. "Any history of mental illness?"

"In my family...?" he blurted out. Dread began pooling in his gut, and he discreetly wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead. Or at least he hoped the gesture had been discrete.

The other man looked up, face expressionless. "Yes. In you, or your ancestors."

"No, nothing," he said, digging his fingernails into his palm. "We're all... perfectly sane." He half expected _him_ to choose that moment to make an appearance, but his personal revenant remained thankfully absent from the proceedings.

"Have you ever undergone electroconvulsive therapy?"

"Electro-convulsive..." Walter gasped. The pool of dread turned to ice, freezing his bowels solid. "Why in God's name do you need to know that?"

"Just answer the question please, Mister Bentley," the Doctor said evenly. "It is important. Have you ever received electro-convulsive therapy?"

Walter struggled to remain calm. Images flooded his inner eye; memories of pain, of Sumner's arrogant assurances, the slimy coolness of electro-gel on his temples. _It's for the best, Walter_ , the voice whispered, as another was pressed into place. _You'll feel better when it's all over. You'll feel right again._ The metallic taste of anesthesia flooding his lungs, a cacophony of distant voices, blackness intruding around the edges of his vision.

He took in a breath, and then let it out, staring at a spot on the floor. "No. I've never been the recipient of electro-convulsive therapy," he said in a rush, nostrils flaring. Rattled, he began to gather speed, hackles rising, words spilling out like vomit. "Not that it's any of your business, as I see it. Nor does electro-convulsive therapy — or electro-shock therapy, as it was known before they changed the name to a slightly less torturous one — have any place outside a very narrow window of applications, none of which are part of any physical exam I have ever given or received!" He closed his mouth with a snap, before he could say anything more.

Had he gone too far? Damn it. He'd let his foolish mouth run amok once again. It was always getting him into trouble. Peter had warned him frequently when they'd left the safety of their hotel, back in the old world. The Doctor's blank face regarded him for a moment, and then he bent over the clipboard, scribbling furiously. The ball point pen rolling across the paper whispered in the intervening silence. For several minutes this went on, until Walter could take it no longer.

"If... you don't mind me asking," he said, lifting up from his seat to try and get a glimpse of the clipboard. "Just what was your area of expertise before the outbreak? That is, if you don't mind my asking."

"My field was highly... specialized," the Doctor replied, slipping his pen back into his coat pocket. "It was private sector work. Medical research. But I wasn't always in a lab. And what of yourself? You appear to possess some medical knowledge? Were you in the field?"

Walter cleared his throat. "I was a... professor at Harvard Medical School," he offered cautiously. "Retired at present."

"Harvard?" The other man's eyebrows shot upward, ruffling the smooth curve of his forehead. "That's very interesting. I spent a great deal of time recruiting at the medical school, and yet, for some reason I recall no one with your name being on staff, Mister Bentley."

Another bead of sweat tumbled down Walter's cheek in slow motion. He angled his face away, glancing out the window at the shroud of gray blanketing the morning. "Well, it... it was... many years ago," he said, stumbling over the words. "Well before your time, I'm sure. I suppose you might say I had a bit of a falling out with the school administration."

The Doctor folded his clipboard under one arm. "What sort of falling out?"

The question hung in the air between them. Walter searched for an explanation but found none in the darkened corners of his room, nor in the pitted concrete beneath his feet, or in the dreary light outside the window. Absurdly, a voice began singing in his head, accompanied by a pounding piano.

_...One lie, leads to another... Two lies, covers the other... Three lies, now you're in awful fix..._

"Mister Bentley?"

The Doctor's gaze was sharp, insistent for a reply. Sweat was trickling down Walter's sides in rivers, soaking the inside of his shirt. He had no explanation. There was none. None that he could say out loud. His fingers wove nervous gesticulation, yet he was helpless to stop. Tony Bennett's voice was singing in his ear. ... _Four lies you're getting in deeper... Five lies piling up steeper... Six lies..._ Blinking, he tried to drown out the dead jazz player with an internal shout.

"Well, um... you see...," he started with a gulp. "I... there was an accid-"

He broke off at the heavy thud of footsteps in the corridor outside. The guard slouched against the wall across the hall straightened, alarm flickering across his face as the thundering footsteps drew closer. An instant later the man Overbeek came rushing back into the room.

The big man's chest was heaving, as if he'd run the entire way from wherever he'd been. "We got a problem, boss," he said in between breaths. The man's eyes flickered between them, and then he inclined his head toward the door.

The Doctor glanced at Walter. "You should get some rest, Mister Bentley. Perhaps we'll speak again soon." Without waiting for a reply, he swept out of the room, swinging the door shut behind him.

In the vacuum of the Doctor's departure Walter fell back onto his cot, expelling a huge breath of air. He covered his face, pounding his palm against his forehead, hard enough to summon stars. What had just happened? Had he given the game away? What in God's name had possessed him to tell the man he'd been a professor at Harvard? His wits had left him entirely. It was pure idiocy. He'd done nothing but pique the man's interest. And Bentley? Where had that come from?

He shook his head. _You damn fool_.

A thought struck, sitting him up straight. The others. He had to tell them, warn them, before he became entangled in his own web of deception, like some half-brained villain from a bad mystery novel.

Walter lurched off the bed. As he approached the door, muted voices resonated from the hall outside. The voice sounded urgent, even panicked. Frowning, he hesitated, then carefully cracked the door open. The Doctor's droll monotone and the overbearing baritone of the man Overbeek — whose surname was apparently Kyle — reached his ears through the narrow gap.

_...can't tell who it was, other than a man._

_What are you saying, Kyle? How can you not tell?_

_His face was... missing._

_Missing?_

_The body was... cut up. Butchered. I've never seen anything like it. His clothes were gone. And whoever did it, they made sure he wouldn't come back. We should have another gathering, see who turns up missing. But I think it might be one of us. Not one of the civs._

There was a pause, Walter pulled back slightly from the door frame. Someone had been killed, the body made unidentifiable. Eyes wide, he pressed closer smashing his ear into the gap. What was this gathering they had spoken of? He held his breath as the Doctor began speaking again.

_I see... And who found this body?_

_Jonas._

_Jonas...?_

_That guy from Brooklyn. He's been with us for a while now. Never asks questions, never causes any trouble. He's good at following orders though._

_Does he have access to the grid?_

_No. I use him on hunting detail. He's a good shot, has experience in the back country. I trust him._

_So, he's a good shot. Are you certain you know him? Are you vouching for him, Kyle?_

_Vouching for him? I just met the guy six months ago. But I don't think he had anything to do with it. Why would he? He's got a good thing going here. They all do._

_And yet we have a dead body. Who is killing my men?_

_How the hell should I know? I ain't Columbo, you know_ _._

 _What of this man in Peterborough? I'm told_ _he was never found. I'm told he mutilated Dale Mueller._

 _Yeah... chopped him up good. Guy was some kind of weirdo_ _-_ _freak. Dale's wasn't the only body we found there. Have you questioned the woman? She was with him._

_Not yet. She was under sedation only until recently, and I suspect will require some softening up. Does this man know of this place? Could he have followed?_

_You think it was him? I don't see how he could have, Jones reported that they disabled their vehicle. And we already tripled the guard. There's not a stretch of fence that isn't under watch twenty-four hours a day. It's been that way for a week, since the woman was brought in. There's no way he got in. If he even knows about us here._

_And yet we have a mutilated body on our hands. I've left the day to day operations in your hands, Kyle, as you seemed to have at least some limited intelligence. Was that a mistake? Do I need to see to this personally?_

_No. No. What do you want me to do?_

_Do any of the civilians know?_

_I don't think so. The body was outside the fence, back behind the research building. It stinks to high heaven though, which was how Jonas found it. He came straight to me and I told him to make sure nobody came near it._

_Good. Call your gathering. I was about to do so anyway, as we needed two fresh links for the grid, and now have only one, due to Mister Mueller's incompetence._

_Shit. Another drawing? They ain't gonna like that, Doc. Not at all. We almost had a riot la-_

_It will be fine, Kyle. With Mueller gone perhaps it is time to bring this Jonas into the fold, if he's trustworthy and as good at following orders as you claim. Arrange another..._

The voices grew distant, and then faded into silence.

Walter closed his door, then pressed up against the scarred panels, holding a hand to his thundering heart. The conversation between the Doctor and his lieutenant underling played again inside his head.

Some kind of intrigue was taking place. And someone was dead. Murdered, face mutilated beyond recognition. Who would do such a thing? Was there a madman in their midst? A psycho-killer? And what was this grid they had mentioned? Links? What was this doctor up to? What of his strange line of questioning before they'd been interrupted? Electro-shock therapy? There were few reasons anyone would need such information, and none had anything to do with recovering from an elementary bout of pneumonia. It was the sort of random question he once might have asked on a questionnaire, the sort meant to weed through potential test subjects for particular attributes.

Walter froze. His mouth fell open as the Doctor's rigorous interrogation suddenly struck him from an entirely different angle. Of course it had bothered him. Of course it had. How could it not?

 _Test subjects_.

For an experiment.

He had to tell someone. Agent Broyles, certainly. Or Agent Farnsworth. Surely, they would know what to do. He felt a twisting in his gut, and pressed a hand to his belly at the sudden pressure in his bowels.

But first, before anything else, he had to find a toilet.

#

* * *

#

There was a buzz in the air as Astrid made her way through the crowd. Overlapping voices, murmurs, whispers of unanswered questions abounded from all sides. Tension was woven throughout, tangible, thick, heavy, like a low fog on a winter morning. She made through the choke of men and women, excusing herself discreetly as she went.

The crowd was men mostly; few women beside herself and the others from her group resided at the Home. Few enough that she could count them on one hand. There was Charlene, of course, and her pretty little granddaughter, Gina. And a doe-eyed MRI technician from New Jersey named Juliet who had endured watching her entire family torn apart before her eyes, and there was Sharon, a middle-aged toll booth worker from Queens. And then there was Claire, her new friend born and raised in Massachusetts. That was it. The male-female ratio at the Home swung lopsidedly in the direction of the less than fair sex.

She had come to know a few of their fellow survivors in the weeks since their arrival, and several smiles and friendly nods were sent her way. The strangeness of being around people again had mostly worn off. And like a dormant muscle, the ins and outs of navigating the undercurrents of society — even one as small as theirs — were starting to come back to her.

Overhead, thick rays of sunlight pierced the cloud cover, mitigating the gasps of cold air sighing across the yard. As she slipped through the gaps between bodies, Overbeek's filthy proposition hung in the back of her mind, stuck there like a bad song. Had the man come up with it himself? Or had someone approached him? Inevitably, such questions bubbled to the surface of her thoughts whenever she found herself in the company of men. When she felt the brush of their gazes moving across her flesh, like a film of rancid oil on water. Was is it him? Or him? Or was it him? The questions never ended. Who had it been? And how many? The weight of the sharpened table knife in her pocket evoked a calming effect as it bounced against her thigh. She carried the shiv everywhere these days, including keeping it tucked beneath her pillow at night.

Ahead, through a gap in the crowd, she spotted Agent Broyles towering over most of the throng. "Excuse me," she said with a smile to a heavyset man with a pinkish complexion who might have been her father's age. The older man stepped back amicably, giving her a nod. As she passed him by, she added his face to her list of men she thought might be okay — a list that was at present, depressingly short.

Continuing her sidling maneuvers, she eventually found Broyles and Sonia waiting near the center of the crowd, talking quietly to each other in a top-heavy shadow cast by the clock tower rising overhead. Charlene Watson stood nearby, lips pursed in a worried frown. She liked the older woman and her motherly aspect, even though she was a head taller than herself. There was no sign of Rachel, who she thought was still on fence duty, or of Ella and Gina, to her surprise. Whatever they were up to, she hoped the little scamps were staying out of trouble.

"What's going on you guys?" she said approaching the trio.

Sonia met her gaze with a grin. "Hey Astrid. We're just waiting to hear what this is all about like everybody else. Where were you?"

"Just out of the shower," she replied. Showers were a blessing from god, she'd decided, even if they were only available once a week. She glanced around, searching the nearby faces. "Where's Walter and the girls?"

Agent Broyles shrugged. His dark eyes flashed irritation. "Who knows?" he snorted. "I haven't seen Walter since breakfast. He never showed up to help with the dishes after lunch."

"And as for the girls," Charlene added, "they were going on expedition down into the dungeons, so little Miss Ella told me. They were supposed to be back by now, but you know how them kids are, always losin' track of time. I've been down in the basements before, though, nothing but a whole lot of empty rooms. So I gave them a couple of flashlights, and figured they were okay." She shook her head. "I'm glad Gina is more like herself again, or almost. I tell you, you all were a God send, especially that little Ella. That girl's a sweetheart."

Astrid smiled and nodded. Privately, she suspected Rachel Dunham would probably disagree on several of the older woman's points, not the least of which was the part about letting two children explore the basement ruins of a century old hospital by themselves. But Olivia's little sister was a tad over-protective at times, and also had a flare for the over-dramatic. She'd been down in the basements once herself, and other than being filthy and dark and slightly creepy, there wasn't much there, other than a whole lot of crumbling rooms that looked as if they'd been transported forward through time from the Middle Ages. She could understand the appeal though, what else was there for a pair of six and seven-year-olds to do but explore?

"You got any idea what this is all about, Charlene?" she asked, scanning the other faces in the crowd. More than a few appeared worried. "Have they called everyone together like this since you've been here?"

"Just on the night we arrived, and I think that was mostly for our benefit. I don't know what's going on today."

"Whatever it is," Broyles murmured under his breath, "not everyone appears happy about it."

"You're right, Phillip," Sonia said, eying the people around them. "There are a lot of frowns."

Astrid peered about, taking note of the faces around her. There were more frowns than not — nervous frowns, worried frowns, anxious glances darting up at the old hospital's facade. Her gaze fell upon one man whose face was as white as a sheet, eyes bulging with what only could be fright, bordering on terror. Was his name Drew? He was an odd one. The guy looked like he might need a change of underwear. Was he part of the group that had been at the Home the longest? She thought he might be. What did he know?

 _What's going on here?_ she wondered. _Why does everyone look like we've been invited to our own funeral?_

Lifting up on her toes, she found one of the few people she'd gotten to know more than in passing — Claire, with her short raven hair peeking out from beneath a yellow slouching beanie — standing with a group of her own people not far away. Her normally good-natured friend appeared just as worried as everyone else, chewing on her lips nervously. And there was someone else missing also, she realized.

"Hey, where's Chris at?" she said to Charlene. "I don't see him anywhere. Is he on the fence today?"

"He left late this morning," Charlene replied. "Went on a hunting trip with that man Jonas, and one or two others, I think. Mister Overbeek asked if he'd like to go, and he jumped at the chance. Said they'd be back in a day or two."

"Oh..." Astrid frowned, chewing on the inside of her cheek. "I didn't see him before he went. We were gonna play cards tonight. Me and him and Rachel and Claire." It seemed their poker tournament was going to be put on hold.

"Don't you worry, girl, he'll be back soon enough. Told me to tell you goodbye, though." Charlene's eyes twinkled then, her voice filling with mirth, and something else. "I think he likes you, you know," she grinned. "Though he'd never admit it. Not to me, at least. I think he'd be perfect for you, though, and you for him I should think. Those hips are made for babies. Now more than ever, I should think."

Astrid blinked at the woman's directness. "Oh... Really?" she managed to say with a cough. "I uh... okay..." She fell silent as her cheeks began to grow hot, and she caught sight of Sonia giving her a sideways look, lips crooking with amusement, while her former boss merely shook his head, eyes fixed on the entrance centered beneath the clock tower.

Face flaming, she turned away from all three of them. The woman was playing matchmaker with her own son. How was she supposed to even respond to that? She and Chris had become friends certainly, but beyond that, she didn't know what she wanted. From him, or from anyone else. Couldn't they just be friends? What was the big rush? And babies? She needed a baby like she needed a puss-filled boil. She glanced back at Sonia, who was still sporting a grin, and wondered if her suspicions about the other woman were correct.

She saw movement among the conflux of bodies, a parting wave as someone approached from the direction of the west wing where she and the others from her group had made their homes. A moment later a familiar head of hair came into view, gray waves bobbing and weaving.

"Hey, here comes Walter," she announced, throwing her hand out. " I wonder where he's been."

"Knowing him, we're probably better off not knowing," Sonia added under her breath, and Astrid couldn't help but agree.

The old scientist picked his way toward them, apologizing profusely at every turn. Walter's eccentricities and peculiarities were tolerated for the most part by other survivors, mostly for their oft-humorous nature, but it did not appear to be the case today. From the number of foul looks he was the recipient of, more than a few toes had been stepped on.

"Has it started yet?" he said after finally wedging his way between Sonia and Agent Broyles. Excitement was etched across his lined face, eye darting about as if he were afraid of eavesdropping. "Have they made the announcement?"

"What announcement?" Broyles frowned.

Walter ducked his head, hunching forward into their circle. "The murder!" he whispered loudly enough for anyone standing in the general vicinity to hear.

"What?" Astrid said, grabbing his arm. She heard several echoing gasps, and not all had come from within their group. Charlene's face paled, eyes bulging. "What did you say? And for god's sake be quiet, you can't just say that out loud, Walter."

"There's been a homicide, Agent Farnsworth," he said, only slightly quieter than before. "A murder most foul. A killing. An assina-"

"I know what a murder is," she cut in with a glare. "I want to know what you're talking about. There's been no announcement, other than this gathering."

"Who was killed, Walter?" Broyles hissed. His dark eyes scanned the crowd. "And how do you know about it?"

"This so-called Doctor visited me this morning, and... and... Oh!" He raised his hands index fingers waggling at the sky. "From now on, it would be best if you all refer to me as Walter Bentley in public, just to be safe."

"What...?" Astrid said, glancing at the others. It was a relief to see her confusion mirrored on their faces.

"Walter, are you high?" Sonia asked. "You're not tripping again, are you?"

"High? Tripping? Don't I wish, my dear! What I wouldn't give for even a dime bag of Hindu Kush. Hah!" His voice dropped to a murmur, pale blue eyes shifting from side to side. "No. They found a body this morning. A body with no face. It had been disfigured. Cut off, so as to make it unidentifiable. That's what I overheard that man Overbeek say."

"You're serious, aren't you?" Broyles said.

"Of course, I'm serious," Walter replied stiffly, disgruntlement clear on his face. "Why on earth would I make it up? What logical-"

"Hey, something's happening!" Sonia broke in.

Turning, Astrid saw movement beneath the clock tower entrance. Men were filing out of the main building, men armed with assault rifles. _Shit. What's that about?_

The men formed a barrier in front of the hulking searchlight, and then the Doctor emerged, draped in the same gray lab coat he'd been wearing the night they'd arrived — the last time she had even seen the reclusive man. Absently, she wondered if he had a closet full of them somewhere. Did he sleep in it? Her pulse quickened as another man followed the Doctor outside, wearing an olive army jacket, collar turned up.

Her teeth clamped together. _Bastard. Fucking asshole,_ she thought, clamping her teeth together. She had avoided Overbeek since their encounter in his office, but the sight of him sent her hand darting into her pocket for the comforting weight of the shiv. No one had tried anything, or even approached her on the subject — or any of the others, for all that she knew — but that didn't stop the rush of heat climbing up her neck, suffusing into her cheeks.

The two men climbed atop the narrow platform on the edge of the searchlight trailer, and the Doctor turned to address the crowd. Compared to his second-in-command, the man was almost comically diminutive, and his droopy face brought to mind an old Basset hound, in particular a half-lame stray that had haunted their neighborhood when she was a girl. She found herself grinning as the Doctor cleared his throat, and began to speak.

"I'd like to thank you all for coming today," he began, holding up his hands to hush the few remaining voices in the crowd. He had a quiet, almost sterile voice, though Astrid had no problem hearing him after the murmurs had died down. She wondered if he had done much public speaking before the outbreak, and what sort of medicine he had practiced. "I know it was short notice, and that many of you surely had other plans this afternoon, but I have a few announcements I'd like to make.

"First and foremost, as you are no doubt aware, we've had another influx of survivors recently, who after a few days, I'm told are integrating well into the new society we are creating here. They've been of great help along the fence and in the kitchens, and it is a heartening sight indeed to see children playing together once more."

A slow clap went through the mass of people, before gaining speed with the addition of hoots and hollers and the occasional name called out. Astrid's face grew hot when most of the names called were her own. She found herself smiling through a gap at the dark-haired Claire, who tossed a mischievous wink her way, then rolled her eyes, gesturing at all the people. Astrid shook her head, corkscrewing her index finger where here friend could see.

The balding doctor smiled, raising his hands for silence. When the noise fell off, he continued, laying a hand on the massive cylinder of the searchlight behind him. "The light will go on at sundown tomorrow night," he announced. "The dead are gathering in the city below, and it is necessary to cull their numbers once more, before they grow too great. I will leave Mister Overbeek to fill in the necessary assignments once we are finished here. Also. A hunting party left this morning, and when they return we will hold a great feast, celebrating our new arrivals."

Voices roared their approval. Fists shook toward the sky as screams and cheers filled the air. Astrid glanced about at the smiling faces. The crowd's earlier apprehension had melted away, though not completely. To her left, Walter was frowning, brow furrowed with obvious distrust. She noticed Broyles wasn't smiling either, his eyes narrowed to thin slits, or Sonia, who was busily scanning the crowd.

The cheering went on for several more moments until the Doctor gestured once more for silence. As the noise fell off, he surveyed the crowd below, sweeping his gaze from side to side. "I trust you all remember the importance of what we're doing here, and that we are the only beacon of hope left in the ashes of the apocalypse, the only light holding back the darkness. Humanity's very survival depends on us, on our own continued existence," he said, pausing for a breath. "As you are aware, I am not among you as much as I would like. My research on the sickness afflicting mankind occupies all but a fraction of my time and energy. The research is slow, and painstaking, but progress has been made. Great progress, and I believe a vaccine is finally within our grasp. Not a cure as I had originally envisioned — it will not help those who have already underwent the change. But if we can prevent any further spread of the virus, then finally we can begin to rebuild, to restart the great wheel of civilization." The Doctor's voice became somber, as if he were speaking at a funeral, though Astrid had no problem hearing what he said next. The crowd had drawn in its collective breath, and the atmosphere became choked with crackling tension. "But... like all great endeavors, sacrifice is required. Sacrifice, for the greater good."

Astrid started as chaos erupted out of the blue. Furious shouts sounded from all corners of the crowd, men's and women's voices, all overlapping. _No! Not again! You promised! Lewis died for nothing!_ The last voice came somewhere behind her, and she turned to find a mosaic of angry faces confronting her.

She flinched back, pressing in closer to her own group. _What the hell is going on?_ What had happened to all the people she'd come to know in recent weeks? The fervor increased, growing increasingly rowdy, curses and threats coming in waves. Shouts deafened her ears. Bodies pressed in tight, pushing, shoving, as the crowd moved en mass toward the trailer. Far to the front, a quiet man she'd met once or twice on fence duty surged toward the trailer. She heard a dull crack over the fray, and saw the fellow stagger back, covering his face as blood poured from a gash across his forehead where he'd been struck by the butt of a rifle. The crowd screamed its defiance.

Glancing at Broyles, she found his face filled with alarm. Sonia appeared on the verge of sicking up, while Walter was staring distantly, muttering under his breath. Getting her boss's attention, she pulled his head down with a look. "What do we do, sir?" she yelled over the noise. "This is gonna get ugly fast."

Agent Broyles opened his mouth to reply, but a thunderous gunshot interceded. Astrid gasped, ducking down as a second blast shook the air. Then, as if a switch had been flipped, the crowd fell rapidly silent as only the imminent threat of deadly force could manage.

Standing with one foot raised on the edge of the trailer, Overbeek slowly lowered his chrome-plated automatic. "I do believe the good doctor wasn't finished talking yet," he said sternly, gaze roving over the throng as if daring someone to disagree. When no one did, he stepped back, re-holstering the gun beneath his left arm.

"Thank you, Kyle," the Doctor said with a nod to his second before returning his attention back to the mass of people standing below the trailer.

For an instant, Astrid felt the brush of his gaze, the tickle of awareness as their eyes met. Was he lingering on her? On them — her group? Why? There was no reason for him to do so. None of them had been shouting or carrying on. But then she noticed Walter, and the icy glare he was directing the Doctor's way. What the hell did he think he was doing? Trying to get them all turned out, or worse?

"Walter, stop that!" she whispered. She took hold of his tweed coat. "Are you trying to get us kicked out of here?"

Instead of replying, Walter merely shrugged free of her grip, muttering something beneath his breath. She sighed, turning away from him, and found a head of yellow hair approaching along the fence perimeter. Rachel was easy to pick out in a crowd, even without the high, tight ponytail she'd taken to wearing, so much like her sister's. Even from a distance, her stance exuded worry and alarm, no doubt for her daughter, who Astrid was suddenly glad was nowhere near this mob of people.

"I understand your reluctance," the Doctor continued. "No one wishes there was another way more than I. What happened to young Lewis was... unfortunate. I take full responsibility for what happened. My evaluation of my own progress toward a cure was flawed, regrettably. But be that as it may, I still require a volunteer from among you. Someone willing to test the vaccine's efficacy. If there is anyone willing to step forward, please do so now. If not, then someone will be selected tomorrow, in the same manner as before, by random drawing. Other than the children, all residents of the Home will be included. Any who refused will be put out, and declared our enemy, and an enemy of mankind, refused help or succor. So, I ask again, are there any willing volunteers? I have such high hope for this vaccine, such high hopes." His voice grew harder. "But it _must_ be tested. It is true there is some risk involved, there is always risk when testing untried medicines and drugs, but-"

"I'll do it!" a voice called out nearby.

"Who was that?" the doctor said, peering about. "Who spoke? Do we have a volunteer?"

Astrid looked and saw Walter with his hand raised. She gasped, blood turning to ice. What the hell was he thinking? Other gasps echoed hers; Broyles, Sonia, even Charlene seemed stunned.

"Walter, no you can't!" she hissed, shaking her head as dozens of eyes swiveled toward them. "You can't. You don't know what you're doing! Peter would never let you do this!"

"It was me," Walter said over top her, not even giving her a glance. "I'll volunteer, Doctor. I'm... older, closer to my end than anyone else here. And it is as you said, without sacrifice, no progress can be made."

The Doctor appeared taken aback, utterly befuddled. It was the first emotion Astrid could recall ever seeing on his face. "Mister Bentley...," he said after a moment. "Well. I must say this is something of a surprise. Very well. Later today, I'll have someone collect you." He cast his gaze over the crowd. "Look at this man. He is a hero, only among us a few weeks and already willing to put the needs of many over those of the few."

The crowd roared its approval, claps and whistles, shouts of thanks and praise. Those nearest Walter shook his hand, others going so far as to hug him, which he had not at all expected from the surprised look he was sporting.

It was certainly brave, Astrid thought, but why would he volunteer for such a thing? It made no sense. Was he trying to get himself killed? Peter would never forgive her if she allowed it to happen. I have to stop him. _I can't let him do this._ But how could she? He had already done it, and in front of everyone.

"There is one more thing we must speak of," the Doctor said when the cheers had subsided. "And I'm afraid it is not good news. This morning, a body was discovered, just outside the fence. The cause of death was not... natural, nor was this body one of the dead."

"Who is it?" a female voice that sounded like Juliet's called out. "Was it one of us? Or someone from outside?"

"It was a male, but beyond that I can't say who it was, or whether they were one of us."

"Why not?" a man near the front said.

"There was some... disfigurement to the man's face. We were unable to ascertain exactly who it was, but I can tell you that he appears to have been murdered."

Rippling waves of terrified gasps filtered through the crowd. Voices called out in question, in panic. Walter nodded slowly, eyes narrowed. He'd been right. There was a killer on the prowl. The only question was, were they inside the fence, or outside? Icy tendrils spread through Astrid's chest. _Oh, my god. Ella_. She and Gina were off by themselves, down in a dark basement with some kind of psychotic on the loose. She looked around, and found Charlene shoving her way through the crowd.

"Now for the time being...," Overbeek's grating voice cut through her troubled thoughts. He had stepped forward, and was directing a cold gaze over the crowd. "The home is on lockdown. No one leaves or even goes outside except for fence duty and approved hunting parties. Every one of you is going to be questioned, by me, personally. Now everybody line up. We need to find out if anyone's missing."

Astrid swallowed. The bald overseer appeared to be looking straight into her eyes.

#

As it turned out, the only person unaccounted for was a man named Martin who had been one of the Doctor's men for many months, or so Astrid had been told. She had never spoken to the man, nor could she even remember seeing him, though that wasn't so surprising. By all accounts he had been a solitary sort, who had spent most of his time alone or on scavenging runs, and then working for the Doctor himself inside his research building. If the revelation that the victim was one of his own people had disturbed him, they hadn't shown it. Instead, Overbeek had simply announced that he would be paying them all a visit before marching back inside with the Doctor and his other men in tow.

Afterward, the crowd had dispersed, leaving Astrid and the others standing alone in front of the searchlight trailer. She hadn't missed the suspicious looks that had been cast their way. So much for their earlier cheers, though in truth she could hardly blame them. They were the new arrivals, and the most likely to have brought a killer into their midst. After all, no one had been killed before they arrived, had they? It only made sense — from their point of view.

"But it wasn't one of us," she whispered to herself, hugging her chest against a freezing wind blowing out of the west like an ill omen. Whoever the killer was, if it was one of them, one of the survivors living at the home, they had already been among them, and likely had been for some time. _Then why start killing now, after we showed up? And why this Martin_ _guy_ _?_

"Surely you don't mean to go through with this?" Broyles was saying to Walter. "Letting him test his cure on you? I can't allow you to do it, Doctor Bishop."

Walter frowned. "Of course, I mean to go through with it, Agent Broyles," he replied, lifting his shoulders. "Why wouldn't I? The man is a charlatan. He has no vaccine, nor is he anywhere close to making a cure, now or ever. There can be no cure, no vaccination against what is afflicting us. The infection has no biological component. I've told you this before, yes? I'm certain I have. It is _not_ possible."

"How can you be so sure, Walter?" Sonia wanted to know. She was rubbing a hand absently at her waist, making slow, two-fingered circles. She'd been doing that a lot, lately. "Maybe you're wrong?"

"Wrong...?" Walter's frown deepened into a scowl as if he'd smelled something bad. "Wrong? Ridiculous." He shook his head, blinking, before continuing. "But, perhaps I may be able to ascertain what exactly is happening here, yes? As I've thought from the moment I woke up in this place, I suspect not all is as it seems."

"Explain that," Agent Broyles said. "And keep your voice down, Walter."

Astrid felt a hand on her sleeve. She turned and found her friend Claire standing behind. Worry creased the smooth lines of her forehead above her horn-rimmed glasses.

"Hey...," Claire said. "Some news, huh?"

"You're telling me." She pulled her friend aside, just out of earshot of the others. Claire Danfield's hair was cut short, hanging down in black waves above her shoulders, gathering about the collar of her olive-drab bomber jacket. Before the outbreak, she'd been a grad student studying computer engineering at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, not far outside of Worcester. With their common interest in computers and tech — not that either hobbies were much use in the post-civilization world — the two of them had hit it off at once, becoming fast friends. "Claire, who was this Lewis person people were yelling about? What happened to him?"

Claire's oval face became troubled, hazel eyes shifting behind her glasses. "I only heard about it after the fact," she said. "We got here a few weeks after it was all over with. From the story I heard, the Doc had been working on a cure for a while, and there was no Walter — no one volunteered. So, they had a drawing, and there was some kind of trouble. Everyone was supposed to put their name in, and I guess not everyone was willing. It got ugly, and a few people were forced out, and they never came back. Lewis was just an unlucky kid, maybe eighteen or nineteen years old."

"So, what happened to him? Did the cure kill him?"

Claire shook her head. "That's the thing. It didn't. He came back. Only he was crazy afterward."

A chill went down Astrid's spine. "Crazy? Crazy how? Like violent?"

"No, like... crazy. Insane. Raving. Saying all kinds of fucked up shit. Juliet came in with him. She said it was like he'd become a different person. One day he killed himself. Slit his wrists with his combat knife. That's why they don't let anybody have any real weapons now — because he turned, and then killed a few people, and it almost started up again, in here. That's what I heard happened, at least."

Astrid glanced over at Walter, who was still in deep discussion with Broyles and Sonia. _I have to stop him, but how? He already volunteered — it's too late._ "What do you know about the man that was killed? Martin? Did you know him? I don't think I ever met him."

"I know about as much as you do," Claire replied with a shrug. "He was one of Overbeek's stooges, I guess, going way back, almost from the beginning. He didn't spend much time out of the workshop, almost none, lately. I've never really met him, either."

The workshop, Astrid had learned, was what the other survivors called the Doctor's research building. It was as good a name as any, she supposed, though she had yet to see him produce anything of worth. Why had the man been killed? And why disfigure his face? To hide his identity? It made no sense, as they had quickly determined the body belonged to him in any case. She gave Broyles a sideways look and wondered whether or not he'd thought about offering up his services as a former investigator, Special Agent of the FBI. The case was right up his alley, or Olivia's, at least. She missed the stubborn woman more than ever, now. And Peter. He would certainly have never allowed his father to go through with his mad plan.

"I saw the looks some of them were giving you guys," Claire said after a moment, reaching out and taking one of Astrid's hands. "For what it's worth, I don't think it was any of you."

Astrid smiled, squeezing back lightly. "Thanks, Claire. I know it wasn't any of us. Not a chance. But I can understand their suspicion. We were the last to arrive."

Over Claire's shoulder, Charlene was approaching, with Gina and Ella in tow, along with Rachel, whose shift along the fence had finally ended. As they drew near, Rachel hauled Ella up onto her hip, speaking with her intently. She wondered if Charlene had told her what was happening, and what her response might be. The younger Dunham was prickly when it came to her daughter's safety. Would she demand to leave? She might very well lose her shit, such as on the night she and Sonia had learned of Overbeek's disgusting proposition.

As they approached, Ella squirmed free of her mother's arms and raced toward them, hair blowing wildly. From the excitement in her eyes, Astrid guessed she hadn't been told about the dead body, or what Walter had volunteered for. In sharp contrast to her daughter's, Rachel's face was drawn tight, pinched like she'd eaten something rotten and was doing her best not to spew like a water fountain.

"Astrid!" Ella cried, bounding toward her.

"Hey, girl," she grinned, picking the young girl up. "What've you been up to, kiddo? Find any treasure down in the dungeons?"

Ella rolled her eyes in an exaggerated fashion. "There's no treasure down there, Astrid," she said in a lofty voice. "Just a bunch of stinky old trash and nothing else. I don't even think they're dungeons. Just more empty rooms."

In the corner of her eyes, she saw Claire grinning faintly. "Really? No monsters down there, either?" she asked, and the little girl shook her head. "What about secret passages? You find any of them?"

The small body in her arm seemed to flinch at the question, but at the same moment, Astrid noticed a pale, bald head approaching their group. _Crap. What now? They can't want Walter already, can they?_

"I gotta put you down, sweetie," she said, then deposited Ella gently on the ground. "Don't go far though. Actually, why don't you go find Gina and her grandma."

Ella scampered away, and turning back to the approaching man, Astrid noticed that Overbeek wasn't alone. Striding beside him was a shorter man with black, wavy hair. The fellow wore a dirty lab coat and was of Asian descent, and oddly, she was certain that she had never seen him before. _Where did you come from?_ she wondered. How many people did the Doctor have living in his workshop who never saw the light of day? She knew that food was delivered to the building daily, though she had never paid attention to how much. The sight of the previously unknown man bothered her for some reason she couldn't quite nail down.

"What the hell is going on?" Rachel hissed as she and Claire joined the others. "Walter volunteered to test the Doctor's vaccine? Is he crazy?" She shook her head, flinging her ponytail about. "What am I saying? Of course, he's crazy. And what's this Charlene was telling me about somebody being found dead?"

"One of Overbeek's men," Astrid explained. "Somebody killed him, and dumped his body outside the fence."

"And that's not all," Sonia added softly. "They cut his face up, mutilated him. We had to line everybody up to see who was missing."

Rachel's eyes came close to dropping on the ground. "Oh, my god. Do they have any clues? Any suspects?"

"Other than one of us, the new arrivals?" she said with a tight smile. "No. No one at all."

"What...? They think it was one of us?"

But the time for talking had ended. Overbeek and the unknown man in the lab coat had arrived, and had eyes only for Walter. It was time. They were going to take him away, and charlatan or not, the Doctor's cure or vaccine or whatever he was working on was clearly not benign. Would he return as the other test subject had? Mad? Or, at least, madder than he was already? She tried to picture the old scientist, always gentle, always a gentleman, turned violent, turned into someone else, like the boy Lewis? _I have to stop this. I can't let him do it._

She stepped up beside him, grabbing his coat sleeve. "Walter, you don't have to do this," she said in an urgent whisper. "Peter wouldn't let you do this. He wouldn't want you to do it, no matter what. You can still say no."

Walter glanced back, meeting her gaze finally. A sad smile crept across his face. "I'm afraid I can't do that, my dear." His voice was quiet, somber. He reached out, patting her hand. "What if you were the one chosen? Or Sonia, or Agent Dunham's sister? Or even Agent Broyles? There are consequences, my dear Astrid, for every action under the sun, sometimes years, or even decades in the making. In all endeavors, the universe demands balance. Don't you see? My son..." He paused, swallowing, lips trembling. "Well. Perhaps I can pay back the smallest portion of my debts here. It is the least that I can do. I believe that _my_ son would want that." Releasing her hand, he turned away, stepping forward to meeting the approaching men. "Gentlemen. I believe you've come for me?"

Overbeek's eyes narrowed, and he gave the man beside him a glance. "The Doctor would like to thank you for your cooperation, Mister Bentley. Alex will take you back."

"So, you're Walter." The stranger whose name was apparently Alex smiled, exposing rows of perfectly white, perfectly straight teeth. "Well on behalf of everyone else living at the Home, I'd like to thank you also for volunteering. What you're doing is very brave, despite the risks being... minimal, or so we believe."

"And when will he be returned to us," Agent Broyles demanded, moving forward alongside of Walter.

The man named Alex spread his hands wide, shrugging. "Not long, I should think. If everything goes well, he might even be back today. Separating him from the rest of us is just a precautionary measure, more than anything else. Are you ready to go?"

Walter turned his head, his breath rising in puffs of condensation as he stared back at them, eyes watery in the cold air. Now that the time had come, Astrid thought he might be having second thoughts. But it was too late. He swung away, padding slowly over to the man Alex. He seemed smaller than normal, his shoulders hunched forward inside his coat.

"Mommy, where is Walter going?" Ella said suddenly, squirming her way into the middle of their group.

Rachel sighed, brushing her hair back as she knelt down. "Honey," she began, "Ella-bear. Walter volunteered to help the Doctor with some medicine he's been working on for the infection. A vaccine. You remember vaccines, don't you? He has to go away for a little while."

"He what...?" The color drained from the six-year-old's face. "Vaccine? You mean when they put the dead things in your blood? But won't he turn into one? Mom, you have to stop him! You can't let him go in there!"

"I... I can't stop him, sweetheart. He's already made his decision. He's doing it for us, so one of us doesn't have to. He's very brave. I'm sure he'll be okay, Ella."

Ella's lower lip emerged as she watched Walter depart, pinched and quivering as she fought off tears. "But I don't want him to," she whispered. "I don't want him to go." Before anyone could stop her, she charged out of their circle, flying across the grass toward the two men. "Walter! Walter!" He turned back and she crashed into him, burying her face into the waist of his coat. Walter bent down, hugging her about the shoulders.

"It's gonna break her heart if anything happens to him," Rachel said, climbing to her feet.

Astrid's throat clenched painfully. He was going to be okay. She tried to imagine the world without Walter in it, and found it a place irrevocably dark and empty. "She's not the only one," she whispered, wiping her face with the arm of her coat.

Shortly, Walter carefully disengaged from Ella. His eyes were red, possibly wet with tears, though the space between them was too great for Astrid to be sure. He turned and strode away from Ella, leaving her standing alone and staring at the ground between her feet, before catching up with the man named Alex, who had stopped to watch from afar.

In the interim, Overbeek had approached. He stopped in front of Agent Broyles, gray eyes determined, and if Astrid wasn't mistaken, harboring a look of boredom at the entire affair. She pressed her lips together as her cheeks suffused with heat, with fury. How dare the bastard make light of Walter's sacrifice? Her fingers curled around the shiv in her pocket, squeezing until her knuckles hurt. He glanced back, as if making sure Walter and the other man were out of the way before speaking.

"All right, people," he said, clapping his hands together. "Charlene, Claire. Head on inside now, ladies. I have things to discuss with our newest arrivals. You can take the other little one with you also. I'm fairly certain that, she, at least, wasn't involved in Martin's death."

"You're goddamn right she wasn't," Rachel glowered. "None of us were. Ella!" she called out without taking her eyes off the bald overseer. "Go on inside with Mrs. Watson, and stay with her until I come for you."

Ella flicked an uncertain gaze between her mother and Overbeek and Charlene, who frowned, but then collected both of the girls without comment, calling them to her side with a single word. The older woman's face was troubled, and she threw occasional glances back at Agent Broyles as they left the yard. Was she having doubts about them? Surely, she couldn't believe any of them had been involved in a murder. It was simply ludicrous.

"Good luck, Astrid," Claire said under her breath. "I'll put in a good word with the others." Their eyes locked, and then she was gone, hurrying forward into the shadow of the clock tower.

When they were finally alone, Overbeek's swarthy face hardened as his gaze shifted between them, lingering first on Broyles, and on to Rachel. He crossed his arms over his broad chest, fingertips resting alarmingly near the automatic bulging beneath his jacket. When it was her turn, Astrid met his eye without flinching. She didn't like him, and he no doubt knew it.

 _Bring it, you son of a bitch_ _._

#

* * *

#

Up close, the tall building that housed the Doctor's research had faded, sandstone colored bricks set in slightly wavering rows. Some sections of the facade appeared scorched by fire, and exuded a kind of sinister aura that settled in Walter's gut, like a monster house from an old horror picture. Something made by Robert Wise, perhaps, he concluded. Or even a picture by the master himself, Mr. Hitchcock.

Of course, such feelings and emotions were only conjuration of his mind, of his imagination. He knew that. Old fears from a childhood spent in terror of such places spurred chemical reactions along his neural pathways, his bloodstream injected with shots of adrenaline and cortisol. His eyes lingered on the metal grates covering each window, the interior varying shades of darkness behind the glass. And why wouldn't a place such as this provoke such feelings of dread? The building's original use was obvious, to anyone who had spent any amount of time in a mental institution, at least. Or anyone who had ever been incarcerated, he amended.

Would he find remnants of padded cells inside? Heavy, iron doors that opened only from the outside? Those places reserved for the most troublesome of patients, the most violent? Or was it reserved for those unwilling to accede to the former administrator's no doubt tender ministrations. Such attributes were the required accoutrements for the use in which the so-called Doctor — an obvious hack — was putting the building to now, he suspected.

And he had volunteered for this.

"Is your leg hurting, Walter?" the little man said suddenly as they were passing by the remains of a circular foundation jutting up from a shroud of weeds and dried grass. "I noticed you had a limp. Is it your knee? Ankle? Do you mind if I ask how you injured it?"

Walter gave the man a glance. It was the first time he had spoken since they had left the others behind. What was his name? Allen? Andrew? He was fairly certain he had never seen the fellow before. Though, of the forty or so people living in the asylum, he could hardly tell one face from another. Was he a doctor also? A nurse? Or some poor sap from down the street. Maybe a delivery man. Or an accountant. Perhaps even a former gas station attendant putting on airs. If one charlatan, why not another? Why not indeed? The more the merrier!

"It happened some time ago," he said with a wince. Regrettably, the man's question had brought the pain in his knee back, full force. "I fell on it badly, grappling with one of the undead."

The man's black eyebrows climbed up his forehead. "Really? You?"

"Yes. Me." He glared down at the fellow. "Do you doubt my words, young man?"

"No. I just wouldn't have expected someone of your-"

"Someone of my age, you mean?" he cut in, peering down at the fool. "The creature was attacking a young girl — hardly six years of age. What would you have me do? Stand by and watch as she's devoured? Torn to pieces?"

"No, no... I meant nothing by it, I assure you," the man stammered, holding up his hands. "I just assumed the injury was older than that, older than the sickness. That little girl who hugged you?"

Walter nodded, turning away and staring up at the approaching structures. A thin stream of gray smoke rose upward from the shorter building's chimney, scattering in the wind. "Yes. Little Ella. She's a dear and a treasure."

"Your granddaughter?"

"No, though I could be no prouder if she were," he said, and then grinned. It was a true statement, though he couldn't say for certain when that particular threshold had been crossed, only that it had.

"How did you come upon her, if I may ask? Was that blonde woman her mother?"

"Miss Dunham?" he replied automatically. "Yes, she is indeed the girl's mother. They were with us for many months back in Cambridge. Agent Dunham was quite determined to see them to safety." No sooner than the words had left his mouth that he regretted saying them, with Agent Broyles warning to keep silent about their status as former federal officers echoing inside his head. Had the fellow heard him? Had he even been paying attention? He snuck a covert look down at the fellow, and found his gaze locked on the pair of armed guards waiting just ahead. Why all the questions? Had he been fishing for information, or merely making conversation? And what had possessed him to say anything about Olive at all? _You damn fool. Stop pretending this man is your friend._ "What I meant to say was the girl's aunt saved her," he added, clearing his throat. "And her mother. But she... isn't here. We lost contact with her some time ago, I'm afraid. With her, and with my son."

"Hmm... that's too bad," the shorter man said in a distracted tone of voice. "We can always use more bodies. The younger, the better." It was a rather disconcerting statement, and Walter found himself eyeing the man again. Seeming to sense his regard, the man glanced up at him, grinning, exposing teeth that were surprisingly white. "For helping out at the fence and keeping up with the repairs, of course."

"Of... course," Walter said, and forced his lips into the shape of a smile.

A sudden itch began in the middle of his shoulder blades, traveling down his spine. Why did it feel as if they had been participating in entirely different conversations? Or was that merely his own paranoia at work? He had certainly experienced more than his share since waking up in the former insane asylum.

His guide remained silent as they reached the armed guards and were waved past, with one of the men — a tall and lanky bearded fellow wearing a New York Yankees hat — greeting the Doctor's assistant with a lazy salute. Neither of the men even glanced his direction, Walter noticed, not even for an instant. As if his presence were immaterial, or, as if he didn't even exist.

They climbed up a short flight of weathered stairs to the entrance, and the other man held the door open for him, ushering him into a dimly lit corridor. "And here we are, Walter," he said with a grin.

Walter crossed the threshold, taking in the darkened interior with a frown. If the rest of the asylum was in poor condition, the building the Doctor had chosen as his research facility might well be considered on the verge of fossilization. The lobby was a smorgasbord of trash, all the detritus left behind in the havoc of time's wake. Tumbled tables and remnants of furniture, a pile of oxidizing gurneys stashed in narrow alcove that once might have been a receptionist's desk. The plaster ceiling and walls resembled nothing so much as molded swiss cheese, pocked full of crumbling holes, sagging as if the entire building had been immersed in a great flood. Further in, the plaster was missing entirely, skeletal frameworks of brick and mortar exposed like the bones of a decaying beast. Odors both sharp and thorny singed the inside of his nose.

"Sorry for the mess," the younger man said. "But we don't really use this floor. There was a pretty bad fire here at some point, damaged most of the upper floors, and several buildings were destroyed altogether. I'm sure you've seen their foundations outside. But the basement level is okay, and that's where we're headed. This way, please. It's not far."

The man led him down the dingy corridor to a painted metal door that opened into a cramped stairwell that went both up and down, and was veiled in angled shadows cast by a cobweb-filled wall sconce at an intermediate landing. The light grew dim for a heartbeat, then went over-bright before settling back down to a flickering glow. He passed underneath it, and wondered darkly why it had chosen that precise moment to fluctuate. He followed his guide downward to a darkened room on the basement level, not far from the stairwell.

The room was bare, with only a narrow cot for furniture. Beside it stood a shiny medical tray holding a packaged syringe and a thin medical vial with an orange stopper. Walter stared down at the vial, at the clear liquid waiting within.

"Are there any other people here, Allen?" he asked with a frown as he inspected the room. The building seemed silent, which was odd, all things considered. "Where is the Doctor? Will he be administering the vaccine himself?"

"It's Alex," the man replied, peeling the wrapper off the syringe. "And no, he has far more important things to attend to. Such trivial tasks as giving you a shot are left to me, I'm afraid." He motioned toward the cot. "Why don't you take a seat, and we'll get started."

The cot groaned beneath Walter's weight as he sat down. "What type of vaccine is it... if I may ask?" he asked, watching as the other man held the vial up to the overhead light and carefully inserted the needle into the stopper. His stomach began a slow twist, as if it were being slowly wrung out like a wet dish rag. "I have some... knowledge of viral research," he added with a swallow, "back from my days at Harvard Med, many years ago."

The man named Allen nodded, squinting as he pulled back the syringe's plunger. "Yes. I was told you had been a professor. As for the vaccine, are you familiar with recombinant vector DNA?" Before Walter could formulate a reply, the man continued. "I assume you've noticed how the virus doesn't seem to affect any animals other than us humans? The Doctor believes he has isolated a gene from the bovine family that could be the source of their immunity..."

The Asian fellow continued to drone about DNA vectors and nucleotide sequences, but Walter stopped paying attention, focusing on a fascinating spot on the ceiling above the man's left shoulder. He had heard everything he needed to — as Gene could have easily attested, had the poor girl not been butchered and eaten, and been able to speak.

 _So. It is a charade, after all. A sham. But why?_ he wondered. _What are they hiding? What is their true purpose here?_

And what was in that vial? What were they going to inject him with? The clear liquid could have been anything, from saline to deuterium oxide. But it was no vaccine, of that he was certain.

It couldn't be. It _was_ impossible.

But something else, perhaps? Poison? But would they be trying to kill him? After they had just healed him? And with antibiotics that were surely worth more than gold in the post-apocalyptic world. Could they have guessed he would be the one to volunteer? It didn't seem possible. Would they not have assumed that no one would step forward, as evidenced by the lottery they'd been prepared for? Why would anyone volunteer? Why would anyone in their right mind step forward, knowing what was at stake? Nothing less than their very lives. But if it wasn't a vaccine and they weren't trying to poison him, what was the purpose of the experiment? It was a mystery, and he wished Peter were there, to use as a sounding board, and so he could hear his voice again, and so he would know his son was still alive.

Could their actions here be benevolent? Perhaps they were merely promoting hope among the survivors, false hope, even as it was. Perhaps being seen doing something was better than the futile reality. He had employed such tactics himself, back in Cambridge. The cause might even be a worthy one, if it were true. But something told him it wasn't true, and that the rabbit's hole went much deeper. There had been something in this Doctor's manner, in his countenance, that had reached out, touching him. A kind of arrogance he was all too familiar with.

The man approached with the syringe. His arm was cleaned, wiped with alcohol, all the while his thoughts were a torrent of what-ifs and maybes. What was this Doctor up to? Why go through the charade with his toady?

When the needle pricked his bicep, he hardly even noticed. A moment later, he was drowning in the thick fog a part of him distantly recognized as an anesthetic, and then the world was gone.

#

* * *

#

Olivia came awake choking, gasping for air that tasted both foul and rancid in her nose. For several bemused moments, she forgot where she was, and what was happening. Her mind flailed about, grasping for the meaning of such indignity, eyes darting from the cracked and crumbling ceiling overhead to the heavy door cast in an iron so black it appeared doused in pitch. Then her personal reality reasserted itself, crashing down with the weight of a collapsing star.

She was in a cell. She was a prisoner.

And her body was dying. Or at least it felt that way.

The tiny room reeked of stale human waste and bile — no doubt her own, though she doubted there could be much more of either left inside her. She rolled her head to the left. The IV was gone, though when it had been removed she couldn't say. Had she known it was gone before looking for it? It was hard to remember. It was hard to even form coherent thoughts, as if each and every one of them had to first filter down from some great, unimaginable height. Her head ached, pulsing waves that originated high on the back of her skull. Inside her mouth was a swollen, foreign object she only vaguely recognized as her own tongue, while her throat was coated with sharp bits of gravel and sand. Breathing hurt, swallowing even more so. With a dazed panic, she realized her arms and legs were missing from her list of senses, and most of her body along with them. A kind numbness had fallen over her, except for her stomach, which had shriveled down to a fist-sized ball of aching pain.

When had she eaten last? Or had had anything to drink? How much time had passed? Days? Weeks? Surely it hadn't been so long, had it? Had it? There was no way to judge the passing of time, no windows, no sky, no sun, no stars. There was only her cell door with its barred window that was more a mockery than anything else.

It would open. Someone would come. They would have water. Someone had come before. Hadn't they? Or was that merely a dream? Had she thought such thoughts before? How many times had she woken up starving and confused?

She remembered cool water splashing over her face. She remembered lapping at it, struggling to swallow, and agony shooting down her spine as she craned her head forward for more, the bite of the straps pinching the skin beneath her breasts. Other memories broke through the surface of her quagmired thoughts. The prick of needles. Voices talking above her. Men standing in shadows. Hands touching her forehead, turning her face this way and that, as if she were under inspection. Had she seen Agent Rodriguez? How was that possible? She shivered, suddenly freezing cold all over. Someone had licked her, someone had groped at her breasts like an animal. The memory took on a dreamlike quality, not unlike the old nightmares of her childhood. Part of her wasn't sure that it was real, that any of it had happened. But at the same time, she found herself wanting to hide, to cower down, to whimper in a darkened corner somewhere where no one would ever find her.

Suddenly her face grew hot despite the chill in the air. Rage boiled up inside her, filling her to the brim — and that was how she knew that it wasn't a dream, that it had happened. The anger brought back feeling in the form of pins and needles pressing into her backside, into the soles of her bare feet. With sensation returning, the knot of hunger in her gut flared to life, an ungentle reminder of just who was in charge of who. Intense pangs left waves of dizziness and nausea in their wake. She closed her eyes, praying the sick feeling would pass her by.

Floating alone in the darkness of her thoughts, her mind summoned images of her family; of Rachel and Ella, with love in their eyes, with their distant voices echoing. She could hear Peter's laugh, could see his beautiful eyes, so like the morning sky the instant before sunrise. Then she heard other things, other voices. Screams. Shouting. The clicks and clacks of boots on a tiled floor.

Olivia opened her eyes. The voices weren't in her head, but there, right outside her cell. A man was shouting. Another prisoner? His voice delivered raw agony. Pain beyond endurance. Her own panic began to rise then, and she strained against the straps holding her wrists before falling back, chest heaving. It was no use. She was too weak, too long on her back. Too long without proper food or water. After a few minutes, the commotion subsided.

Time passed, moments measured in solitary heartbeats, and then the door to her cell suddenly screeched open without warning.

The bearded man wearing a gray lab coat who stepped into the room was familiar. She knew him. She had seen him once before, through the magnified lenses of binoculars. Olivia found herself paralyzed, frozen stiff, as an animal might freeze before a pair of oncoming headlights, or, confronted by its natural predator. It was too late to feign sleep as she suddenly remembered doing so before, too late to pretend she was still unconscious, submerged beneath whatever drugs they had forced into her veins.

Their eyes met, and somehow his name popped into her head. She _knew_ him, or of him, at least. As if she were reading directly from the pages of his file at the Federal Building.

 _Jacob Fischer, M.D. Known Aliases: John Fraser. Jason Fleming. Single. D.O.B July 19, 1947, Hartford, Connecticut. Wanted for extradition - U.S., Canada, Romania, Poland. Known Infractions: Two counts unlawful human drug trials. Three counts unlawful human experimentation on a minor_ _. Five counts murder in the second degree. Three counts voluntary manslaughter. Subject should be considered extremely dangerous. Approach with caution. Termination priority one. Known associates_ _..._

The information materialized out of nowhere, and Olivia realized she was on the verge of blurting it all out — his name, his record, his everything — her lips already forming the first letters. She closed her mouth with a snap.

Stopping just inside the doorway, the man studied her in silence. She kept her face still as emotionless, gray eyes swept over her, as if he were deciding how best to begin removing her skin. He was short for a man, she noticed, and perhaps in his late fifties or early sixties, which neatly matched the imaginary file inside her head. Pale skin beneath a well-trimmed beard was just starting to wrinkle, around his eyes and above his nose.

How could she possibly know his name? _I don't know his name. I've never read his file, not once. Not ever._ But somehow, she could remember holding it, somehow she could picture her hands flipping through page after page filled with horrific images. And at the same time, the rest of her kept insisting that that was a lie, that she had never heard of him before his name had suddenly appeared inside her head. The conflict sent her mind reeling, tail-spinning, plummeting into a death spiral.

The room began to close in, walls grinding inexorably closer, as if she were caught in the jaws of some gruesome trap. She could feel the core of her very _self,_ fracturing, cracking, splitting in two. As if she were being nudged aside. As if there were another person occupying the space inside her head. Maybe she _was_ crazy. Maybe whatever they'd done to her had driven her mad.

"Good afternoon."

The sound of the bearded doctor's voice — somehow managing to be both soft _and_ unyielding at the same time — brought her back to her present predicament. Speaking with clear enunciation, he sounded out each syllable before moving on to the next.

"My name is Dr. Jacob Fischer," he went on, confirming what she in some inconceivable way already knew. Was she reading his mind? Did that mean she wasn't crazy? Or that she was just a freak — which she already knew. The doctor paused, stepping further into the room. He came to a stop when he was standing over her, one hand resting in lazy fashion on the corroded rail of the gurney, inches from where her left arm was strapped down. "How are you feeling today? Better, I hope?"

Olivia shrank back without replying, pressing up against the far side of the gurney away from him, or at least as much as her bonds would allow. He would get nothing out of her. Not a word. Not a sound. She looked away, resting her eyes on a pattern of jagged cracks, following the lines of crumbling mortar running across the ceiling. Not a single fucking word. Another thought came to her then — she now knew for certain where she was. The old Kirkbride Building in Worcester. The insane asylum Peter had put a name to. How the knowledge might help she couldn't say, but it was something.

"Don't feel like talking? Surely you can tell me your name, at least, young lady, as I have already given you mine. It is only polite." He paused again, giving her time to answer before moving on. "No? Very well then. In any event, it isn't really required." He shook his head, and something that might have been pity passed over his features for an instant. "I can only imagine how surreal it must be to find yourself here, how confused you must be. But you should feel honored, however. Honored that you've been selected for improvement."

A blast of cold dread swept through her tiny cell. Improvement? What was that supposed to mean? _...unlawful human experimentation. Oh god, what the hell is he going to do me?_ She darted a panicked glance up at her captor and found his gaze distant, focused on the wall to her right. He wasn't even looking at her! As if already bored of the entire affair. The sight sent chills rippling down her spine. How many times had he given this speech? How many others had been selected for _improvement_ , whatever that even meant? Fear crept up her throat, halting her breath.

"Yes. You should be honored," he said again, and she thought he might be looking at her now, as her skin suddenly felt as if it were coated by a layer of foulness. "And your acquiescence will be a boon — not only to us here, at the Home, as most of my people have come to call this place — but to all of mankind. Civilization is going to rise again, rise from the ashes of the old world, and it is going to begin here. With us, and with the work we are doing here."

She should feel honored he was going to conduct some kind of horrific experiment on her? Olivia swallowed. He was insane, utterly. She had never been more certain of anything in her life. She had fallen into the hands of a true monster, an actual mad scientist, the sort told of in stories and bad science-fiction movies. Was this Walter, before his incarceration? Had he been as cruel? And did she have _willing guinea pig_ stamped across her forehead? How could this be happening to her again?

"Are you hungry? Thirsty?" he asked. At mention of food and water, she met his gaze for an instant, despite herself. "Yes. You are, aren't you? Very much so, I should think, all things considered. Would you like some food? Some water?" He glanced back at the door to her cell and called out, "Alex?"

There was a noise outside her cell and a moment later a short and stocky man of Asian descent came through the door, pushing an ancient metal cart before him. In spite of her intention to remain silent, she couldn't stop the gasp that escaped her lips.

The cart was laden with a pair of plastic utensils, a glass of crystal clear ice water, and, she saw with bulging eyes, plates of hot food. Steak and potatoes. Pasta in a white sauce. Even a medley of steamed vegetables, carrots, and some kind of squash or zucchini. Wisps of steam rose up from each plate and the aromas alone were enough to make her head swim. Her mouth erupted with moisture, saliva dripping onto her lower lip. The hunger pangs emanating from the empty bag of her stomach intensified, to the point of agony. So much food! Her throat cried out for just a sip of water.

"The steak is venison, but still quite delicious, nonetheless," Jacob Fischer said in a pleasant tone, gesturing toward the cart. "You may have some, if you like. Not too much at once, of course, or you'll likely vomit." He paused, catching her eyes. "But first, you must stop resisting. Your life could be so much better here. Wouldn't you like to get cleaned up? To have a bed to lie on?" His voice was honeyed and soothing, like a father doing his best to convince a wayward child to see reason. "But you must stop resisting. Resistance will only bring you more pain, more suffering. Surely you can see that, young lady. Wouldn't you like to get up? Wouldn't you like to be released from your bonds?"

Resisting? She couldn't remember resisting anything. It was pure psychology. He was trying to manipulate her, trying to break her down, bend her to his will. A distant part of her recognized this fact in an instant, but her stomach had a mind of its own, disconnected from the rest of her.

The smells rising from the plates of food were torturous, sabotaging. She tried to ignore them, to fight it, but the concentration required was beyond her. Her head was filled with the wafting odors of freshly cooked meat, the buttery scent of the pangs grew worse, more intense, as if her stomach was twisting itself into a contorted knot. She noticed drops of condensation sliding down the outside of the glass of ice water and unbidden came knowledge of how good it would feel going down, how cool it must be, how incredibly refreshing it would taste. _Oh god, I'm so thirsty..._ She found herself rationalizing that giving in would mean a greater chance of escape. She was as weak as a newborn babe. Starving herself would only lead to more suffering, possibly even her death, and the Doctor would still do with her as he wished.

 _It's only one battle_ , she told herself as a tear stung her left eye. _It doesn't mean I've lost the war_. Once she was stronger, she could fight. And she would. Of course she would. Jacob Fisher stared down at her, waiting.

Meeting his gaze, Olivia nodded, and the Doctor smiled.

#

* * *

#

The cafeteria was quiet except for the murmur of hushed voices from where the adults were gathered in one dim corner, huddled in a tight ring around the chair where Mister Broyles sat, resting his leg. His foot was propped up on his knee, and he leaned forward, rubbing his injured ankle with both hands as he listened to something Astrid was saying.

Ella watched them from where she was seated at a long, narrow lunch table not far away. Head bowed, she listened, hoping to glean something of their intent, but other than the occasional word or two, their voices were mostly indistinct mumbles. Not that she couldn't guess what they were saying; either it was about how Walter had been taken away with the strange man she'd never seen before, or it was Mister Overbeek, and how he'd looked all mad and puffed up like that tall old rooster she'd seen on a cartoon her Mom had once shown her, laughing about how she'd watched the show when she was a kid. Something bad had happened, something really bad, but no one would tell her what. No one would tell her anything. Whatever it was though, Mister Overbeek must have thought one of them had done it, that much she had figured out on her own.

Letting out an irritated huff, she picked at a loose thread hanging down from the palm of the glove on her left hand. She pulled at it, slowly unraveling the pink thread until it came to her that the glove might unravel all the way, and then where would she be? With cold fingers and a pile of yarn, and more importantly, an angry mother. It was chilly in the cafeteria, but not cold enough for her breath to show up like it did outside.

She glanced down at the book lying open on the table between her elbows and sighed. She didn't feel like reading — even if all the secrets she'd been keeping weren't taking up all the empty spaces inside her head. The horrible things she had seen through that window were all she could think about, from the instant she woke up in the morning to the moment she lay down to sleep and shut her eyes. And then Walter had been taken away.

Was he okay? He'd been gone for hours and hours. Dinner had come and gone, and it would soon be time for bed. What were they doing to him? Only bad things happened in the Doctor's building. She pictured his face covered by a pale mask, she pictured hoses poking out all over him, she saw him trapped, struggling to escape from an impossible spiderweb of black wires. Was he dead? _Oh geez, I should have told someone what I saw. I should have told them_ _._ Only now it was too late.

Pain rose up her chest, up into her throat. Icicles pierced her skin, sliding in between the rounded bones she could feel above her tummy, pricking with jagged points. Her insides were turning to ice. Suddenly there was no air inside her, either that or she'd forgotten how to breathe. Inside her coat and in her head, her heart sounded like a distant drumbeat, going faster and faster. And then her eyes began to sting.

She caught a glimpse of her mother, her sideways glance. She saw her eyebrows arching upward, the frown forming on her lips, her mouth opening, preceding the inevitable question. Time slowed to a crawl.

_She's going to ask me what's wrong._

And then the lies would come rushing out, like water spilling over the edge of a tall cliff. She wouldn't be able to stop them. Ella knew that, not when her mother's eyes locked onto her face, when her hands would land on each shoulder, squeezing, squeezing. They would all know what she'd done, what she'd made Gina do. They would know she'd been a bad girl, the worst girl, that she'd lied to them all, and that if something happened to Walter, it would be her fault for keeping secrets. It was _all_ her fault.

The words were balanced on the tip of her tongue, waiting for the slightest nudge to send them over the edge of the cliff. Despite her terror, something deep inside her chest was begging for it to happen, for it to all to be over with, no matter what would happen later. Her mother's mouth was opening. It was going to happen. She saw her mother's face through a blur of tears. They were rolling down her cheeks, dripping onto her coat.

But then the door into the cafeteria creaked open, and Walter came waltzing in, wearing his tan coat and pants, his red and black shirt. He looked at her and grinned, the lines of his wrinkled face dimpling along the corners of his mouth.

"Walter!" Ella cried out, then sprang to her feet, ignoring the crash of the metal folding chair collapsing behind her. She raced down the aisle scattering furniture in her wake. He was okay! She couldn't believe he was even real until she crashed into him, throwing her arms around his waist. "You're really okay," she told him. "You're okay." Her body felt light, as if she might float away. The rough fabric of his coat scratched against her cheek, then turned wet with her tears.

Walter patted her back gently. "I'm quite all right, my dear," his quavery voice said above her. "Quite all right, indeed, and I may have never been in any danger at all."

With a sniffle, she pulled away from him. "You weren't?" She peered up at him with a frown. "But why not?"

Before he could reply the others had approached, forming a ragged circle around them, bombarding him with questions. She moved aside as Astrid gave Walter a hug and a kiss on his cheek, which brought a wide smile to his face. Ella saw tears on her friend's cheek as she stepped away, and immediately felt better about her own bout of weeping.

"Walter, what happened?" Mister Broyles said. "Did they test this vaccine on you? Did they try to infect you?"

"Yeah, what did happen?" Sonia echoed, giving Walter a hug also. "We didn't expect you back until tomorrow... or maybe not ever," she added under her breath, "from what Claire said about the other guy they tested it on."

"Well. As to the... experiment," he said, glancing toward the kitchen and wetting his lips, "if it could even be called an experiment, I can tell you very little, other than that the Doctor has access to a powerful anesthetic, possibly sodium thiopental. Though it is difficult to be certain, given that I experienced its effects for a moment only before falling unconscious."

"Unconscious?" Mom asked. Her arms were crossed, and she was rubbing the bump on her wrist where it had broken. "What kind of vaccine is that?"

Walter blinked, staring at Ella's mother. "Oh. Miss Dunham. I didn't see you standing there. Have you been here all along?" After she assured him that she had, he continued, eyes narrowing to thin slits. "As for the supposed vaccine, I was told by the little Asian fellow that he would check on me in a few days, and that is all. But as I told little Ella, I don't believe I was ever in any real danger."

"What do you mean? Did he test it on you or not?"

"I was injected with something, to be sure, but whether it was merely a placebo, or something else that was benign, I can't say. What I can say is that I'm more certain than ever that this Doctor is nothing more than a charlatan, and that his so-called research on the infection is merely a facade behind which he and his associated are hiding something, possibly some sort of nefarious activity."

"Tell me what happened, Walter," Mister Broyles said. His dark eyes flashed between the doors leading out into the corridors. "And keep your voice down. If what you're saying is true, we don't know how many of them are involved. Maybe it's all of them."

Ella saw Astrid shake her head as Walter nodded in agreement. "Oh yes! You're quite right, Agent Broyles," he said, peering about the dim cafeteria as if he thought someone might be spying on them. "Stealth is of the utmost importance! There's no way to know who might involve in the conspiracy."

 _Conspiracy? What does that mean?_ The word seemed familiar — she had heard it before, but where? For some reason, it made her think of that cartoon movie with all the talking cars. Was that important? She couldn't quite figure out how it could be. Maybe it was a kind of secret. The kind adults only told to each other. She was sure they did that, sometimes, at least.

She followed the adults back over to the corner where they'd been talking before, but her mother stopped her with a look and a firm hand across her shoulders.

"Uh uh. The adults need to talk, Ella," Mom said, shaking her head. "You can go finish your book. It looks like you still have a few pages left. Afterward, we'll see about getting a snack."

"But Mom...," she whined, pressing her lips together. "It's not fair. I want to know what's happening too..."

"Life isn't fair, sweetheart," her mom replied with a shrug. Ella found herself being guided back to the table and her book. "If it were, none of this would have happened, now would it? If life were fair, your aunt would be here with us, not god only knows where with Peter." Then her voice grew hard, the way it did when she was serious, and meant business. "The things we have to talk about don't concern you right now. It's not for you to worry about. It's for the adults to worry about. Someday, when you're older and stronger, then you can worry about it, too. Okay?"

She wanted to tell her that she was already strong, that she had shot an infected with a real gun, that she had saved Astrid's life — Astrid had said so herself — and that she could help out, too. She had already found out more than they had, about the Doctor, and the evil things he was doing down in his workshop.

But she didn't say any of those things. She couldn't. Instead, she nodded her head, staring down at the ugly floor tiles beneath her shoes. There was no point in arguing with her mom; she had learned that also.

As her mother went to join the others, she picked up her collapsed folding chair, catching a look from Astrid that said she was sorry. Ella shrugged her shoulders, giving her friend a sad smile. It was all so unfair.

She sat down, dropping her gaze back the book lying open on the table. Inside, an owl and a glowing firefly were chasing each other across the night, stretching across both pages. The tiny little firefly was about to cause all sorts of trouble on the following pages before an adult would finally stop him, imprisoning him in a glass jar. It was not her first time reading this particular book, or even the second, and after a few minutes the words and pictures on the pages disappeared.

Instead, she saw something else in the place inside her mind where thoughts and ideas came to life. She saw the secret thing she and Gina had found down in the basement, perhaps even beneath where she was sitting at that moment. Now that Walter was okay, she finally let herself think about it again. It had been a close call, with Gina's grandmother nearly discovering what they'd been up to when she'd come to fetch them.

What was it? What was in there and where did it go? Did it go anywhere at all? It had been dark, and hard to see much of anything. Their little flashlight had hardly showed anything through the tiny gaps in the rubble. Was there a space? A room? What could it be? They had been trying to push some of the smaller chunks of rock and glued-together bricks out of the way, trying to clear a space big enough for one of them to squeeze through. Most of the chunks were bigger than her head, bigger than her entire body, and it would be a tight fit, even if the thought of climbing through made her tummy all cold and heavy like it was full of concrete. What if it all fell on her, crushing her flat like a piece of gum on the bottom of her shoe?

In place of the open book, she saw the crack again, the gap in the rubble up near the ceiling, and again felt the faint feathers of air brushing across her cheek when she'd peered inside. The air had felt wet, had smelled like a pile of wet leaves. It was the smell that had drawn them to the collapsed wall in the first place. But there had been something else, something she had only seen without the flashlight.

Far, far back in the darkness, there had been a light.

#

* * *

#

The searchlight turned on without warning.

Blazing upward, it cut a glowing swathe through the darkness, tinting the surrounding buildings with a bluish haze. Peter froze in his chair, staring out through the muddy glass at the light where it penetrated the clouds. Now that it had finally happened, he found himself paralyzed with uncertainty.

Four days he had been waiting for it, four days and five nights since Olivia had been taken from him. Five nights of shivering in the frigid darkness in front of the window, four days of cowering down in front of the fireplace back at the ranch, trying to find what sleep he could. Every moment a torture, a constant stream of horrific possibilities playing out in vivid detail in the back of his mind, no matter how hard he tried to shut them out. Was she okay? What had they done to her? Was she still herself? That last bit worried him most of all. Dale Mueller's vague description of what happened to those taken by this Doctor character was slowly driving him mad.

Outside the window and down on the other side of the fence, the wide-open space behind the main building glowed dimly under the night sky. Shadows moved past his point of view, moving in opposite directions. Would they go to join the others? His assumption that they would was vital, if he were to have any chance of infiltrating the facility since he'd been reluctantly forced to abandon his original plan to lure a horde of undead to their gate.

He thought of the children he'd seen on the second day, kicking a soccer ball back and forth. At least two kids were in there, and maybe more, though he hadn't seen them since. Dressed in cold weather gear, it had been impossible to determine their ages, and whether they were even boys or girls — not that it mattered in the end. The sight of them had driven home the point, that there were innocents living inside the walls. And some of the guards were women also — mothers, daughters, sisters. He counted at least six of them, possibly seven among all the men, though it was difficult to be sure. With the drop in temperature, everyone was bundled up, and the shift changes on the fence were frequent. And that was just the guards. How many more were inside, making all the food required to feed the thirty or so people he thought might be living there? Could he put so many innocents in danger? It was the realization that he was on the verge of becoming a monster himself that had finally penetrated the single-minded fury that had become his daily driver. So he'd scrapped his plan with the undead, and come up with a riskier alternative.

His gaze fell to the spot on the encircling fence where he'd completed his sabotage two days ago, just before sunrise when the guards were most lax. It was a calculated risk, snipping enough links for a man to slip through. But what choice did he have? Walking up to the front gate was out of the question. He had made the cuts carefully, however, hiding the broken links behind a fence support, and none of the guards seemed the wiser. Or at least it seemed that way from his vantage on the top floor of the circular out-building nestled back at the edge of the forest, on the farthest edge of the property. It was the nearest building to the fence that was still outside it, and whoever was in charge had chosen foolishly to ignore its existence. Their stupidity was his gain.

Peter rose to his feet, grunting at the sharp pain in his left side. Out of habit, he pressed his hand against the slow-healing wound. With the weather turning cold again, it had grown stiff, almost brittle, aching constantly. Beneath the bandage the skin around his shoddy stitching was an angry red, striated with veins of purple. The sight of it was more than a little alarming, but it had stopped bleeding, and that was all that mattered in the short term.

Exhaling slowly, his breath clouded the glass, obscuring his view of the searchlight. It was time — there would never be a better opportunity than now. He reached for his backpack, slinging it over his right shoulder. The bag was heavy, weighed down with the items he'd selected, carefully wrapped in old rags to dampen any sound. He would take with him only what he needed. Everything else would be left behind; the cumbersome night vision goggles, his small supply of food and water, even his sword, which he was loathe to part with. Swinging it had become too painful, too awkward for it to be of any use. If he succeeded, he could retrieve it all later.

And if not, then not.

He could still hold a gun, however. He checked the automatic on his belt, then drew back the bolt of the M4, holding the chamber up to the dim light before slamming it home and walking out of the room.

Keeping the beam of his flashlight low, he hurried down through the decaying building to the first floor, and then outside. A harsh wind blew in from the west, bringing with it the poignant odor of pine needles. The air was frigid, biting into his legs through his jeans, stinging his bare fingers as he pulled on a pair of thin leather gloves he'd found in a drawer back at the vacant ranch.

Ahead, the bluish beam of the searchlight rose above the buildings, just to the right of the pointed silhouette of the clock tower in the distance. He angled toward the light, stepping through a wide stretch of knee-high stalks of dried thistle and the withered remains of foxtail and witchgrass. The weeds extended all the way to the narrow drive encircling the compound. Beyond lay the fence, topped with rows of barbed wire slanted outward.

He hunched forward, staying low, following a slight rent in stalks left behind by his prior passage until he came to a curving driveway, where he crouched down at the edge of the weeds. The cut in the fence was dead ahead. Far to his right were the pair of buildings under armed guard, and his ultimate goal. He held still, breath rising in the chill air. A sentry would pass by; they always did, unless the searchlight had drastically changed their schedule. He suspected it would not, and soon enough was proved right when a man in a striped stocking hat walked past, carrying one of their absurdly large pole-spears on his shoulder. The man's head swiveled about, eyes passing over his location, but he passed by without a glimmer of awareness.

Peter waited until the man was out of earshot, then crept forward, crossing over the loose gravel of the drive. As he neared the fence, it suddenly hit him that the guards' schedule had already changed. He recalled the night he and Olivia had first approached the Kirkbride facility, and how there had been no guards walking the fence, none at all on the rear side when the light was on. Not a single one. Yet the fence was under watch now, nonstop, twenty-four hours a day.

What did that mean? What had changed?

One possible answer seemed obvious enough. Peterborough, and the brutal death of one of their men. And himself. They were expecting him. Or, at least, they had prepared for the possibility of _something_.

 _Well, I'd hate to disappoint them_ , he thought upon reaching the fence and dropping to his knees. He winced at the jarring impact, then ripped the cut section of fence back and tossed the rifle through ahead of him, before slithering through on hands and knees after it. His side ached as he did so, and even more so when his coat snagged on the cut edge of a link, but he forced himself through, locking his jaw against the pain. An instant later he was free, and inside the perimeter. He pulled the fence back in place, or as close as he could manage in a hurry.

Snatching up the rifle, he crouched there for a heartbeat, studying the nearby darkness. The sentry was an indistinct shadow heading back toward the front of the compound, but another would surely be along in a few moments. And he could be nowhere in the vicinity when that happened.

Peter lunged to his feet, biting off a grunt as he did so. Ducking down, he raced across the wide field, zeroing in on the blocky outline of what he assumed were the living quarters of the complex. The bluish searchlight lit up the night sky overhead without waver. He plunged into the shadows behind the tall building, crossing over a decaying asphalt parking lot covered in loose gravel that bounced and skittered beneath his feet and then pressed his back up against a wall of uneven bricks rounded with age. He glanced to either side, then headed to his left passing in front of a row of darkened windows before coming to a closed door. He gave the handle a yank, and to his surprise it swung open silently, as if the hinges had just been given a fresh coat of oil. Inside was a cavernous darkness, giving away not a hint of the interior.

Stepping inside, he pressed the rifle tight to his shoulder and let the door close behind him. Immediately his nose was assaulted, stomach lurching at the odors of home cooking. Of food. Lowering the rifle, he thumbed on his flashlight covering the lens with his palm. His fist glowed red as he looked around.

It was a kitchen, and huge. Large enough to feed the massive Kirkbride complex back in its heyday. Rows of wooden tables pressed together ran parallel to the interior walls. On his left was what looked like a long dish sink, and then a row of tall shelves crammed full of pots and pans. To the right were several massive cast iron stoves that looked as if they were a hundred years old, at least. It seemed doubtful they could possibly still function, yet the odors of cooking hung in the air; fresh scents of bread, and the succulent odor of some kind of grilled meat, if he wasn't mistaken. His mouth watered. Pangs of hunger lanced through his gut. Across the kitchen were a pair of tiny green lights. He moved closer and found a pair of modern refrigerators, with LCD temperature readouts.

Unable to help himself, he pulled open the nearest refrigerator door, and then froze. _Holy shit._ The refrigerator was stuffed full of tupperware containers, each labeled with masking tape and black handwriting scrawled in permanent marker. He read the labels, on the brink of drooling. _Venison. Macaroni. Chili. Gravy. Potatoes. Cabbage. Carrots. Linguine_ _._ He found himself reaching for the container of carrots, but stopped himself short. Once he started eating, he wouldn't be able to stop. Of that he was certain.

 _Stop wasting time, Bishop. Move. Do what you came here to do. You think Olivia is getting a steak dinner_ _?_

Reluctantly closing the refrigerator door, he wondered again how they managed to power their lights, their appliances. Trailing out from behind the refrigerators and into the darkness was a thick extension cord. He suppressed the urge to follow it, and instead set his backpack down on the nearest work table, beside a tray of shiny new cutlery. Opening the main pocket, he removed the pair of cloth-wrapped bundles, careful not to make a clink as he unwound the ragged shirts from about each of the glass bottles. Inside each was a dark liquid that sloshed about as he unscrewed the caps, letting out the pungent fumes of the gasoline trapped inside. He poured a bit of gas onto each rag, then shoved each into a bottle top, pushing them in as far as they would go. When the makeshift molotov cocktails were ready, set them aside, then reached into the pack for the handful of smoke flares, lining them up in a row.

With that part finished, he glanced around, shining the flashlight over the kitchen. The floors were a beige ceramic tile, the ceiling and walls a mixture of brick and concrete covered by cracked and crumbling plaster. The kitchen was as good a spot as he would find, barring a basement somewhere. Swallowing, he thought of the children, the women, he'd seen from afar, and told himself that a little arson paled in comparison to a horde of undead crashing through their gate. With any luck, the fire wouldn't spread too far. But he had to get their attention, and keep it here, away from the outbuilding, and for as long as possible.

It was the only way.

He zipped his bag shut and slung it over his shoulder, then pulled a lighter from his pocket. He thumbed it alight, holding the flame near the rag trailing from the first bottle. It lit at once, casting flickering shadows about the kitchen as he moved on to the second, lighting it also. Acrid black smoke curled upward as picked it up, holding the bottle away from him. They needed to see it, they needed to feel fear, to feel panic and chaos.

He swallowed again, and then reared back and hurled the flaming bottle at the wall just below a pair of windows that faced north, toward the open field behind the kitchen. The bottle exploded with a fiery crash. Flames _whooshed_ upward, climbing up the wall, over the window to the ceiling, smoke and orange and blue tendrils fanning out like a blooming flower. Turning, he shattered the second firebomb across the old stovetop, sending another gout of flame roaring upward, licking the inside of an ancient exhaust hood mounted overhead. With that accomplished, he quickly set off one flare after another, rolling them beneath the kitchen equipment, the counters, the stove, even tossing on behind the pair of refrigerators. White smoke mixed with black, coming together in a solid gray mass that billowed in plumes across the ceiling.

It was going to work. It had to work.

_I'm coming Olivia. I'm coming._

#

With his act of arson under way, it was time for the next phase. He grabbed the rifle and raced toward the door, turning his face away from the intense blast of heat that washed across his face as he passed by the conflagration.

"Fire!" Peter shouted, racing outside. "Fire! Fire in the kitchen!" An answering voice shouted something unintelligible, somewhere out near the fence to his right. "Fire! Kitchen's on fire! Help!"

He spotted a silhouetted figure off to the left, and far across the open field the pair of armed guards were already moving his way, drawn in by his cries for help. Without slowing, he sprinted across the parking lot and dove into the tall grass. He gasped at the impact, at the fire shooting all through his left side. Gasping, clamping his teeth against the pain, he crawled forward, angling toward a low mound protruding from the grass ahead.

More shouts erupted in the night, to either side and from just ahead. He kept going, and the shadowed mound resolved into a circular pile of rubble, into stones and bricks sprinkled with weeds. An old foundation wall, he figured probably from a structure not unlike the one he'd been spending his nights in for the last week. Glancing back, he found flames through the windows and the open kitchen door, easily visible to anyone on the outside.

It was going to work.

Shouts rang out in the night. Cries for help, for water. Footsteps sounded in the darkness as he reached the low mound and wedged himself into the gap between two sections of jagged foundation walls. Lifting up for an instant, he saw a pair of shadows approaching, each carrying rifles that caught the occasional glint of light.

The armed guards.

"What the hell is going on, Jonas?" one of them said.

"No idea," a second voice replied, and Peter thought the man sounded vaguely familiar. A New Yorker. Brooklynite. Where had he heard it before? "Probably one of them kids was playing with matches while all the adults were busy. I knew they'd be trouble. Kids always are. I was the same way at that age."

"Shit... Overbeek's gonna flip."

"You ain't kidding, Danny-boy. He's gonna shit a brick. The Doc don't like being interrupted."

Peter pressed himself flat as the men drew near, mashing his face into the cold dirt and bits of rock and gravel. He heard the crackle of a radio, and then a scratchy voice demanding to know what the fuck was going on. And then the two men passed by off to his left, the Brooklynite's voice panicked as he replied into the radio.

When the men were gone, he scrambled to his feet and sped over the grass, homing in the shadowed entrance of the now unguarded building on the left. His plan had worked — so far, at least. But now timing was critical, his window of opportunity just a short sliver of time, and growing shorter by the second. As the pair of buildings drew near, a sudden movement off to his left caught his eye. Turning, panic gripped his chest at the sight of another person rushing straight toward him through the darkness. Clearly, they had seen him.

"What hell is going on?" The New England voice belonged to a woman. "What's all this shouting about? Is someone attacking us?"

Cursing inside his head, Peter slowed up, keeping his face averted. The woman was short and young-looking, with pale skin and dark hair peeking out from beneath a yellow stocking hat. "No, there's a fire," he said, coughing into his palm. He hunched over, coughing again. "It's in the kitchen. It's bad. Jonas sent me for help."

"A fire!" The woman gasped, throwing her gaze toward the burning building. "Oh fuck! Why was there anyone even in there right now?" She started to turn away, then stopped, giving him another look. "Hey, are you okay? You don't sound so good, buddy."

He shook his head, waving her away. "I'll be fine," he said, moving away from her. "Just inhaled... a little too much smoke is all. You should go help, the whole building could go up, you know what I mean? I'll get the others." The woman seemed to frown, but then nodded and hurried off, soon vanishing into the night.

Peter didn't wait to see if the woman turned back. He flew across the field, over a narrow walkway, and then up a short flight of steps to a pair of doors with inset windows covered by thick bars of iron. The doors had no locks, only gaping holes where a dead-bolt must have once resided. He yanked open the door on the left and slipped inside, into yawning blackness.

The building was silent, the only sound that of his pounding heart. He thumbed on his flashlight and found himself in what must have been the reception area, long ago. The space where a desk might have once been was littered with piles of rusted junk. Ancient medical equipment, old bed springs, all the refuse of decades' past, as if whoever had been in charge of clearing out the place had simply given up, consigning all of it to go down with the ship. He moved past the junk piles, down a long, straight corridor, shining his light to either side, passing by room after gutted room, all of which were empty, vacant.

She would not be held on ground level, he decided after a few minutes of searching. It was clear that the ground floor was not in use at all, having at some point in the past suffered severe water damage, or perhaps a fire, or both. Most of the walls and ceilings were bare, showing their structural components. And the man Dale Mueller had called the Doctor would do his work in private, away from the light of day, away from inquisitive eyes. Such was the way of mad men and torturers.

After a few minutes of searching, he came upon a stairwell rising up from below and continuing upward to the floors above. He held still on the top step, listening. Were there voices below? How many people were down there? How many men? How many would they commit to the fence? He would know shortly.

Gripping the rifle, he hurried down the steps. Time was flying, gathering momentum. He could feel it, like a nail being slowly driven into the center of his shoulders. The stairwell was narrow, block walls pitted with cracks, stained with spots of creeping black mold that gave off a sharp, stinging odor. The scrape of his boots echoed in the darkness. The flight of steps turned once, then came to an end at a closed door, from which a faint light glowed from underneath. Carefully, he pulled the door open and found himself in another corridor.

Like the ground floor above, the basement level was silent. What was different were the lights hanging down from an arched ceiling overhead, rusted fixtures giving off a dim, wavering glow. The rooms were in better shape here, and he rushed from door to door, searching them quickly. In one tiny room, not far from the stairwell, he found a modern cot, along with a medical tray on wheels. But other than that, there was nothing, only bits of trash and signs of recent vermin infestations. And there were no people, no Doctor, no guards.

No Olivia.

Peter stopped in the middle of the corridor. She had to be there. She had to.

He hung his head, and it was then that he noticed a wad of black cables, each as big as his thumb, snaking out from beneath a pair of doors just a short way down the hall from where he'd stopped. The cables curved out from a lighted gap beneath one of the doors, then continued down the hall until they disappeared around a corner. He moved closer and found the doors different from all the others he'd seen so far; solid wood with vertical metal handles wrapped in thick layers of shiny black electrical tape. The tape stood out as a strange addition, and with a frown, he reached out, touching one of the handles with the tip of his index finger. He wasn't sure what he expected to happen — flashes of light, the blare of an alarm, the screeching wail of a siren — but nothing did.

 _Somebody just put it there for a better grip, you idiot. Are you gonna stand here all day?_ Peter exhaled, turning his head. He pulled the door open carefully, just enough to get a glimpse inside.

At first, it was hard to make out what he was seeing through the gap, as if his eyes and mind refused to make sense of it. But then, after several confused moments, the contents of the room suddenly came into focus, like a terrible histogram.

The clamor of his beating heart filled the inside of his head, fear turning his insides to ice. He wrenched the door open, and the stench of human waste rolled over him like an oncoming tidal wave, carried out by a hot and humid change of atmosphere. Across the room were a pair of high windows, inset in the stone foundation wall up near the ceiling. Overhead, a single, flickering light glowed, casting a dim haze over a scene out of a nightmare, out of a monster's imagination. Beneath the light were three rows of beds, or rather bed frames, as none of them had any sort of mattress that he could see, only springs. Beds occupied by the still forms of human beings. His mind counted nine in all before he realized he was even counting. Beside each stood an IV pole, laden with several bags of fluid, one clear, the others filled with a briny liquid he didn't like the look of. Loops of dangling wires were strewn about the room, running in parallel between each row of beds. Masks unlike anything he had ever seen before covered the faces and heads of each body, masks with protruding hoses and wreathes of smaller, curling wires his brain automatically associated with EEG electrodes. The tiny wires emerged from the end of slightly thicker cables which all gathered in several new-looking junction boxes bolted to the floor at the end of each row, which in turn were the endpoints of the bundled cables he'd seen from the corridor.

Bile rose up Peter's throat, as a terrible realization bulged his eyes wide open. Dale Mueller had mentioned something about a grid.

A power grid.

 _No way. It can't be. It's impossible_ _._

Everything he knew about physics and particle interactions in the real world told him it was impossible, but the evidence was right there, right in front of him, beyond contradiction. He was looking at some kind of bizarre power system, only one made entirely of people, of live human beings. It was a concept from the annals of bad science fiction movies, and should have been impossible. Yet it wasn't.

_Olivia. Oh no._

He entered the room, hand shaking as he shined his light over the array of prostrate bodies, searching for a female, for anything that looked familiar. The bodies were all naked, and bound tight to the bed rails by thick, leather straps. And they were alive. Their combined breaths filled the room with whispering sighs, tickling the insides of his ears. Two of the bed frames in the center row were unoccupied. From the dark stains on the floor beneath them, they clearly hadn't been at some point, and were now merely awaiting their next victims.

 _If they're using people as batteries, I guess they run out of juice._ The thought flittered across his mind, repeating in a loop. _They run out of juice._ He couldn't stop the thought. It kept going and going, accompanied by an impending pressure in his chest, the urge to laugh like a mad man. Or was it cry? He couldn't tell. He was going crazy, insane. None of it could be real. _Out of juice. Out of juice_ _._

He moved from body to body, muscles tightening into cramps. They were all male. All white men, except for one lone African-American. All male. She wasn't there. Olivia wasn't there. The intense relief that followed came close to knocking him down, to buckling his knees.

 _Maybe they haven't done it to her yet,_ he thought _. Whatever_ it _is. What kind of sick fuck would make something like this?_ Even Walter would be sickened by what was being done to these people. Even his father, who had experimented on children. The thought was sobering.

Should he help them?

No. He could not. They were not why he'd come. Even if he could somehow help them all — without hurting them by pulling them out of whatever kind of suspended state they were trapped in — they would only slow him down. Just as they were slowing him down at that moment.

He turned to leave and there was a groan behind him. Spinning around, he saw something he'd missed before; a mound of blankets in the corner, upon which a man with a thick beard was writhing, hands gripping the curls of his dark hair. Unlike the others, he wore no mask. Sweat beaded on his forehead, and his eyes swiveled behind his closed lids, face twisting into a savage snarl. Peter took a step closer. The man was unbound and fully clothed, absurdly wearing blue Converse high-top sneakers.

Was he asleep? In some kind of trance?

He took another step toward the squirming man. As he did, a strange kind of pressure filled the room, settling on the surface of his skin, like walking through a cobweb, or being caressed by a thousand feather-tips at once. The tingling sensation was everywhere; on top of his head, beneath his coat, running up and down his legs beneath his pants.

"What the hell...?" he whispered, shining the flashlight onto his hand. The fine hairs on his wrist and on the back of his hand were standing straight up. From the way his head tingled, he thought his hair might be doing the same, like the time he'd stood beneath one of the Van de Graff generators at the now-destroyed Museum of Science back in Boston. Once upon a time the giant globes had generated millions of volts of electrical potential, enough to power MIT's particle accelerator.

Volts. Amperage. Electrical potential. His thoughts screeched to a halt.

 _Oh shit!_ Peter lunged for the door, sprinting out into the hall.

Behind him, as he turned the corner, there came a loud snap, and then a long torturous scream. Light fixtures up and down the corridor began to blink, strobing off and on as if he were running through a dance club. He raced further into the building, past open doorways and tiny alcoves. Duct-taped to the center of the floor was the thick wad of cables, and he followed them to another stairwell, a rickety spiral staircase in the rear of what might have been an administrator's office once, long ago. The stairwell was suffocatingly narrow, and led only downward. Ancient wall sconces covered by rusted wire guards that somehow still functioned lit the way, providing a dirty, almost mottled light as they continued to flicker, though less intense than before.

He flew down the steps, taking three at a time. Time was passing, faster than ever. He could feel it, feel it draining away as if it were running through a sieve. As if there now were a target on his back. How long would it take to put out the fire? How much time had he wasted in that room? Five minutes? Ten? The horror of it still lingered.

The winding steps paused on a door of gray metal with clouded glass at eye level. Light glowed within, but he could make out nothing but indistinct blurs and shapes through the glass. The door opened inward, hinges on the inside. He gave the handle a push but a sturdy-looking deadbolt held the door secure. Was she in there? Or further down? How many levels could there be? Surely he was far underground. Shining his light down the center, the spiraling staircase seemed to have no end. One level, at least, and possibly more. There was no time to search them all. No time. And getting the door open would not be a quiet affair.

He hesitated, indecision tying his head into a knot. "Fuck. Fuck!" he hissed, rubbing at sudden crick between his shoulders blades. Whatever he did, the wrong choice would more than likely doom them both. If they weren't doomed already. Yet he had to do something. Suddenly he made his choice, and spun back into the stairwell, leaping down step after step. The door and whatever lay behind it would wait. He would search below first, and then work his way back up.

The stairwell creaked as he made his way downward, and he told himself that he'd made the only choice he could, the one with the highest probability of success. More than anything though, it all rung hollow, it all reeked of pride and wishful thinking. The truth was that he was winging it, navigating the currents of chaos, and had been from the moment he'd thrown the first firebomb.

In what he chose to see as a stroke of luck, the spiral staircase came to an abrupt end. At the bottom was an open doorway leading out into a dark corridor straight out of a medieval dungeon, complete with crumbling stone walls and an arched ceiling low enough that it would brush the top of his head. If there was anywhere where prisoners might be kept, surely it was here. He dipped his head and plunged into a cloud of stale air that reeked of mold and rot, as if he were entering an animal's lair. The smell brought to mind the strange hybrid monstrosity, currently haunting Cambridge, but surely there wasn't another one hiding down in the basement. Surely.

The floor of the corridor was uneven. Spots of bare earth showed through worn bricks and shattered floor tile. Instead of cells and rooms of torture, there were no doors at all, no intersecting corridors. And after a minute or two it was clear that his assumption was dead wrong. It wasn't another level at all, but some kind of ancient access tunnel, more than likely left over from when the Kirkbride complex had first been constructed, near one-hundred-fifty years ago. Possibly it was part of an even larger network that had connected different wings of the hospital together at some point, but no longer.

The tunnel ended suddenly as he turned a corner, where a single wall light still glowed, still connected to the electrical system powered by the grid of human beings two floors above. A steep hill of rubble and debris emerged from the darkness, where the ceiling had collapsed in on itself. There would be no passing it by.

Peter approached the mound of bricks and dirt, tree roots and chunks of cemented gravel. "Well this was a gigantic waste of time," he muttered, clenching his jaw. He'd made a mistake, possibly a fatal one. He should have never come down this far, and now he was out of time. Surely they were aware by now that the fire had been intentional, that someone from the outside had infiltrated their perimeter. The probability of making it out by himself, much less with Olivia, was approaching zero. "Fuck. FUCK!" He picked up a chunk of rock and hurled it at the imposing mound. The rock plinked ineffectually, tumbling back down the hill until it rested almost at his feet once more. "Perfect. Just perfect, Bishop." he said to himself with a sigh, then turned to go.

Then muffled voice spoke out of the darkness behind him.

"Peter...?"

Peter gasped, whirling around, lifting and pressing the rifle hard against his shoulder in one motion. _What the fuck?_ There was no one there, only debris stretching all the way to the ceiling. "Who's there?" he called out. "Show yourself!"

"Uncle Peter," the voice said, "is that you?"

The voice was female, and tiny, puny sounding. It had come from above, up near the ceiling. How could they know him? How? And uncle? No one had ever called him that before, ever, unless…

_It can't be, can it?_

"Ella? Ella is that you?" he hissed. "Where are you?"

"Peter!" The joy in her tone was unmistakable. "You're here! I knew you'd come! I knew it!"

He scrambled up the mound of rocks and dirt, homing in on the sound of her voice. Up near the ceiling there was a spot, an almost negligible gap in the debris. Ducking down, he shone his light in the hole and found himself staring into the tear and dirt-streaked face of Olivia's niece. Some part of him deep inside cried out in joy at the sight of her, pushing back the cloud of darkness and rage that had been hovering over him day and night.

"Ella! What are you doing down here, baby girl?" he asked, using Olivia's pet name for her. He reached through the gap and felt tiny fingers gripping his hand. A lump rose up his throat and his eyes watered, stinging with salt.

"I found a tunnel down in the basement," she said. "I was trying to find a way through, but I can't move the rocks. They're too big."

Her explanation made no sense to him, but he let it pass for now. Time was screaming past now, faster than thought. "Are the others with you? Are they all here?"

"Yeah. All of us. Me and Mom, Astrid and Sonia and Mister Broyles and Walter. We're all here. The lab got attacked by all the dead people from the city, Peter. We had to run away."

"I know, sweetheart, I know," he said, squeezing her hand. "Your aunt and I saw it afterward. We weren't sure any of you were still alive. We didn't know where you'd gone." Walter was alive. His father was still alive. The shock of it left him breathless. Incredibly, they'd made it all out. But they were still in grave danger. " Ella, you guys have to get out of here, this place. The people here, they're bad. At least some of them are. You're all in danger. You have to tell the others. You have to get out."

"I know," she said to his surprise. "That's why I was trying to get through. I know the Doctor's doing bad things to people. Is Aunt Liv with you?"

Peter hesitated. "Ella, your aunt was captured by them. This Doctor person has her. That's why I'm here."

Through the gap, Ella's eyes grew huge. "But the Doctor will hurt her, Peter! He hurts them! I saw them once, through a window. He hurts them really bad!"

"I know he does," he assured her. "I know he does. I saw it, too. That's why I'm here. Ella, you have to tell the others. Tell Broyles or Astrid. You guys have to get out of here. Now. Tonight, if you can."

"They took all our guns and stuff when we got here, Peter. And they said we can't leave. I heard Astrid telling my Mom. She wanted to go out and look for you and Aunt Liv, but Mister Overbeek told her no."

Overbeek? Who the hell was this Overbeek? Was he the Doctor? Peter frowned. "What did Broyles say about what the Doctor was doing?"

Ella's voice fell so quiet he could hardly make out what she said next. "He... he doesn't know. I haven't told him. I haven't told anyone. Only me and Gina know. I didn't think they would believe me. They told me to stay out of trouble. They all like it here. And I do too, but... then I saw-"

"Ella," he cut in. "You have to tell them everything right now. You have to go back now. They'll believe you, I promise." He gave her hand another squeeze, then released her, pulling back until he could see her entire face again, and the tears streaming down her cheeks. "You have to go. I'm running out of time here. I have to find Olivia. Tell them. Tell them they have to get out of here."

"I will," she replied in a voice that was braver than her years. How old was she? Was she six yet? He had no idea. He'd never asked Olivia about her birthday. But she had the heart of a lion, just like her aunt. "Peter, I love you," she said. "I'm glad you're okay, and not dead."

The lump in Peter's throat grew to the size of a tennis ball. He swallowed, wiping his face with his sleeve. "I... I love you, too, sweetheart," he said roughly. "Now, you have to go. Go!"

Ella nodded, and then vanished from sight. Through the gap, he heard the wash of falling rocks and gravel, and then the faint pounding of small feet that faded quickly in the distance. She was gone. And he needed to be gone also.

Peter leapt down to the tunnel floor, then dashed back to the stairwell, ignoring the sharp pains shooting through his abdomen. From the fiery heat growing there, something had probably just torn, but there was not a thing he could do about it. He sped back up the winding stairwell, back to the locked door he'd left behind. She had to be in there. There was no other place, and the time for stealth had passed.

Backing away, he raised the assault rifle and blasted a ring of holes around the lock above the door handle. The detonations battered his eardrums. Sparks flew, and bits of dust and stone filled the air, crumbling down from above. Before the thunderous echoes had died out, he smashed his heel into the metal beside the lock, crushing it inward around the mangled lock. Another blow, and the door sprang back, crashing into the wall with a thud. His side burned as he stepped through the door, aiming down the barrel of the rifle.

Inside was a short corridor that ran perpendicular into another, filled with blinding light by modern floodlights on yellow stands. It was the place — it had to be. As he raced toward the next corridor, voices began shouting somewhere ahead. He peeked around the corner and found the next corridor lined with doors on either side, heavy doors with barred windows and sliding slots for food trays in their lower halves. Dozens of rooms, of cells — and that was just what he counted in front of him. How many were out of sight? He charged from door to door, window to window, zigzagging down the corridor like a human pinball, peering inside each cell for Olivia, until he came to another intersection of corridors.

Turning the corner, he found a pair of men hurrying toward him, one of whom he recognized. An older man, with graying hair and a neatly trimmed beard and wearing a gray lab coat. He'd seen the man once before, but only from a distance. It was him. The Doctor. The man responsible for all the horrors taking place here. The man ultimately responsible for Olivia's kidnapping. The men saw him at the same instant and skidded to a halt, backing away slowly.

"Don't fucking move!" he shouted, swinging the barrel between them as he moved closer. The other man, a squat Asian fellow with black hair watched the barrel swing back and forth with strangely calm eyes. He was a stooge. And worthless. "You," he said, and pointed the rifle at the man's face. "Get on the ground. Face down, against the wall. Hands on your head. If I see you even flinch, you're dead."

His words seemed to get the guy's attention, and his head bobbed as he dropped to his knees, and then lay down as ordered. The Doctor stepped back, raising his arms. His face was calm, as if he were the one in control of the situation. Peter's finger tightened on the trigger. He should just kill him, and remove his stain from the earth. Without a doubt, the man deserved it, for everything he'd done. For Olivia.

 _But you still need him_ , a voice whispered. _He can take you to her._

Yes, he could. Peter moved forward, until he was close enough to touch the other man. Up close, the front of the Doctor's gray lab coat was speckled with dark stains he recognized from his time spent working at the meat packing plant in another life, only it wasn't cow's blood he was looking at, of that he was certain.

"Where is Olivia?" he said, voice rising to a shout. He pressed the rifle against the man's forehead.

"Olivia...?" The bearded doctor's eyebrows climbed up his forehead, and his face became as innocent as a babe's. "I'm afraid I don't know to whom you are referring, sir. Please lower your weapon and we can talk about this like civilized men. You don't want to hurt anyone, do you?"

Civilized? After what he'd seen above, the bastard had the nerve to speak of being civilized? And he most certainly did want to hurt someone. "Take me to her," he said through the rage choking up his throat. "Take me to her now, or I'll kill him, and then you."

"And I told you," the doctor replied, sounding oddly confident, all things considered, "that I don't know anyone named Olivia. Not with a gun pointed at my head." For an instant, his dark-eyed gaze snapped over Peter's shoulder, and he gave the barest of nods.

Peter started to whirl around, but there was a loud snap behind him and all of a sudden, he couldn't move. His muscles spasmed, tightening all at once into rigid bands. Something was burning, pulsing into the small of his back. Through the roar of sudden agony, he heard a distinct buzz, like an electric arc. Then another spot of agony flared on his left shoulder-blade, and another on his right thigh. He tried to scream but his mouth was no longer his own, his lips and jaws suddenly wired shut.

_Tasers... no... fuck... Olivia..._

It was too late. The assault rifle slipped from knotted fingers that no longer worked, clattering to the floor. His knees buckled, and then the world tilted, and the mottled concrete floor loomed large in his vision. Something white flashed before his eyes a moment later, as a heavy blow landed across the back of his head. As darkness closed around him, the bearded man in the blood-stained coat stood over him, staring down with pitiless eyes.

"Thank you, Kyle," the Doctor said, voice growing more distant with every word. "Put him in with the others."


	30. Juxtaposition

**-March 2009**

He lowered his gaze from the distant rooftop to the street below.

The humans would either survive, or they would not. It mattered not to The Plan which outcome the present settled upon. None of the humans balanced precariously on the ledge were prime movers, nor were any of their bloodlines. Their roles in the current events of this time period began and ended upon the roof, no matter the outcome. It was foreseen. Extending his wrist, he checked his time-piece, and then peered to his right down the block where a black truck with blue and red lights flashing inside its windshield was just pulling up to the curb, outside of the police barricade.

They had arrived, and on schedule.

In this particular permutation, the black truck's passenger door opened first and a man stepped out onto the sidewalk, shielding his eyes as he stared up at the line of silhouettes high above the street. In another probability set, it was the driver who would exit the vehicle first. But history had made its choice, and the woman driving emerged second. For point-five seconds, she too stared up at the humans balanced on the lip of the roof, high above the street, and then dashed down the sidewalk toward the building's entrance.

He started forward with prescient awareness, following a precise path between moments through the rush of excited humans on the sidewalk. Possibilities unfolded before him. As always, the sensation of observing time as raw data was overwhelming, a torrent of overlapping equations and permutations, kaleidoscopes of unlimited probability playing out before his eyes.

In one-point-two seconds, a gray city bus would pass in front of him. He paused mid-step, waiting for the roar of an approaching engine. In one-point-seven seconds a young boy in a bus window would see him, in one-point-nine a red sedan would pass by going in the other direction. At the same instant, a pigeon would alight on the street light above the intersection. In three-point-two seconds the pigeon would defecate, and when its feces struck the sedan's windshield as it passed beneath, the woman driving would swerve either left or right, her reaction autonomous. From that point, the flow of time branched outward in exponential permutations that quickly outnumbered the threads his implant was capable of processing in real-time. Further analysis would require a complete future run on the woman, but she was not the subject of his observation.

The gray bus flashed in front of his eyes, moving in staccato stop-motion. A young boy with hair the color of sand stared down from a passing window. Their eyes met, and then the boy was gone. He stepped off the curb in the bus's wake. A red sedan raced past, moving with a trajectory in opposition to that of the bus. He continued forward, narrowly avoiding the sedan's rear bumper. On the edge of his vision, the red car swerved to the left, before continuing onward. A horn honked. The pigeon took flight with a surprised squawk. Olivia Dunham passed by on his right, continuing to peer upward, followed by Peter Bishop, and his father, Dr. Walter Bishop. He reached the far side of the street, then took cover beneath the green lattice of a construction scaffold to observe the sequence of events.

They had passed through the barricade, and were now standing before the hotel entrance speaking with the local constabulary on duty. Two-point-four seconds later, Olivia Dunham disappeared inside.

He watched as Walter Bishop and his son backed away from the building, holding their hands above their brows as they peered upward, watching. One minute and forty-seven seconds later, Olivia Dunham would appear on the roof. In three minutes and thirty-nine seconds, a human female would fall to her death, crashing the roof of a black sedan parked on the street below. He checked his time-piece.

The future was correct, and on course, down to the microsecond. December would approve.

Around him, the humans were speaking amongst themselves, fingers pointed upward at their fellows' precarious placement along the precipice. Their voices rose and fell. They teemed with excitement, expressed through their accelerated heartbeats and dilated eyes. He lifted his head, following the angle of their gazes up the roof of the hotel, where the human male at the center of the event was waving his hands, every motion expressing his panic, his fear. He too, was brimming with emotions.

He thought of the moment twenty-four minutes and fifteen seconds ago, when the man on the rooftop and his entourage had passed him by on the sidewalk. Something unexpected had occurred, something he had never experienced before. A strange sensation had come over him, an odd sort of pressure, deep inside his skull. For a span of point zero-seven seconds his mind had been overcome by a flood of what could only be described as a kind of silent noise, interference blotting out all rational thought, and he had nearly joined in the flood of humans, sucked in by the man's irrational aura. He had not joined in, of course, but for that single, brief span of time, he had found himself desperately wanting to. It was unexpected, and worth noting for later deliberation.

A gasp arose in the crowd. His eyes tracked the woman as she plummeted toward the car below, the seconds until impact counting down. Three. Two. One. The woman struck the sedan, crumpling the roof inward, exploding a shower of glass across the pavement.

He considered Walter Bishop, who was gaping at the body of the human female embedded in the sedan. Beside him, the boy from the other side of the veil was pacing, hand raised to the back of his head, eyes locked on the figure of the woman, Olivia Dunham, far above him.

He had not known watching their lives unfold would intrigue him so. This moment in history was but one of many in which The Plan might be threatened. There had been others, in the past, others he could see ahead, the potential for errors in the causality of his own people's origins. Yet none of them glinted quite like the father and son standing before him, and the woman on the roof.

Their futures were varied, yet nearly always interconnected, intertwined, like vines climbing around the same tree. Worlds revolved around them, innumerable possible histories not mentioned in any record of his people. Futures in infinite variation. And at the farthest reaches of mathematical probability, and using them as prime movers, he had found a cluster of possible futures quite unlike any others. In several of them, reality itself would begin to disintegrate, in time.

Were the other science team members aware of the destruction happening in those distant realms of possibility? If so, they were not concerned. Nor should he be concerned, either. They were not part of his mission, nor had they any place in The Plan. Indeed, he was not even positive they existed at all outside the detritus of his mathematics. Yet still, he found his thoughts returning to them, in the moments between events, when he could ponder the raw equations. Those futures were growing more remote, the equations requiring more and more processing time to retrieve from among the multitude of possibility. As if the pathways to their existences were growing ever narrower.

A gunshot cracked the air, eliciting another round excited gasps and sighs from the crowd of humans. Across the street, Peter Bishop shoved past the policeman guarding the hotel entrance and raced inside.

The event had reached its end.

He looked down at his time-piece. Time was passing by, playing out with infinite slowness. He had twenty-three minutes and forty-two seconds before his presence was required elsewhere. He deliberated for a moment, and then, without fully understanding what drove him to deviate on this particular day, he stepped back to the rear of the crowd and closed his eyes. Focusing inward, he accessed the implant buried deep in the base of his skull.

There was a sense of tearing, a blast of frigid cold, and when he opened his eyes again, New York City was a wasteland of destruction. The hotel across the street was gone, replaced by a massive mound of rubble, debris spilling out into the street and burying rows of cars and trucks parked in serpentine lines. The rest of the block, the city, was much the same. Silence stretched out, perfect, complete.

He checked his time-piece again. The transition to this remote reality had been longer than any he could recall, dwarfing even the journey back to the beginnings of time and history. A dull throb emanated from the lower area of his brain stem. He reached up, slowly touching the spot and found his skin five-point-four degrees above normal. Lowering his hand, he experienced another strange sensation, a kind of empty hollowness in his lower abdomen.

It should not have been possible, but his implant had reached its computational limits. Any further stress would likely cause damage to its functions. He would not be able to return to this place, not without a beacon, and none of those were available for his use.

Tilting his head, he studied the texture of the air around him. The damage to the fabric of this reality was far worse than he had anticipated, far worse than he had thought possible. It was a universe in its death throes, withering, with an exceedingly low probability for continuance. Few remaining threads of probability remained, but those that did were still thriving, despite improbable odds, their futures still unfolding before them. He sensed them out there, bright spots of human awareness.

Indeed, far down the street was a large number of humans, standing in a group. He frowned, peering toward them. They were not the threads of awareness he had sensed. Indeed, he sensed nothing from them at all. Not even life. He reached for the binoculars in his coat pocket, snapping them open with practiced ease as he lifted them to his eyes.

Time and spatial coordinates flowed across his vision. A faint shock of alarm penetrated his stoic rational. These humans were not humans. They were dead things, little more than animated corpses, held in stasis by some indescribable force. How was it possible? It should not have been possible. The violation of such physical laws was beyond even the reach of his people, who were the masters of multiple realities. It should not have been possible.

He glanced at the spot where he had last seen Walter Bishop, now buried under a mountain of debris. He was not there, nor his son or Olivia Dunham. History had taken a different course, here.

Concentrating, he shifted to Cambridge, to the street outside of Walter Bishop's lab, and then into the lab itself. Rotting corpses of men and women were strewn about, stains of dried blood splattered across the walls and floor. None of the bodies belonged to those he sought. They had been here, and now they were not. Had they survived?

For several moments, he pondered the uniquely human emotion called love and the mystery of its existence. He was drawn to it, drawn to the love of a father and a son, between men and women, even between mothers and daughters, foreign as they were to him. Even in this most remote realm of possibilities, the prime constants had clung to life and to each other, much as other versions of themselves had done in countless other probability sets.

What was it? What made emotions so powerful, so potent an influence on events? The concept was alien, inherently at odds with his nature, indeed as it was alien to all of his kind. Had they lost something? Something vital? The thought was anathema, even dangerous.

He made his way to a table covered in shards of broken glass and picked up a sliver, tilting his head as he held it up before his eyes.

It was a starting point.

#

* * *

#

Ella raced through the blackness of the tunnel.

Cool, damp air feathered across her cheeks. Bobbing out in front of her, the beam of her flashlight bounced between the cracked floor tiles and the arched ceiling with streaks of white brilliance. Just ahead, the mound of dirt and rocks and crumbled bricks reared out of the darkness. She scampered up them to the tiny gap near the tunnel wall and just below the ceiling.

The hole was just large enough for her to fit through, now, but it had not been so on her previous visit. She was certain of it. _Maybe us climbing on all the rocks knocked something loose_ , she thought, slithering through the gap on her belly while holding the light out in front of her. Certainly no one had moved the big chunk that had been in the way for her. Yet it was not where it had been. It was the only explanation that made sense. And it didn't matter anyway. _Aunt Liv and Peter are alive. They're here!_ She could hardly contain her excitement as she emerged on the other the side of the mound.

"Ella!" Gina's voice hissed gloom below her. "Is that you?"

She pulled herself out of the narrow gap, gasping as something sharp dug into her elbow. "It's me, Gina," she said, crawling out of the hole and rubbing at the pain on her arm through her coat. "Who else would it be?"

Gina ignored the question. "We have to go back," she said, motioning for her to come down. "I think I heard 'em shouting upstairs. I think they're looking for us!"

Ella nodded and climbed down, stepping carefully over the rocks and debris. Shouting? Was it for them? Or did it have something to do with Peter? He had said he was running out of time. What did that mean? Running out of time for what?

"Did you find anything," Gina asked as they started back to the stairwell, passing by open doorways, rooms filled with strange machines, equipment that looked ancient, even older than all the junk back in Walter's lab. "Where did the tunnel go?"

"I... it... it just went straight for a while," she stuttered, looking way toward the wall beside her. She trusted Gina, didn't she? Didn't she? Gina was her friend. Her best friend. And yet she found herself unable to tell her about Peter. " And then it was blocked again. I... I couldn't make it any farther."

"So there was nothing?" The disappointment in her was plain. "You telling me we're gonna get in trouble for nothing? Damn! I knew I shoulda never let you talk me into this, Ella."

 _But they're here! And the Doctor has Aunt Liv!_ she wanted to shout at her friend, but didn't. What if Gina told her grandma? What if her grandma told somebody else, who told somebody else, who told Mister Overbeek, like the secret game they had played in school, only getting the end of the line meant you died, or were put in a room full of black spiderwebs and lightning. No. Peter had said to go straight to Mister Broyles, and that was what she was going to do.

Upon reaching the stairwell, they pounded up the steps to the ground floor. The stairs down to the basement were at the end of a long corridor. A corridor that had been dark, before. It wasn't dark now. Yellow light filled the hallway, pulsing down from the rusting fixtures hanging down from the ceiling on thick chains.

"See! I told you!" Gina said, pulling on her sleeve.

Ella followed her out into the corridor and sniffed, wrinkling her nose. There were shouts, no screams to speak of, but there was something different beside lights that had been off now being on. A strange smell filled the air, like the smell of her fireplace back home. "Do you smell that?" she said, meeting her friend's gaze. "I think it's smoke."

Gina's eyes widened. "It is smoke. C'mon!"

They sped down the hall side by side, traversing the maze of corridors back toward the big sitting room where they had left Walter and Mister Broyles. As they passed by an empty room with a window facing the front of the building, she noticed that the sky outside was dark, with not a hint of bluish glow cast by the big searchlight. It had been there when they'd left for the basement.

Ella swerved inside the room and pressed her face to the glass. Outside, the searchlight _was_ off, despite the shadows of men and women still battling the infected all along the fence.

"What's going on out there?" Gina asked from the door way.

Ella didn't reply. Instead, she searched for her mother among the silhouettes, or for anyone she knew, but it was too dark. "They're still fighting at the fence," she said with a frown, glancing back at her friend. Had the searchlight ever turned off before it was over? Before she could ask, a distant shout echoed out of a side corridor, from the direction of the kitchen. She met Gina's gaze. "Who was that?"

"I ain't got no idea. You think they're looking for us?"

She glanced once more out the window. The fighting at the fence was ongoing, but seemed like it might be wrapping up soon. Why was the searchlight off and all the other lights on? She turned away from the window. It didn't matter. Peter had made her promise to tell Mister Broyles tonight, and that was what she was going to do. But first she had to find him.

#

* * *

#

Olivia stiffened again, pressing back into the fabric of her cot.

A rush of footsteps approached in the corridor outside her cell. Accompanying the clatter of booted feet were the excited voices of men talking over one another. Men in panic.

Something _was_ happening.

Not more than five minutes ago, she had heard something. Shouting. A distant voice filled with fury.

The approaching men reached her cell and rushed past without slowing. The instant they were gone, she sprang from her narrow bed and was at the door in two strides. She pressed her face to the barred window, trying to get a view of the men, and how many of them there were, but she saw only a glimpse of them before they vanished around a corner.

Who was out there? She continued to look, but whatever was happening, it was happening far away, in another part of the building, perhaps even another wing or floor. It was impossible to say. She knew next to nothing about where she was or its layout, only that it was far larger than she had thought. Had someone escaped their cell? The shouting had continued for several minutes, and for few moments, she had imagined it was her friends — Peter, Broyles, even Astrid, any of them, coming for her, coming to save her. It was just wishful thinking, of course, but one thing was certain: no one would come knocking on her cell door anytime soon.

Turning away from the door, she eyed the tiny room that was now the extent of her world. After the Doctor's visit they had moved her to a different cell, blindfolded, with a gun to her head, guiding her through what seemed a maze of intersecting corridors. It was an upgrade, as his stooge, the one named Alex had called it with a smile that made her want to tear his face off — the only difference being a narrow cot for a bed instead of a gurney. That, and a chamber pot in the corner. Her clothes had not been returned to her, but at least Jacob Fischer had been true to his word and allowed her to get cleaned up, by way of a bar of soap and a bucket of warm water. Not a shower exactly, but certainly better than nothing. Now that they had begun letting her have food and water, her strength was returning rapidly. And more importantly, they had removed her restraints since she had promised to be a good girl, giving her free reign to move about her cell.

Not that this freedom had done her any good. There was no way out. Not a window. Not a crack in the floor, the walls, or the ceiling. There was nothing. Food and drink were passed through a slot in the door — strictly paper plates and utensils made of plastic, if any at all. Nothing she could use as a weapon, nothing she could use for a tool to work even a single brick free — even if she wasn't underground. Her only chance at escape was when the door opened, when the Doctor came to start his experiments. So far that hadn't happened. She wondered what he was waiting for. Was he fattening her up? She had the uncomfortable feeling that that was exactly what he was doing.

Tucking bangs out of her eyes, Olivia took one more look out between the bars, peering both ways as best she could. The corridor was clear, no guards, no anyone. The cell directly across from her was inside, unoccupied. Whatever had caused the commotion, it must have been contained. The distant shouts had subsided and her prison was once again silent, other than faint whimpers that floated through her window from another cell, somewhere near her own. Would the guy never shut up?

Crossing back over to her cot, she flopped down on her back, fingers interlocked beneath her head on the rough canvas. What time was it? Was is day or night? Her circadian rhythm was disrupted, no it was altogether smashed to bits. How much time had passed since her capture? How many days had it been? Three? Four? More than that? It felt like more, if felt like a month, a year.

Most of her time was spent either keeping herself in shape, or thinking, or both at the same time. She'd done a lot of thinking; about her family, and whether they were still alive, or if she should let them go; and about Peter, about her feelings for him, and the things she wished she'd had the courage to say to him that night beneath the stars. She did love him. He had understood that, hadn't he? She had said so in so many words, hadn't she? Hadn't she? Surely he had understood, had read between her lines. Why had she not just told him? What had held her back? Those questions haunted her. Had she actually thought that not saying the words out loud could ward off disaster? When had she ever subscribed to such bullshit mysticism? _I'm sorry, Peter. I should have just said it. I love you. Was that so hard? I love you._

She covered her face and pressed her lips together, willing her eyes to remain dry. She had done enough crying. There had to be a way out. There had to be a way to escape. Before Jacob Fischer could _improve_ her, whatever that even meant. Before the thing wearing Agent Rodriguez's face returned. Shivering, she crossed her arms over her chest, bunching the thin patient gown over between her hands. He had never shown his face again, but she could still feel the wet track of his tongue on her cheek, his hand gripping her breast. Her face grew hot, flush with unchecked rage. What had it said? That he'd always wanted to see what she _tasted_ like? That he'd seen her on TV? Clearly, he was either insane, or had mistaken her for someone else. _Stop thinking about him like he's a man. He's not a man. He's a thing._ What had the bald man called it?

_A shape-changer._

The light in the corridor flickered, blinking rapidly for several heartbeats. She glanced out the cell door window at the flashing light fixture, and was hit by a minor detail of that night, before the shape-changer's visit. Something else had happened.

The light bulb hanging above her had exploded.

Why had it exploded? And at that precise moment? She'd had other things on her mind at the time, but now, with the clarity of hindsight, it seemed anything but normal. Light bulbs simply didn't explode for no reason — or ever, in her experience. On the heels of that thought, another idea struck, sucking the moisture from her mouth with its implications.

 _What if it was me? What if I did it?_ Could it be one of the abilities Walter had given her was manifesting? And more importantly, if that was the case, what had triggered it?

Letting her eyes fall closed, she slowed her breathing and concentrated. Perception was the key — according to what Walter had told Peter. Perception, and emotions. But what did that mean, exactly? How she felt? How she was feeling at any particular moment? It made no sense. The night of the shape-changer's visit she'd been terrified — beyond terrified, if such a state was even possible — certain that she was to be the next victim tortured. Was it simply fear that activated her abilities? Could it be something so simple? Certainly she had been scared out of her mind when the hybrid creature had killed Charlie, and scared for Peter when the infected had been about to bite into his leg in that stairwell, what seemed like eons ago. But the situations seemed entirely different. And there was the night she and Peter had made love for the first time, the infected's attack in a frozen forest. Had she been afraid then? Or just desperate? _Peter. Oh god._ She saw his face in her mind, the curve of his jaw, his strong hands and gentle touch. Had he been captured as well? Was he being experimented on? Tortured? Was he even alive? Pain pierced her heart, sharp edges cutting deep with every beat. Peter. He'd been all she had left. Her Peter.

"Mommy? Who's that?"

An electric jolt shot through Olivia at the sudden voice. She opened her eyes and found herself staring up at a grid of white ceiling tiles, patterned with lights. A little girl with black hair and no older than Ella was staring and pointing a stubby finger at her from across a small room lit by several table lamps. She sat up, glancing around. Her cell was gone.

She could feel her eyes bulging, and imagined she looked a fright, but it didn't matter. None of it mattered. Somehow it had worked. She was in that other place. That other world. And there was no infection.

What had she done, and how? It was a question to think about later.

Seated beside the little girl on a black leather chair was a woman with streaked blonde hair, perhaps her own age, or possibly even younger, more like Rachel's age. The woman stared down at her with a confused expression. Behind her oval face, a wide painting of an overgrown path leading out of a green forest was mounted on the wall, and on another, a wide and flat television screen displayed a silver fox newscaster reading the news of the day, the picture in picture beside his head showing the panning image of collapsed bridge spanning a large body of water somewhere, cars and trucks in the water, crushed beneath massive chunks of concrete and huge iron girders bent and twisted like pieces of clay. The headline read: _Hundreds Dead in Jefferson Bridge Collapse. Another Freak Accident or Sabotage?_ A ticker scrolled by underneath giving an update on something called _The Blight_ , and how it was advancing far faster than predicted. Centered in the middle of the room was a low coffee table with a screen built right into its surface. The screen was playing a cartoon silently, and it was one she recognized, a movie she had first watched as a child, and then again with Ella. Only it was all wrong. Instead of a cocker spaniel, Lady was a white poodle, and the mutt Tramp was a furry sheepdog. Bemused by the wrongness of it all, she watched the chaotic scene play out. Her body felt strange, disconnected. Almost as if she weren't all the way in it.

"Miss...?" the blonde woman said. She was sitting up straight in her seat, one hand gripping her daughter. She glanced at a reception window across the room where a gray-haired woman was seated, and Olivia noticed what looked like a bluetooth earpiece stuck to her left ear, but was different somehow. The woman raised her hand, as if to touch it. "Can I help you? Are you lost? Should I call someone? A doctor?"

"She just appeared there, Mommy," the little girl said with widening eyes, and in a tone all too similar to one Ella frequented. "I saw her. She was just there, like magic, right there on the floor."

A voice came over an intercom. _Doctor Stevenson, please report to the O.R. Dr. Stevenson to the O.R._

Olivia scrambled to her feet, swaying unsteadily. She was in a hospital. But not like the ancient insane asylum in her world. Peter had said it had been scheduled for demolition before the outbreak. It must have already happened here, or never been here at all. She had to get out, away from her cell, and as far as possible before she went back.

 _Is that even how it works?_ No one had explained the rules of inter-dimensional travel to her, but she had to try anyway.

"Miss, are you okay?" the woman asked gently. Her voice had a strange, tinny echo. "You don't look like you should be up and about."

The gray-haired woman inside the reception window looked up from her desk then, eyes narrowing behind her thick glasses. On her was a tiny ear-piece similar to the woman's. "You. What are you doing out of your room?" The woman tapped the ear-piece with one long finger, tipped with a dark red nail. "Doctor Naffidi? There's a patient out in Waiting that I think is one of yours... No, sir. I don't know how she got out... Yes. She seems addled... Yes. I'll let them know."

Olivia fought off a wave of dizziness, meeting the young mother's gaze. "No... I... I don't belong here," she said, blinking as the room began to waver around her, as if the air itself was vibrating. Her heart pounded, booming like gunshots inside her head. "I... I have to get out of here," she gasped, and the woman threw a protective arm about her daughter, fear blooming in her eyes.

There was a door behind her, with a glowing exit sign above. The waiting room began to flicker as she lunged for it...

... and found herself back in her world, crashing into the brick wall of her cell.

She gasped and threw her arms up at the last moment, before falling back and landing on her rear. She was back. Back in her cell with chill air pressing down around her once more. The stone floor was icy through the fabric of her gown. From outside her cell door, a low whimpering intruded, pathetic and broken-sounding. She struggled to her feet, suddenly drained, exhausted, as if she'd just run a full marathon. Her head swam and she staggered over to her cot, throwing herself down, shivering, hugging herself against the chill.

After a while, the shivers subsided and she turned over on her side, laying her head on her hands, palms pressed together under her cheek. _I did it, Peter_ , she thought, willing him to hear wherever he was. _Or I almost did._

She had failed, but in doing so had learned something vital in the process. She could use that other world to escape. It was possible — if she could only hold herself there long enough to get away from her cell. _Now I just have to figure out what I did, and do it again._ It became hard to keep her eyes open, hard to think, to concentrate. Exhaustion had her in its grip, and was dragging her mercilessly down a dark hole.

 _But I have to keep trying. I have to get out of here..._ she thought distantly, already dreaming of escape as sleep claimed her.

#

* * *

#

The acrid odor of smoke grew stronger as they hurried through the maze of corridors. After a while, Ella's eyes began to sting, like when she had once put her face too close to the fireplace back in her old house.

When they reached the big sitting room where they had left Walter and Mister Broyles standing by the window, the men were gone, and the entrance to the front courtyard stood wide open, letting in gusts of freezing air. Outside, the fighting at the fence had finally ended. The murmur of voices carried in through the open doorway, from where a group of men and women — almost everyone who lived at the Home, Ella noticed — were gathered around the searchlight's wide trailer. The smoke smell was stronger now, and the faint haze she had noticed in the corridor had become a gray cloud up near the ceiling, hanging out just above the wide chandelier.

"Ella!"

Her mother's voice rang out as they approached the door, and Ella found her standing not far away with Astrid and Sonia, alongside Gina's grandma and another woman with blonde hair cut short. She recognized Juliet, one of the women who had been spending a lot of time with her mother and Astrid, playing card games and hanging out in their rooms when they weren't busy. Some of the other adults looked around at her mom's voice, mostly men she didn't know at all.

"Where have you two been?" Mom hissed as she and Gina approached. She took Ella by the arm and led her away from the others, while Gina's grandma did the same. "You two haven't been down in the kitchen, have you?" she said in a low and urgent voice. "Please tell me you were nowhere near it, Ella. Please, for all our sakes."

Ella and Gina exchanged glances. "No, we were downstairs in the basement," she said. "We were playing. We never went near the kitchen. Honest."

"Oh, thank God," Mom said, letting out a long breath and running her fingers back through her long hair.

"Why? What's happening?" Gina wanted to know. "We smelled the smoke when we came back up."

"There's been a fire in the kitchen," Gina's grandma said. She was watching them closely, her dark eyes bunched together as if she thought they might not be telling the truth.

 _But we aren't lying_ , Ella thought, keeping her face still. _At least not mostly. We were down in the basement, just not playing._ She looked around, suddenly noticing who was missing.

"You sure you two were nowhere near that kitchen? Tell me the truth now, girl."

"Gram, we weren't," Gina insisted as her grandmother pulled her away. "We were down in the basement, just like Ella said we was."

"Mom, where's Walter and Mister Broyles?" she asked, searching for them among the crowd. "Why aren't they out here?"

"They're helping out with the fire, I guess." Her mother shrugged, then tossed her hair back like she did when she was in a bad mood. "I haven't seen them since before they turned the light on. They were supposed to be watching you," she added in a mutter. With a sigh, she bent down, and picked Ella up onto her hip. "Come here, munchkin. I'm glad you're okay. But can you try not to give me so many heart attacks?"

Ella nodded, and her mother dropped a kiss on her forehead. Her lips were rough and scratchy, like they were cracked and splitting apart. _Do we even have chapstick here?_ she wondered as she was carried back toward the others. She wrapped her arms around her mom's neck, burying her face in her hair. _Mom, Aunt Liv is here!_ she wanted to shout. _Peter is here! We're all in danger!_ She wanted to tell her. She wanted to whisper it in her mother's ear, but she couldn't not with everyone around. Her mother would say something, she might even scream, or shout. Her mom was like that.

"Hey, Ell," Astrid smiled, looking her way. "You staying out of trouble?"

Lifting her head from her mother's shoulder, she nodded and met Astrid's gaze. _Tell Broyles, or Astrid..._ Peter's voice echoed inside her head. _I have to tell her. He said we should try to get out tonight, if we can. Tonight._ Astrid's smile turned into a frown.

"What's the matter, Ella? You look like you ate a turnip."

"What do you mean?" Mom said, turning to get a look at her. Ella glanced between them. Her lips were trembling, but when she told them to stop they wouldn't. Her mother's grip about her waist tightened. "Ella? What's wrong, honey? Are you feeling all right?"

Before she could say anything, a murmur rose in the crowd. They turned and found a group of men and Astrid's friend Claire emerging from beneath the clock tower, with Mister Overbeek at the front. Among them, she saw the stooped form of Walter. Behind him, Mister Broyles's bald head reflected the light leaking out through the open doorway. The newcomers approached the searchlight trailer, and Mister Overbeek leapt up onto one of its wheels so he could talk.

"What's going on, Kyle?" someone shouted. "We heard there was a fire in the kitchen."

"Is the building on fire?" another voice shouted at the same time.

"What about all the food?"

"How much damage is there?"

Mister Overbeek held up his hands and waited for the crowd to quiet. "There's nothing to worry about," he said. "It was just a... little electrical fire. Bad wiring and a pot of cooking oil sitting too near the short. The fire's out, everything's taken care of. Nothing to worry about. Now as for damage, we're gonna need some new cutlery, some new tables, and probably a new stove, but I'll check that out in the morning. But it's nothing that can't be replaced. The kitchen was part of the hospital's original construction, mostly brick and mortar. There is some damage to the ceiling, but it's not enough to make it unusable. Once it airs out, we should be all clear." He paused for a round of clapping, of hoots and hollers, before continuing. "One more thing. I was out in the city today. After tonight's job at the fence, there aren't too many of the dead in the outlying areas. So tomorrow, we'll go back to our old shifts along the fence. The danger's passed for the time being."

"But what about Martin?" the voice that had asked about the food called out. "Did you find anything yet?"

"We're still looking for the killer," he replied, crossing his arms. "But I think I may have a lead. In any case, I don't think they'll be coming back. When I find something a little more... concrete, I'll let everyone know. In the meantime, everybody watch each other's backs, and just stay safe, okay? Now, it's been a long night, and I'm ready to get some shut-eye. Charlene?" He searched the crowd, until he located Gina's grandma off to one side. "What's on the menu for breakfast? Anything that needs heat?"

Charlene turned to address the crowd. "Well... I was planning on cooking up some grits and venison cube steak cut with some sausage seasoning, but... if we ain't got the stove, looks it'll be cereal or oatmeal... again. I'm sorry, folks, but we'll just have to make do."

"That'll be just fine, Charlene," Overbeek said. "Won't it, everyone? Just fine. Good night, all of you." He jumped down from the trailer and began making his way through the crowd back toward the entrance under the clock tower.

Still perched in her mother's arms, Ella watched him go, watched how he motioned for his men to follow, using two fingers, and how they all did, like they were all soldiers and he was their leader. Did he know Aunt Liv was there? Were they the ones that would hurt her? Had they already hurt her? Already put her in the web of wires and lightning? She wondered how her aunt had been caught, how long ago it had happened. And how had Peter even gotten inside? Where was he now? Had he found Aunt Liv? Could they have escaped? And what was this about a murder? That meant someone had killed someone else. Surely this was the bad thing that they had refused to tell her about. She wondered who Martin was, if it was anyone she'd seen before.

The crowd dispersed except for a few men wielding machine guns returning to their posts at the gate. Tomorrow the bodies of the infected would all be carried to one of the pits and burned, black smoke that smelled like death filling the air. She hoped they were gone before then.

Walter and Mister Broyles approached, each of them limping. As they drew near, black smears and smudges became apparent on their faces. _They look like real fire men_ , Ella thought. _Like on the shows on TV._

"You all okay?" Mister Broyles asked. He let out a low cough, covering his mouth with his sleeve. "I see you found Ella. Good." Ella waited for him to say more, about how she'd told him they wouldn't go far from the big sitting room, but he said nothing more about herself or Gina.

"We're all fine," Sonia spoke up. "We're just glad you and Walter are okay, Phillip. Neither of you should be fighting fires. Not with your injuries. How did the fire start anyway? An electric short? I've never heard of a grease fire starting that way. Sounds like rotten luck."'

"That's because it wasn't any grease fire, my dear," Walter said, looking to either side. "Mister Underbite assumed we are all unlearned, that there was no one among us who understood basic chemical reactions and non-particle physics. You see, without a constant source of heat, a grease fire will typically extinguish itself in short order. Indeed, it is unlikely in the extreme that a mere spark generated by a simple electrical short could possibly bring about the sort of fire Agent Broyles and I were just witness to. Furthermore, I am quite familiar with the odor of grease fire, after having created many in my culinary explorations over the years, and it was not burning grease of which I first thought, but something else, perhaps a solvent of some sort, turpentine, or paint thinner. Perhaps even gasoline."

"So what are you saying, Walter?" Mom said, shifting Ella to her other hip. "That he lied about what started the fire? Why would he do that?"

Walter stroked his chin. "I'm afraid I don't have the faintest idea, Miss Dunham," he admitted with a shrug, and then let out a groaning yawn that stretched his mouth open. "Well. In any case, I'm off to bed. Good night all of you."

"Me too," Sonia said, adding her own yawn. "I'm beat. It'll be nice to be off the night shift for once."

As the others echoed Sonia's comments, Ella found she couldn't hold it any longer. Words came tearing up her throat, forcing her mouth open. "No! Wait! I saw Peter!" she blurted as Walter turned to go. "He's here!" She felt her mother nearly drop her, and she tightened her grip on her neck. For several heartbeats, there was only silence in their circle, as every pair of eyes swiveled toward her in astonishment.

Mister Broyles recovered first. His dark eyes were so wide they seemed to glow in the dim light. "You what?"

"I... I saw him," she repeated. "Peter's here. I talked to him."

"What...?" Her mother's voice was strained, as if she were about to start shouting. "You talked to him? Ella, why are you just now telling us this? What did he say? Is your aunt here, too? Where are they? Are they okay?"

Ella shook her head. "I think they're in trouble," she said softly. Her voice squeaked, and for some reason she thought of a TV show she'd seen once, with a talking mouse whose voice had squeaked also. "He said that we were all in danger here, and that we should leave if we can. He said that the Doctor and his men had Aunt Liv. That she was their prisoner."

Walter gasped. "Prisoner? What about Peter? What about my son?"

"That's enough!" Mister Broyles hissed, shooting glances at the guards standing near the gate who had turned to look at them. "If this is true, it's not safe to talk about it in the open. All of you meet me in my room in half an hour. Go about your business until then. Like nothing is wrong. Don't say a word about it to anyone, not even each other. Try to act normal, if you can." His voice dropped to a whisper. "We don't know who might be listening."

#

"Tell me again what you saw through this window," Walter asked later, after Ella had brushed her teeth like she did every night, and they had gathered again in Mister Broyles's room. He leaned forward on the edge of the bed, face urgent. "Tell me again, precisely, child. Don't leave out a single detail."

"That's enough, Walter," Astrid said from her spot beside the door. "She's already told you twice now. If you haven't gotten it yet, you never will."

They were crowded around her in a half-circle, and from her seat on her mother's lap who was sitting in a folding chair beneath the room's only window, she could see them all at once. Peter had been right. They believed her. She had told them everything, from the scream Gina had told her about, to how she had snuck away while the searchlight was on and seen the nightmare through the window. Telling them got easier as she went, the words rolling off her tongue as she'd described finding the mound of rubble in the basement, and the tiny hole she'd seen a distant light through, how the gap had seemed larger the next time and she'd been able to slip through, only to find another cave-in at the end of a long tunnel, and how she'd heard Peter's voice when she'd been about to turn back. Walter had begun to cry. Now he was staring up at the ceiling, lower lip hanging down, his face tired and old-looking. She watched his fingers rub together, the pads of his thumb and pointer finger making tiny circles. Outside in the hall, someone's footsteps approached growing loud as they neared the door. Ella held her breath, listening, but whoever it was, kept going without stopping at Mister Broyles door.

"What are we going to do?" Sonia said after the footsteps had quieted. She was leaning against the wall to Astrid's right, one hand moving inside her coat as if she had a belly-ache. "You heard Overbeek. Did he sound like he was concerned about an escaped prisoner? If Olivia and Peter are here, we have to help them. We can't just leave."

Mister Broyles nodded slowly, running his fingertips over his bald head. "We'll need weapons. Guns. All of his men are armed to the teeth. Automatic rifles. Sub-machine guns. We won't get far with our bare hands." He paced a few steps, hobbling on his bad foot, before coming to a stop and glancing down at her mother and Walter. "You have to get Ella out of here, Rachel. Walter will have to go with you. You should go with them too, Sonia. Astrid and I are trained for this-"

"Forget it, Phillip," Sonia cut in with the shake of her head. "I'm staying. I owe it to Olivia, for Charlie. She would have done it for him. She would do it for any of us."

Mister Broyles sighed, scratching the fur of black hair growing over his cheek. "Fine. Have it your way. But I don't like it. Killing undead is one thing. A live person that's shooting back at you is something else. You should be aware of that."

"So I'm not exactly thrilled at the idea of leaving my big sister behind," Mom spoke up, shifting beneath Ella. "But how are we supposed to get out of here? They're not going to let us just walk out. Not after what Overbeek told Astrid, and this whole murder thing going on. They'll think we had something do with it. Not that they don't already," she added under her breath.

No one answered. Ella watched their faces, the worried looks that appeared and disappeared. _They don't know what to do_. _They're afraid, just like I am_. After a while, Mister Broyles sat down beside Walter. He shook his head, pinching the top part of his nose.

"As much as I hate to say it," he began, "there's not much we can do for them tonight, not without any kind of preparation."

"Are you suggesting we wait, Agent Broyles?" Walter said then, sitting up straight. "That we leave Olivia and my son in the clutches of these evil men for one second longer than we must? If what I suspect is true, then what this so-called Doctor is doing is... is... simply inhuman. It's barbaric! He must be stopped!"

"And what do you suspect, Doctor Bishop? What do you think they're doing?"

Walter gulped. "Well. I'd rather not speculate, but if you insist, then consider this," he said, and pointed a finger upward at the light overhead. "Since we've arrived here, there are several things which have always been unclear to me. Where is it they get their fresh food, for one. And their water? Their electricity? We have been told they have a generator in one of those out-buildings, but I have never seen, nor have I heard it, or seen fuel being delivered to it. Have you not wondered why the lights glow as they do? Always dimming and brightening, never steady?"

"Er... what are you saying?" Astrid gasped. "You're not implying what I think you're implying, are you? He's using people to make electricity? That's crazy! Is that even possible?"

"Possible? Of course it's possible, my dear! Nearly anything is possible with the right know-how, with enough wherewithal. Long ago, back in the early Seventies, Belly and I once theorized on a method to do something similar — at the request of a certain branch inside the Department of Defense — but the effect on the human brain would have been so degenerative, the loss of neurological function so cumulative, that ultimately death would have been the inevitable outcome for anyone subject to such a procedure. Which I suppose, was why they had us abandon our efforts, though rather grudgingly, if I recall. There was one general, he insisted that we continue, even going so far as to offer us his poodle as a test subject. As if we would have dared! Think of it! What a strange man. His best friend!"

The room fell quiet. Ella found it hard to breathe, as if the air was turning into glass. That was what was going to happen to Aunt Liv? She was going to die? Her mother shuddered beneath her, the arms about her waist tightening. She was afraid, too. They all were living in the same nightmare that she was.

"This tunnel you found, Ella," Mister Broyles said finally. "How big is it? Could one of us fit through the opening?"

Ella shook her head. "It's small," she said, and held her hands apart to show them. "I could barely fit through it, and Gina couldn't fit at all, and she's only a little bigger than me."

Suddenly, the overhead light flickered, and then turned off, leaving them in darkness except for a hazy rectangle where starlight shone in through the window. She looked up, trying to see the others in the dark. It was lights out. Time for bed at the Home.

"Shit...," a voice that sounded like Sonia's muttered.

"Look, people," Mister Broyles said in a quiet voice. His face was blurry in the darkness, little more than a shadow. "We need those weapons if we're to have any chance of helping Olivia and Peter. I know they keep them locked in a room somewhere in the east wing. Tomorrow morning, while everyone else is eating breakfast, Astrid and I will retrieve them. Walter, you'll have to cover for me in the kitchen, and while we're doing that, Sonia, you and Rachel see if you can clear a way through this tunnel. Ella, will you show them where it is?"

To Ella's surprise, her mother said nothing, not a word about her being too young or it being too dangerous. She nodded, and then remembered that it was dark, and he probably couldn't see her. "I'll do it, Mister Broyles," she told him. "But then what?"

Mister Broyles voice was hard like a stone. "And then? And then we'll rescue her."

#

* * *

#

Peter woke to an intense headache, splitting his skull apart at the seams, as if he and a bottle of Jack had been on an all night bender. The pain throbbed down his spine in waves, in sync with the festering wound on his left side.

Letting out a dry rasp of a groan, he lifted his chin.

The room in which he found himself was lit by yellow light filtering in through a tiny window off to his right. The light cast a blurry rectangle on the floor, a floor made of concrete speckled with bits of rust-colored gravel. The concrete was brown with age and of a rough sort, its finished surface uneven with a plethora of hills and valleys. As his eyes adjusted, the darkness resolved into walls of the same sort of concrete, into a space little more than three or four paces in any direction. The light was not a window to the outside, but to a corridor, through which he saw an arched ceiling pitted with cracks and lined with rows of rusting pipe and conduit. The air smelled of mold and what might have been sweat, despite a deep chill in the air. He had been in enough such rooms over the course of his adult life that recognition of his surroundings came to him as an instinct, without thought.

Undoubtedly, he was in a cell.

He went to move but found his arms numb and lifeless, dead weights, and his legs also — which were extended out in front of him — from his rear end down to his toes. Panic surged through him for several heartbeats, but then feeling began to return in the form of pins and needles pricking along the surface of his skin. He kicked his feet feebly, scraping the heels of his boots across the floor. As feeling returned, it became apparent that the dead-feeling in his arms and legs was more than just having sat still in an awkward position for too long. His arms were bound in place behind him, bound to what felt like a cast-iron pipe. His ankles were bound also, wrapped with what looked like a rope or cord of some sort, though it was difficult to see clearly in the dimness.

His plan to rescue Olivia had obviously failed — and in spectacular fashion.

"Perfect," he muttered, shifting his weight. "Just fucking great."

The movement caused the wound in his side to ignite, burning with a bonfire's intensity, though it felt different than he remembered. The pain was different. Sharper somehow. And something thick was taped to his chest, pressing out from inside his shirt. He managed to bend his elbow enough to feel a soft lump that felt like a bandage.

 _They fixed me up?_ He felt a dull shock at the realization. If they had bothered replacing his bandages, then they weren't likely to kill him any time soon. Though, he thought a moment later, given the nightmare he'd seen on his way in, it wasn't exactly a reassuring feeling. How much time had passed? Hours? Surely not a day. He was hungry, and more than a little thirsty, but nowhere near the point of starving. Yet.

Peter pulled on his restraints and felt them give a little. Enough that he was able to bend his wrists and feel what he was dealing with. His fingertips found strands of thin wire, or cable, probably number-twelve, from the smallness of them. It seemed an odd means of binding a prisoner, and he suspected it had been done more to keep him upright than anything else. The knobless door, which he could see more clearly as his eyes adjusted, looked as if it had been made to withstand a nuclear blast, and was the real means of securement. Given enough time, he was fairly certain he could free himself of the wire — not that it would do him any good. The room was an actual cell. And short of dynamite or a brick of plastique, the only way out was through that door.

He strained to pick out any noises in the silence, but there were no sounds outside his cell, no faint voices, no screams or shouts or anything at all that might indicate he wasn't alone.

"Hey!" he shouted at the top of his lungs. "I could use a little water in here! Hey!" His voiced seemed deafening in the tiny confines, though something told him that it had not carried far. His side ached, but he kept at it, until his voice grew hoarse, this throat raw.

Catching his breath, he waited for a response — footsteps, the opening of a door, an answering shout telling him to shut the fuck up — but there was nothing. There was no one.

Or was there. He cocked his head. There _was_ something. A voice, barely audible, like a gnat buzzing in his ear. Only it was a person. They were speaking. To him.

"Who's there...?" he said. Wetting his lip, he glanced. He was alone, but why did the voice sound like it was right beside him, inside his cell with him. Maybe he was dreaming, or he'd gone mad, hearing voices inside his head. Though he didn't feel mad, yet how would he know what being mad felt like? "Whoever you are, I can't hear a thing you're saying. You're gonna have to speak up."

 _"I said shut the hell up!"_ the voice hissed. _"You're gonna get yourself killed!"_

Peter looked sharply to his left. It had come from there, just over his left shoulder. But there was nothing, only the wall and the drain pipe sinking into the floor. Was it the pipe? Maybe coming down from above? He tried to look but couldn't twist far enough, not with his hands bound behind his back.

Leaning forward, he strained against the wires binding his hands to the pipe. There was a creak and he pulled harder, until his shoulders ached, until the old bullet wound began to burn. After a moment, he relaxed, breathing hard as a headache progressed into sharp stabs gouging into his temple. He blinked through the pain, until it finally relented, and then felt along the mess of wire once more, searching for where the ends came together. _Figure eight with the ends twisted together_ , he thought with a savage grin. _Twisted. Not tied._ Which, of course, was the precise problem with tying someone up with metal wire; no knot could ever be tight enough, and twists would inevitably give way to enough pressure.

He leaned forward again, scooting away from the pipe, and then began to pull. Straining, he breathed through clenched teeth. Rings of fire burned into his wrists as the wire dug in, resisting his efforts. His side ached, stinging with pain. He pulled harder, summoning all of his strength. And then suddenly he was free, and flopping forward onto his side, grunting as his left shoulder gouged into the concrete.

Peter lay still for a moment, panting, then picked himself. "Well, that was fun," he muttered, flexing his wrists, moving them all around for a moment.

He held his arms up to the light, revealing a ring of deep creases below his hand. The red bands of irritation hurt, but the pain was minor, almost negligible compared to all the other aches and pains he was contending with. He quickly untied his ankles, then crawled back to the cast-iron pipe, which turned out to be as big around as his arm. The black pipe ran down the wall from above and disappeared into the floor. Surrounding it was a ring of concrete that looked as if it had been chipped at some point in the distant past, though the damage done was mostly ineffectual, at best.

"Hey," he whispered, peering about. "You still there?" There was no reply and he tried again, a little louder than before.

" _What do you want?_ " the faint voice replied after a moment.

Frowning, he leaned in close to the pipe. Were they above him, below? "Where the hell are you?" he said, squinting at the pipe. "I can't see shit in here."

" _Down low. There's a crack in the concrete. About waist high, at least it is on my side._ "

He examined the wall beside the pipe and found a narrow crack, running diagonally through the concrete. The crack felt about as wide as a knife blade. Following it with his finger, he came to a spot that felt smoother than the rest, wider, as if it had been gouged out at some point by some industrious inmate. Probably the same one that had been working at the pipe, he guessed. At the smooth spot's center was a hole, no bigger than a pencil, with a vague light shining through from the other side. Then something moved in front of the light, blocking it from view.

"Is that you?" he whispered.

" _Yeah. That's me. You know, you're smarter than you sound._ "

The voice was clearer now, merely a person talking from the far side of a large room. And it was a man, and possibly young sounding, though it was difficult to be sure. And he was a smart ass, which Peter could appreciate. "What did you mean about me getting myself killed?"

" _You think you're the first person I've talked to...?_ " The man on the other side of the wall laughed harshly. " _They had some other dude in here yesterday. He didn't know where he was, either. Or how he got here. Kept going on about how it was some kind of misunderstanding. When I told him to shut up, he didn't listen. And then they came for him. And he ain't coming back. They never come back. Sometimes they scream though..._ " The voice trailed off, and Peter heard a low thud through the wall.

"Hey uh, buddy, how long you been in here, anyway?" he asked.

" _How the hell should I know?_ " the man replied after an interval. " _Weeks? Months? It was a week or two before Christmas when I woke up here. What day is it now? What month?_ "

Peter winced. The guy had been locked in the cell beside him for at least three months. "First week of March, I think," he answered truthfully. "I lost track a while back, but I'm pretty sure it's close to that."

" _March...?_ " The man on the side growled, and then began to curse, screaming at the top of his voice — despite his earlier admission that it was a bad idea. " _Fucking March! As in the month after February? Fuck. FUCK!_ " There was a series of dull fleshy sounding thuds, and Peter pulled away from the wall with a frown as the outburst continued. " _You fucking assholes! Let me the fuck out of here! This is a fucking mistake! I don't even belong here! This isn't my fucking problem!_ " The man's tirade went on and on, until finally he relented, following a metallic crash that sounded as if he'd thrown something metal at the door.

He glanced about his tiny cell. It was utterly empty, with not even a bucket or a floor drain to relieve himself in. What sort of amenities were the long term guests provided? He didn't have the urge to piss, yet, but he would have to eventually, or worse. Was the man telling the truth? Why would they have kept him locked up for months? And what the hell had he been going on about? They'd obviously been feeding him, or he'd have been dead months ago. So what made him so special? Maybe the guy had lost his mind. Being stuck in a box with no end in sight could break even the strongest of men. He had seen it happen.

"Hey. You got a name, pal?" he said into the crack. The man had been silent for a while, and presumably, the low thuds he'd heard had not been the fellow bashing his own skull in.

For a time there was no answer, and he thought the man was done with him, either that or he'd knocked himself unconscious, but then the voice returned through the wall, morose and filled with dejection. " _Lincoln Lee,_ " he said. " _From New Jersey. What about you? You from around here? Wherever here is..._ "

Peter hesitated, peering into the crack. He didn't know anyone from New Jersey, not anyone that giving his name to would matter, at least. "Name's Peter. Peter Bishop. From Boston." He waited for the man to reply, but instead he heard a sound through the wall that sent icy shivers down his spine. _What the fuck?_ For a second he thought the man in the next cell was having some kind of fit, but then he realized it was laughter he was hearing, laughter walking the fine line of descending into hysterics. It went on for some time, then faded into gleeful giggles and that sounded more insane than anything that had come before. "You uh... you okay in there, buddy?" he asked. "You know, that's not the response I normally get after introducing myself."

" _I'm sorry_ ," the man named Lincoln replied, his voice still tinged with humor. " _I shouldn't have laughed. But it's just so goddamned funny. You know, where I'm from, the Peter Bishop is famous. In fact, I'd say he's world renowned_."

World renowned? Was there some Peter Bishop running around he didn't know about? If there had been someone that famous with his name, surely he would have known about it before now, wouldn't he? "So I'm famous now, huh? And why is that?" he asked, pulling back from the wall slightly.

" _You wouldn't believe me if I told you. Not in a million years_."

"Oh yeah? Try me. I once saw a newborn baby who had aged into an old man inside an hour. And there are dead people walking around outside, and from what I can tell, ninety-nine-point-nine percent of the world's population is one of them. I'm ready to believe just about anything at this point, aren't you?"

Lincoln Lee began to laugh again, but refused to say anything more on the subject. In between giggles, Peter picked up low mutters, something about someone being the same here, too. For the second time, it occurred to him that the man in the next cell might not be entirely sane. There was certainly something odd about him, not to mention the bizarre and unnerving turn the conversation had taken.

"How'd they capture you anyway?" he asked when it seemed the man was finished.

" _Wrong place, wrong time. I was on the road between Boston and New York, and I got... disoriented. Forgot I was somewhere else. I remember searching a car on the side of the road for food, and then... nothing. I woke up in this cell_."

Peter shook his head. Forgot he was somewhere else? _What the hell does that even mean?_ "And that was before Christmas?" he said.

" _Yep. Nothing like spending your holidays with mad scientists and their stooges for company. I guess they're the same everywhere_."

He thought of their own Christmas back at the lab, of bowling in the hallway, of Walter's chili, of slow dancing with Olivia, the feel of her in his arms. Pain coursed through his chest, knotting up his airway. Was she alive? Had they turned her into one of those things? A human battery? _Fuck... Olivia. I'm so sorry._

"So you know what they're doing here?" he asked when the pain subsided enough to speak. "What they're doing to people?"

" _Not exactly, but whatever it is, it didn't work on me. That's why I'm stuck here, and why they haven't killed me yet. He wanted to keep me alive for study. But I think he forgot I even existed._ " The man sounded bitter, and Peter found he couldn't blame him. " _What about you, Peter Bishop? How'd you end up in the luxury suites?_ "

Peter squeezed his eyes shut, taking deliberate breaths. "They... took... someone from me," he said, swallowing down the hard lump in his throat. "A woman. She was... well... I had to save her. I had to try. But I failed. I had the Doctor in my sights, but I didn't take the shot." It was a mistake he wouldn't make again, if he ever had the chance. "What about you? You got anybody back home? Back where you came from? Anybody that's missing you?"

The man on the other side of the wall was quiet for a moment, before answering in a subdued voice that was so quiet Peter had to press his ear to the crack to hear him. " _There was, is, someone. Not really sure now. She was... we were friends, but, I... it never worked out. I waited, but she always had other..._ " The voice faded out for a moment. " _It doesn't matter. I'm stuck here. Wherever here is."_

"So you don't know where you are, then?" Peter said.

" _You do?_ " For some reason the man sounded excited by the prospect. " _Nobody ever knows where we are, what this place is. They all just wake up here._ "

" _Yeah. I know exactly where we are_ ," he said with a nod the other man couldn't see. " _We're in some kind sub-basement of an old insane asylum in Worcester._ "

" _An insane asylum...? Of course it is._ "

Lincoln Lee began to laugh again, cackling as if he'd just heard the funniest thing in the world. Peter pulled away from the crack, frowning as the laughing continued, progressing from mad giggling into something else entirely, something that turned his blood cold.

The man on the other side of the wall was weeping.

#

* * *

#

Olivia opened her eyes.

The ceiling above her was a dull gray, with veins of black mold creeping out of one corner. Deep beneath her temples, a dull ache resonated. It was the wrong ceiling, not the grid of sterile white ceiling tiles she'd been hoping to see. Reaching up, she massaged the spaces in front of her ears, pressing gently and moving her fingertips in slow circles.

_Fuck._

It wasn't working. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't repeat what she had done before. She couldn't make herself go back to the hospital waiting room where a little girl with black hair had seen her appear out of thin air.

She couldn't escape.

The intense bout of exhaustion she'd experienced upon her return from the other world had more or less knocked her unconscious. Judging from the emptiness in her stomach, she figured she had slept for a few hours, at least, though it might be more. It was hard to say. Was it even the same day? Upon waking, there had been a cup of tepid water and a tray of food sitting in the middle of the floor. Someone had come and gone, and she'd never even heard a thing. The thought of someone in her cell, standing over her while she'd been sleeping was slightly terrifying, but she was no worse for wear. The food had been cold — a plate of lumpy mashed potatoes and a chewy, salted strip of meat, possibly venison; it'd had that gamey sort of flavor. But it had been delicious, even if she'd been forced to eat it all with her fingers.

Her eyes drifted to the rusty metal bucket sitting in the corner. It had been a new addition also. She'd had yet to use it, but inevitably nature would win this particular tug of war. Urinating or pooping in a rusty bucket wasn't something she was looking forward to — no matter that she'd done it for months back at the lab — but there were worse things in life, like becoming a mad scientist's lab rat. Compared to that, crapping in a bucket was the least of her worries.

She exhaled a slow breath, putting her previous failures behind her. All she needed was to succeed once. Her eyes closed, shutting the cell and her world away. All she could do was try and try, again and again. There was no other option. Not for her. Jacob Fischer had made that fact all too clear. Whatever this _improvement_ he was planning for her was, she wanted no part of it. She wanted no part of him except his cold corpse, splayed out before her.

The darkness behind her eyelids was full of muted colors, striating spirals of reds and purples behind a grid of vibrating black dots. The steady thump of her heart was the backdrop, just like the static rush of blood in her ears. What had she done before? She'd been thinking about her family, about Rachel and Ella. About Peter, and wondering whether or not he was alive. Praying they were alive, and somewhere safe. And then it had just happened. What was the key? She concentrated, trying to put herself back in that dark place, to let herself feel it all again, the fear, the terror of loss. Of suffering. Of aloneness. To let it consume her as it had before.

A numbness began to fall over her, as if she were floating in vacuum. The constant chill of her cell, the thin fabric of her gown were somewhere else, far away. Sensations from another world. Distantly, the thumping heartbeat quickened. Something was happening, and something was more than nothing. She focused her mind down to a fine point, sharper than any needle. She was alone. Alone in all the world. Her family was gone, they were dead, they were turned. They were monsters, her lover with them. They we all gone. Far away from her conscious mind, tears made wet tracks down her cheeks.

She imagined that other world, overlapping her own, overlapping her cell. A hospital waiting room. A row of chairs, an oddly futuristic coffee table with a screen built right in, another TV overhead, blaring the news. Tan walls. White tiled floor. A clouded reception window, the sliding type. She saw it all again, with perfectly recorded clarity. Now she turned the view sideways, as seen from the floor looking up. The white ceiling tiles, the rectangles of light beaming down with a cool, clinical tint. A sterile tint. A hospital. Her body was gone. Her self was pure mind drifting through space. Yet she could still feel. There was something. A kind of pressure? An edge? A barrier? In front of her? Inside her? Or both? It was right there, and it was nowhere. It was a contradiction.

She reached out, was she merely thinking about reaching out? Was there even a difference? What was she reaching for if she had no hands? No body? Somewhere outside herself, a distant sound penetrated the absoluteness. She focused on the pressure. On the thing, the feeling that may or may not be a barrier, may or may not be anything at all. _It_ was all around her. _It_ was moving through her, passing through her entity as sand passed through a strainer, passing through spaces between the gaps between the particles of her naked mind.

Then all of a sudden the pressure was receding. She was being drawing back. _NO! Please!_ She lashed out with her mind, her will, grasping. From a distance that seemed like light-years away, the thing that was her body felt a sharp prick. An instant later everything came rushing back; the cool cell, the thin pad of her mattress over the metal support frames of her cot; her body, the deep pain inside her head, in her chest, where she may or may not have a broken rib. She was back. _No... It was working. I was almost there._

"You were almost where?"

Olivia jerked at the voice. She opened her eyes and found Jacob Fischer gazing down at her, eyebrows raised in interest. In his right hand was a syringe. She felt a sting on the meaty part of her bicep, saw that the syringe was empty, its plunger fully depressed. Beside him was a rickety wheelchair and two of his men, the short and stout Asian, Alex, and another man who seemed familiar but she couldn't quite place. He was bald, with bulging forearms exposed beneath the rolled-up sleeves of a drab army jacket. On the bald man's right arm was a dark tattoo, a knife driven downward through a sku ll. Of the three men, the agent inside her pegged him as the dangerous one at once.

"What's happening?" she said, unable to stop her eyes from flickering to the syringe. "What are you doing? What was in that needle?"

"Just a little something to help you relax, my dear," the Doctor said pleasantly, placing a cap on the syringe's needle and then placing it in the breast pocket of his gray lab coat. "You see, today is the day. The time has come for the first of your procedures, and it's best if you don't struggle. There will be less pain that way. You don't want to be in pain, do you? The drug should take effect in just a moment, and then we'll be on our way."

Fear rose up Olivia's throat, crowding the inside of her head. _Oh god... he drugged me. He drugged me..._ Her eyes flashed about her cell, seeking a way out. There wasn't one. Then she noticed that none of them were armed. Behind the trio, the open door to her cell beckoned with a kind of glowing radiance. It was the moment she'd been waiting for.

The Doctor continued, taking a step closer with the henchmen beside him. "There's nothing to fe-"

Olivia lashed out with her foot, kicking the bald army man in his crotch with all her strength. He buckled at once with a wordless groan, eyes bulging out of his head. As the big man toppled to one side, she sprang off her cot, kicking him in the face as he fell, and then lunged at the man Alex — whose mouth was still dropping open as if time were running at a different speed for him and him alone. She smashed her fist into his nose, and the little man recoiled, hands flying to his face as blood spurted between steepled fingers. An instant later a hand grabbed the back of her gown, yanking her back. She spun around, crashing the back of her fist across Jacob Fischer's mouth. The Doctor cried out, keeping hold of her gown and tearing it free of her shoulders as he fell back on her cot.

Naked now, she staggered out of her cell, out into a brightly lit corridor. Cell doors similar to her own lined walls made of peeling concrete. She hesitated for an instant. Which way to go? Either direction seemed much the same. Suddenly struck by a wave of dizziness, she turned to her right and on her next step, the corridor floor tilted to one side beneath her, and then rolled back to the other, as if she were on an amusement park ride. She stumbled into the nearest wall and all at once her strength vanished, dissipating like smoke. Her knees buckled first, and then her arms went as she pulled herself forward, scraping her skin across the rough concrete. She lay still, panting, staring at a crack where the wall met the floor just to her right.

Heavy footsteps approached, echoing hollowly. Olivia tried again to pull herself up but her arms were missing, all sensation gone. The paralysis spread further, traveling down her thighs. _No... help me... Peter..._

 _"You fucking bitch!"_ a male voice roared.

Unable to move at all now, she sensed someone beside her. Her head and neck were wrenched upward and back, spreading bands of pain across her scalp and down her spine. The fingers gripping her tightened, her head to one side. For a thudding heartbeat, a pair of furious gray eyes stared into her own, and then the eyes vanished and all she could see was the concrete zooming up at her.

There was a white flash of pain, and then nothing.

#

When Olivia woke next, her head was a throbbing mass of pain, each peal a spike of agony driven straight into her forehead. She was flat on her back, lying on a flat, rigid surface. Blinding light shone in her eyes, white light burning with the intensity of the naked sun. The light was attached to an arm of white metal elbowing down from the ceiling.

The pulsing light burned in her vision. She turned away, only to find she couldn't turn away — she couldn't move at all, not a single pinkie, not a toe. Her body below her neck was missing, vanished entirely from her senses.

 _Oh god... I'm paralyzed_. Her lips refused to open, and the panicked gasped that burst from her lungs sounded like a dying horse. _I'm paralyzed!_

"I can only imagine how alarmed you must be at this moment," a calm voice said off to her right, "how frightening this all must seem to you. But the paralysis is temporary, I assure you, merely the result of the neuromuscular blocking agent. You must lie still during the procedure — utterly still — and yet remain conscious."

Olivia rolled her eyes toward the voice — her eyes, at least, could still move — and found Jacob Fischer standing not far away beside a stray of medical tools all laid out in perfectly ordered rows. Scalpels and saws, forceps, syringes and medical vials, and some sort of headgear that looked as if it belonged in a sex room. She sent her gaze back to Jacob Fischer. His nose was swollen, the bridge a mass of dark bruises that provided her no small amount of satisfaction. He bent over several small objects that looked like pointed bits of some silvery metal. She couldn't imagine what they might be for, but something told her she was going to find out shortly.

She tried not to fall into panic, but if there was ever a time when panic was called for, this was surely it. What was he going to do to her? Something that involved scalpels, and bone saws. Her voice would be the next one shrieking through the corridors. Was this what she'd been hearing all along? All the voices, all the screaming? Not torture, exactly, but some kind of horrific maiming at the hands of this monster?

The Doctor picked up a syringe and a vial full of a yellowish liquid. "The men and women, and even several children, now, all living here at the Home — which is what they call this place — they all refer to me as 'The Doctor'." He smiled faintly, as if he found the idea quaint, or somehow amusing. "But in fact, I have never practiced medicine. No, I'm merely a scientist researching biotechnology and the growth of human evolution."

He pressed the needle into the vial's stopper and pulled back the plunger, drawing out a copious amount of the amber liquid. He held it up to the light, tapping on the side of the barrel, before withdrawing the needle and setting the vial aside. Then he moved toward her, his face as emotional as a stone. _Stop. Please stop. I'm begging you!_ She tried to scream, to shout, but all that came out was a few pathetic gurgles. Her eyes remained glued to the syringe as it came closer, and then to Jacob Fischer's monotone face. She begged him, pleading with her eyes, as they were all she had left to her. Inside the confines of her head, her heart quickened with the booming thuds of a heavy artillery bombardment.

But if he noticed her anxiousness, her growing terror, he gave no sign of it. Jacob Fischer merely went about his business, swabbing her arm with an alcohol pad as if everything that was happening at that moment was the most normal thing in the world. And she realized that for him, it was. He had done this before, countless times before, enough for it all to become routine.

When he sank the needle into her arm, Olivia felt nothing. Or when he pushed the plunger until it bottomed out. But no sooner than he withdrew the syringe, her body began to tingle, like it was lighting up on the inside. The sensation started in her left arm, a kind of inner warmth that moved rapidly up into her shoulder, then shot up the veins in her neck. When the warmth reached the space behind her eyes there was an explosion of feeling, of sensations, both pain and pleasure that bordered on orgasmic, stretching her eyes and mind wide open.

And then the room, and the world with it, cracked into pieces like a shattering mirror.

Far away, Olivia heard a bubbly gurgling sound, but it was unimportant. It was all unimportant. There was only the warmth, and a rising bliss stretching out each infinitesimal moment with a kind of rubber elasticity. The explosion in her mind continued, a raging crescendo dragging her upward into a maelstrom of conflicting sounds and color. Above her, the circle of blinding light began to shriek, letting out waves of piercing notes and a kind of harsh static, not unlike a saw blade being dragged across a block of metal. Prismatic patterns and colors bled into her vision, inverting the walls, the room, saturating the very air, into blacks and purples and blues, and then alternating flickers of reds and greens.

" _...efore the outbreak of the sickness_ ," an echoey voice was droning on from a million miles away, yet somehow still audible over the vast distance. The voice faded in and out, and possessed a strange quality, as if it were gently caressing her on the inside. " _...was on the verge of a breakthrough, a giant leap upward on the ladder of human development... research would have changed the world, and in ways no one could have... and now, with humanity on the brink of extinction? It is more important than ever before. ...however, sacrifices must be... willing research participants... difficult to come by._ " The voice grew distant, then stopped altogether.

Mirages of colors and sensation and sound blended together into light, into white. The white was all, encompassing all of her existence. Then, when it seemed the tiny seed of her remaining sanity would become unglued, swept away by the furor, the exquisite amalgamation of pain and pleasure began to pull back, receding like the withdrawing tide, or like swimming toward the surface from the bottom of the ocean, the water dark and murky, then slowly becoming clearer and clearer, turning blue like the sky above. A stray thought passed through the tattered remnants of her conscious mind. _Yes. I know this._ Her sense of self began to take shape. She could think again, could reason again, with one thought preceding the one that came before it, and then on to next in a cognizant stream. It came to her that she'd experienced a similar sort of awakening before.

The white was all around her. Inside it shadowed images appeared, shapes that seemed familiar. Faint outlines that looked at first like paper cut-outs, but then slowly took on form. The images grew sharper, more defined, until she could see their textures, differing shades of gray. An old bike with a curved banana seat, frayed tassels, wheels spinning; a crooked tree with a tire swing spiraling in a gust of wind; an old headboard scarred with gouges shaped into letters, banging into a plastered wall; a long kayak skimming past, floating on air. _I know this_ , the thought came again as the images took on color, definition.

She opened her eyes and found herself in another place.

In front of her was a long, low building with a brick exterior. Orange garage doors of corrugated metal spread out to either side, door after door running the full length of the building. Turning around, she found a matching structure behind her, and another running perpendicular at the end of a long drive. The asphalt drive was covered in slush, in melting snow, with miniature mountains left behind by a snow plow. Gray and featureless clouds blanketed the sky, and a frigid wind rushed through the channel between buildings, blowing her hair forward into her eyes, piercing the thin layers of her suit. Then the wind died down, leaving a lasting silence as it departed.

Olivia looked down at herself. She inspected her jacket, her dark gray pants and black boots, freshly polished. All of a sudden, a lump rose up her throat. She felt the fabric of her sleeve, running her fingertips over the threading. _My suit_. Desperately, she wished for a mirror, that she could see herself. A smile broke across her lips, and the cold wind stung at her eyes. How could the mere sight of her work suit make her feel so happy and sad at the same time?

 _It's this place_ , she thought, turning in a circle. _There's something about it_. Tucking her bangs behind her ears, she peered about. "Hello?" she called out, then listened to her voice's echo.

Out of nowhere, footsteps rushed past behind her.

She spun around, but there was no one. The drive was empty. "Hello...?" As she glanced about, another flurry of footsteps sounded again, again directly behind her, and again there was no one. Not a soul, not a sound in the world.

 _This has all happened before_ , she realized. Suddenly she knew where she was, what this place was. _This is a dream. A memory_.

"Hey, Liv. You're back."

Spinning about at sudden voice, she found a garage door rattling open, John Scott standing beside her in his black trench coat, hair messily spiked, snagging errant snowflakes out of the air.

Olivia gasped. "John...?" For a heartbeat she couldn't breathe. Her body was rigid, frozen in shock. "But... what... But you're dead! I saw you die! You died..." The last came out as a hoarse whisper. Something was wrong. None of this could be happening. He was dead. He had died in her arms. And then he had turned. She took a step back, away from her former partner. Her former lover.

John's pale eyes narrowed. "I don't know what you mean, Liv," he said with a frown. "I'm right here." He shined a flashlight into the garage, where shelves packed with equipment and tables of bubbling glassware that more than rivaled Walter's set at the lab in Cambridge were crammed inside, fracturing the overhead light. "I think this is the place we're looking for. You call it in already? Stieg might still be here."

"Yeah, I..." she trailed off, staring down at the cell phone in her right hand. "I... did," she murmured, shaking her head. No. It hadn't happened that way. After they had separated, she had never spoken to him again before the explosion. "John. This already happened."

"What do you mean this already happened?"

"Richard Stieg is dead. This all already happened. It's not real."

Something seemed to spark in John's eyes. "Stieg's dead? What did you mean this already happened?"

Olivia shook her head again, raking her fingers through her hair. It was all familiar, all of it, from seeing John, his confusion, down to the emptiness of the world, and the strange visions she'd experienced upon her arrival. Suddenly it hit her; the truth of what was happening. It was the same as Walter's tank, when she'd made contact with a dying and comatose Johns Scott. Only it wasn't. She wasn't in the tank. And she wasn't connected to him. He was dead.

"This... isn't real," she said turning away from the open garage door. "I'm in some kind of lucid... or, or waking dream. Or a hallucination. It must be something Jacob Fischer drugged me with."

"Jacob Fischer?" John said, giving her a sharp look. "Doctor Jacob Fisher?"

"Yeah," she replied with a nod, and then started. "What? John, do you know him?"

John's mouth worked silently for a moment. "What did you mean this wasn't real, Liv? What did that mean?"

There was something desperate in his voice, something that pulled at her heart strings. "John... you died, months ago. You got bit by an infected and died. You aren't here, and I'm not here. This isn't happening. We're inside my... inside my... head." She sucked in a breath, pressing a palm to her forehead.

They were in her head. He was in her head.

What had Walter called it? Synaptic transfer? Sharing of information, of thoughts? Of minds? What if the exchange had gone both ways? What if their connection had gone both ways? She had gone into his memories to find the face she was looking for. But what if at the same time, a part of him had crossed over into her? His memories, his thoughts. His consciousness? What if he had never left? _This is insane. This can't be right. It's impossible. He can't be in my head, like some kind of... parasite_.

She met John's gaze. He appeared almost childlike, overcome with confusion. "What do you know about Jacob Fischer?"

"I know he's wanted for murder, for illegal human experimentation. I know he's dangerous, Liv."

"How can you know that?" she whispered. "You're dead. You were dead before I ever knew of him."

"You keep saying that," John said softly. His eyes were pleading. "Is it true?" He looked around, shaking his head. "This place, this storage facility. Is there a world outside of it? How do I get out of here, Liv? I feel like I've been here forever. Outside, there's only darkness."

She pushed her hair back, thoughts racing. It was as if there were some part of him still inside her mind, trapped there. His memories? His consciousness? But how could she have seen him? He'd been out in the world, not in her head. Could it cause hallucinations? Walter had not mentioned such side effects, but knowing him, would he have? Peter would have never allowed her to go through with the procedure if he had. It had to be true.

Somehow, John had known of Jacob Fischer, of his criminal record, and that same information had appeared magically in her memories, as if it were her own. Only it wasn't magic at all.

She knew, because he knew.

But how could he? How could he have known of Fischer? None of their cases together prior to Flight 627 had anything to do with him. She had never seen or heard of him, but John had. Another thought struck then, with dire implications. If it was true, and there was a remnant of John Scott's consciousness in her head, then he'd been lying to her all along.

She turned to him. "How did you know Richard Stieg?"

"What?"

"How did you know him?" she said again, watching his face, watching for his tells. "We didn't know who he was when we were here. Yet you said his name. Like you knew him. How did you know him?"

John blinked. "You said his name," he shrugged. "You said he was dead. That's how I knew."

Olivia stepped away from him, shaking her head. "No. No. You said his name before that. You said Stieg might still be here. Except we didn't know who we were looking for when we got here, John. Stieg was murdered in his hospital bed. The same hospital you were recovering in. The same floor, even. You knew him, you knew who he was before we even saw him. And he must have known you. That's why he set off the explosion! He was trying to kill you! Did you kill him? Did you kill Rodriguez, too? Did you have something to do with Flight 627? Were you a part of it? Were you the mole?"

John's eye widened only slightly under her barrage, but it was enough. Enough for her to recognize the truth lurking in the depths of his gaze. The truth. He was the killer. He was the mole Stieg had told her about. She backed away, suddenly overcome with the urge to vomit. _Oh god. How could I have been so blind?_

"I haven't killed anybody, Liv," he said, holding his hands up. "I can prove it."

"You can't prove anything, John," she growled. "Didn't you hear me? You're dead. But you are right, though. You didn't kill Stieg. But the real you, the you that survived the explosion, he did. I'm sure of it now. What else did you... he, lie about? What else haven't you told me? Was any of it real?"

John's face turned desperate. "Of course it was real. But I also had a mission, Liv," he pleaded, moving within reach of her. "I just want us to be together. That's all I wanted. That's all I ever wanted from the first moment I saw you. I love you."

"And I love Peter!" she shouted, suddenly more furious than she could ever recall. He flinched back, buckling beneath her fury. It might have been cruel, but she wanted him to feel her pain, to know her sorrow and the agony she'd gone through. "You're dead. You're nothing but a ghost. You're a figment of my imagination. A parasite living in my head. And I've wasted enough time here. I have to go back. I have to find my way back!"

Olivia spun away from him, scanning the horizon. Only there wasn't a horizon. Out beyond the edge of the storage facility, there was nothing. Where the Boston skyline should have been was only blackness, an unending abyss. _That's because you're in a memory. John's memory._

What was out there, out in the darkness beyond? Walter had warned her before she'd gone into the tank. About becoming lost inside a memory. About becoming fascinated, glamoured by a moment from her past. There was nowhere else to go. She started forward at a jog, and then a sprint.

"Liv!" John's shout rang out behind her. "Come back! Don't leave me here!"

 _Goodbye, John_ , she thought, and didn't look back.

Orange garage doors became blurs on either side, until she came to the end of the row. She rounded the corner and the world began to grow foggy, insubstantial — the air, the storage buildings, the asphalt, as if the dream, the memory, whatever it was, was on the verge of melting away, of flashing into sublimation, and her with it.

She kept going. Faster. Her boots echoed in the silence. _I have to get back. I have to escape. I have to find Peter. We have to get away from this place._

Halfway down the next row, the storage units and everything else ended. Ahead was roiling darkness, clouds blacker than black, a wall that would have dwarfed the tallest of buildings, the highest of mountains. There was no top, the clouds just kept going, upward, outward, forever. She was no bigger than a speck before them, a mote of dust. An atom in a grain of sand on a beach larger than existence.

She plunged into the darkness, and the world vanished.

#

Olivia opened her eyes to find Jacob Fischer standing over her, the bald spot above his forehead glinting from the overhead light. He straightened, removing a stethoscope from her chest.

"Did you have a nice trip? I was beginning to worry your mind had broken." He paused, twisting the hairs of his beard between two fingers. "While subjects do have bad reactions, occasionally, to the initial dose, I must say I have never seen one quite like the one you exhibited. It is supposed to relax your mind, to prepare you for what comes next. Have you undergone drug-induced hypnosis recently? Within the last year?"

 _Fuck you_. She stared up at the light overhead, refusing to look at him. When she didn't answer, he shrugged and turned away, returning to the surgical tray where there were now additional vials and syringes, all lined up in a row. Standing near a closed door was the man Alex. He was watching her, she noticed, watching her watch the Doctor. There was a hungry, almost greedy look in his eyes, and she realized then that she was still naked, that they had never replaced her gown. _You fucking pervert_ , she thought, meeting his gaze with a cold glare.

"Who is Peter?" Jacob Fischer asked suddenly, swinging back to her. He was preparing another syringe, this time from a vial with a liquid the color of rust. "You said his name while you were... under. Is he the man I'm told was with you when you were taken? The man who tried to chase down a truck waving a sword? He killed one of my men, tortured him."

 _Oh, Peter..._ Olivia began to tremble. She could feel her body again, she realized, her arms and legs. They were distant, but they were there. And they were bound by tight bands clamped around her wrists and ankles.

"After we captured this man, he wouldn't say anything, either... Olivia," Jacob Fischer said. "It is Olivia, isn't it? Your name? That is who this man was looking for when he arrived here, when he set fire to our kitchen. When he had a rifle pressed to my forehead."

 _He should have blown your fucking head off!_ Olivia raged inside her head. If it was true, why hadn't Peter killed him when he had had the chance. _Because he was looking for you_ , a whispering voice answered. _He was looking for you_.

The Doctor smiled, and it was like a corpse's smile. "Yes, I see that I am correct. Anger will avail you little, and will in the end only exacerbate your pain. You needn't be concerned with Peter now. By coming here, by attacking us, he has chosen to participate in my other line of research, on the sickness that is afflicting us all."

"You bastard!" she hissed, jerking on her restraints. _My poor Peter. You should have let me go_. But he couldn't let her go, any more than she could have let him go. They were partners. Friends. Lovers. He had already admitted as much with his declaration under the stars. And what was more, she would have done the exact same thing if the situation was reversed. Nothing could have stopped her.

"Ah... so you have a voice, after all," he murmured, then glanced back at his man behind him. "You see, Alex? She can speak." He turned back to Olivia, meeting her gaze with eyes that were as cold and empty as the vacuum of space. In his hand was the next syringe, thumb already on the plunger. "All that was required was the proper leverage. Perhaps if you behave, my dear, if you cooperate, if you try in earnest, then the cure I administer to your friend won't be a placebo. Perhaps he'll be lucky. Perhaps he'll be the one. I believe I'm quite close, and I have such high hopes for this batch. Alex, prepare another dose of succinylcholine. Her metabolic rate is clearly above normal. Ten milligrams, this time."

Olivia screwed her eyes shut, shutting the outside, the Doctor and his empty gaze away. Peter was still alive. He was alive. He had tried and failed to rescue her, but was alive. And the human monster standing before her was going to kill him. He was going to turn him, infect him on purpose. Beneath her clenched eyelids, pressure was building, mounting, like an unerupted volcano. She saw his face in her mind's eye. His face, covered in blood, his beautiful cobalt gaze golden and monstrous. Skin pallid and gray, rotting, peeling way. The color of death, of decay. Of infection.

A hand closed about her bicep, and she felt a needle's prick.

And then the gurney vanished beneath her.

She was falling, for a sliver of an instant, before crashing down hard on her back. The force of her landing burst the air from her lungs in a great gush. Her eyes shot open to a blinding light. But it wasn't the same light. Or even the same room. The air was cold, to the point of being frigid.

Olivia gaped. It was the other world.

And she was unbound.

She scrambled awkwardly to her feet, covering her nakedness as a dark-haired man wearing blue scrubs dropped a tray of medical tools with an ear-shattering crash. She could only imagine how awful she appeared, and the way the man's eye bulged confirmed it as he pressed up against a wall of small, stainless steel doors arranged in a grid. He blinked purposefully, as if he thought that might change the view. Beside her was a gurney, sleek and modern, holding the body of a dead woman, chest and ribs spread open in the middle of an obvious autopsy. The room was larger than the one in her world, easily two or three times the size, and was filled with stainless steel cabinets and sinks and refrigerators, shelves with clamps and saws and knives and computer screens that were built straight into walls of white tile.

As she took in the room, the stench of clinical death filled her nose, at once familiar, and comforting in a way. It was a morgue, and it almost felt like home. Almost.

"What the... who are...," the man stuttered, pressing a hand to his chest.

"I... I'm sorry for disturbing you," Olivia gasped, and then noticed an odd, stinging weight in her left arm.

Looking down, she found the Doctor's syringe dangling from her bicep. Its plunger had yet to be depressed, the barrel still full of the rust-colored drug he'd been about to dose her with. She tore the needle free and tossed it aside, then raced toward a pair of doors beneath an exit sign on the other side of the room.

She crashed through the doors, out into a long corridor filled with dim light. At the other end another exit sign glowed, with an arrow angled upward. Her chest heaved with relief. A stairwell. A way out — if she could only stay on this side long enough. Already, her sense of this other world was beginning to diminish, as if it were growing, insubstantial. She focused her will, concentrating on her surroundings, memorizing them down to the grain. The smell of the air, its coolness raising goosebumps down her arms and legs. _I'm here, not there. I'm here. I'm here..._

Lights flashed on above her as she sprinted down the hall, bare feet pounding on the tiled floor. A door ahead on her left opened suddenly, and a thin, ginger-haired woman stepped out in front of her. She wore the same blue scrubs as the man in the morgue, and appeared just as surprised to see a naked woman bounding straight for her. The woman stepped back, putting a hand to her gaping mouth. Olivia swept past her without slowing.

"Hey, you! Stop!" a woman's voice shouted a moment later. "This is a restricted area! You don't belong down here! Stop!"

The woman's shouts faded, and she passed by a bank of elevators, and at the same time noticed the black dome of a security camera on the ceiling. There was no point in trying to hide — whoever was on the other side of the lens would have undoubtedly already had an eyeful if they'd been looking. She crashed through a heavy door into the stairwell, and a deafening alarm began to shriek. The stairwell tinted red as lights began flashing somewhere above her.

She raced up the steps and shoved open the door at the top, only to find herself in a crowded hallway, with people everywhere. Nurses wearing old-fashioned hats tucked in their hair, doctors in white smocks holding clip boards. Men and women, mothers and fathers with their children in tow. An old man with a nose cannula sitting in a wheelchair not far from the stairwell exit, noticed her and eyes grew huge, lighting up with delight, worn-down stubs of teeth exposed by his leering grin. On the wall directly across from her was a large poster that had _Smallpox and You_ typed in bold letters, with a long list of bullet points below. Other than the old man, the crowd finally noticed her. A young woman screamed, pointing a hand from the nurse's station down the hall.

Olivia stood frozen, crossing her arms across her heaving chest. Every eye swiveled in her direction. She noticed a woman pressing her hands over her son's eyes, and him fighting to pull them away. Her skin began to burn, flush rising to the surface. _Oh god... Where am I going? This isn't my world. What am I doing here?_ Pushing toward her through the crowd was a man in a dark uniform. The uniform was unfamiliar, but his intent was clear enough. She knew a cop when she saw one.

She turned to flee in the other direction, only for the hospital and the people and the warm air to vanish mid-step. One instant she was there, the next back in her world. The transition had come with no warning, and had been nearly instantaneous.

_I'm back. How did I get back?_

The room in which she'd landed — landed was the only word she could think of that portrayed the feeling of arriving out of thin air from another dimension — was dark, and tiny, though still larger than her cell. Straight across from her a door stood open. It was a normal door, paneled, and made of old wood with peeling white paint. She stepped through it, into a long corridor with ancient light fixtures hanging down. Tilting her head, she listened for pursuit, or some sign or anything at all that might tell her the right way to go. At first there was nothing, no sound at all but her own heartbeat, but then she did hear something, just barely.

A man's voice. It faded in and out, but definitely was coming from her left. She headed that way, sticking close to one wall in case she needed to duck into a room to hide. There seemed no end to them, as she passed by door after door. Running down the center of the hallway was a bundle of black wires. She followed them, until they swerved into a room that was different from the others, larger, with a pair thick wooden doors pushed back open to reveal a dimly glowing light inside.

Olivia started past the open doors, but then saw what was inside and skidded to a halt. At the same moment, she heard the man's voice she'd been following again. It was coming from inside the room, from among the rows of bed frames held down by the squirming bodies of men, some wearing strange masks full of wires and hoses, some not. She stepped through the door to get a closer look and gasped, a ripple of fear running down her back.

The room was silent at first, but then she became aware of the sound of breathing happening all around her. Her eyes began to adjust, and figures emerged from the dimness, the bodies of men lying on top of low tables or beds in long rows, each with an IV pole at their side. Draped between them were bundles of wire, strung between each bed, attached to some kind of headgear or harness, not unlike the headpiece she had seen below.

 _What is this place?_ Olivia wondered, standing over the nearest body, an African-American man from the color of his skin. Revulsion filled her to the brim. Was this what he had planned for her? Were they even alive? One of the bodies coughed, and the light dimmed momentarily, before returning to its former brightness. What the hell is he doing?

It was disgusting. It was cruel beyond belief. He had to be stopped.

Was it the Doctor's research on the infection? What could he possibly be doing? Was this to be Peter's fate then? She stopped beside the body of the black man, the only one in the room, and immediately thought of her former boss. She was sure it wasn't him, but she looked the body over carefully anyway, particularly his right ankle, which appeared normal and healthy.

 _It's not him_ , _and I can't help any of them, not right now_ , she decided, turning for the door. As she did so, a shadow separated from the wall beside the door, resolving into the shape of a man. He stepped in front of her, blocking the way out to the corridor. The man was thin, almost frail-looking, with an out-of-control beard that hung down his chest.

"Step aside," Olivia said, moving toward him. He appeared unarmed, and altogether not much of a threat. Was he one of Fischer's men? Or a prisoner like herself? "I don't want to hurt you, so please, get out of my way."

"I know what you did!" the man snarled in response. "I saw it! I saw it all!" His voice was nasally, and grew louder with every word. "Dr. Fischer told me about you! It was supposed to be me! Not you! I'm the one who's supposed to fix the world!"

The man was screaming by the end of his rant, raving, and much too loudly. _He's crazy_ , Olivia thought, trying to judge how easily she might take him down. _He's completely insane_. Whatever the Doctor had done to him, the side effects had driven him mad.

"I said get out of my way," she ordered, taking another step toward him. "If you're a prisoner here, I can help you, but you have to let me pass."

"A prisoner?" The man chuckled, and then began to laugh. "A prisoner?" he uttered between wheezing gasps. "I'm no prisoner. And you're not going anywhere."

He raised his hands and the fine hairs on her arms began to stand up straight, the hair on her head also. Lightning filled Olivia's eyes, burning her from the inside out. Her body convulsed as agony seized her by throat, and then darkness closed around her.

#

* * *

#

The Observer known as September to other members of the science team set the shard of glass down on the table.

Reaching up, he detected a faint warmth on the back of his neck, and for the second time that day, experienced a strange sensation in his lower abdomen. The futures had been among the most difficult he could recall calculating, equations on the highest orders of magnitude. But there _was_ a path to probable success. It was a narrow path, and exceedingly dangerous for himself if his interference should be detected by the others. But it would not be detected. He would not be noticed. That was part of the calculations, too.

The present reality and those closest to it were like bare patches of ground in a fenced off corner of a garden as wide as infinity. They were cordoned off, separated from all others by the barriers of chance. His people would never come, would never visit, would never even consider the possibility of visiting such far reaches, and so he could tend to these realities as he wished.

It occurred to him then that his behavior was irrational — the others would surely think so — but he had to see, to witness their struggles. He had to see the burnished flames of their lives, glowing ever so brightly as they fought for survival. He thought of the things to come, the trials and the coming horrors their counterparts would endure, all due to a mistake he had made, all for the survival of his people. Was it right? Was it just?

He checked his time-piece. Nine minutes and thirty-three seconds remained until his next appointment. There was time.

All there was, was time.


	31. The Unfolding

**-March 2009**

Ella huddled back in the dark space beneath their bed, squeezing herself into the space where the cool bricks of the outside wall met the floor. Trembling, she covered her mouth, holding her fear inside, swallowing, forcing it way down into the bottom of her belly. Her eyes stung. Tears ran over her cupped fingers, tears that blurred her view of the pair of wide, black boots standing in the center of the tiny room she and her mother shared.

"What the hell do you people want?" Her mother's white sneakers backed away until they were even with her eyes, all the way back against the single window that looked outside. "Why are you in my room? I want you to leave, now!"

The black boots stepped closer, until the tips were nearly touching her mother's shoes. "It's come to my attention that you and your friends were hoping to mount a little mutiny this morning." The voice belonged to Mister Overbeek, and sent ripples of terror coursing down her back. She felt a wetness through the crotch of her jeans as he continued. "You really should be more careful planning that sort of thing. Did you think I didn't have anyone watching all of you? And then there's Martin's knife, which I just happened to find in your friend Phillip's room. Looks like an open and closed case to me. We've found our killer, after all, and you're all guilty, by association, if nothing else."

"That's... that's impossible! Phillip didn't kill anybody. And I don't know what the hell you're talking about. We weren't planning anything!"

"It's too late for that, honey," Mister Overbeek growled. "Where's your brat?"

"I... Ella... she spent the night in Charlene Watson's room," her mother replied quickly. "With her granddaughter, Gina."

Ella's eyes grew huge at her mother's lie. She held her breath, waiting for what would happen next. Would he know she had lied? Her mom somehow always seemed to know when she lied. Was it the same for adults?

"Now why would she do that?" he said after a pause.

"Why would she do that?" her mother spat in her angry voice. "Because they're kids, and that's what kids do. What? Are you really that stupid? Were you never a kid, or did you just come out a big, bald asshole?"

There was a loud smack, and her mother's voice cried out in pain. Her white sneakers stumbled to the side and she fell down, landing hard on her hands and knees. Blood was dripping from her mother's nose, her lips, drop after drop speckling the floor in bright red. Their eyes met for a moment, and she saw her own fear and terror reflected in her mother's gaze. Then a hand reached down, yanking her mom's head up by her hair. She screamed as the hand yanked her upward, lifting her to her feet.

"We'll grab the girl later," Overbeek said to someone. "I doubt she's involved, but I want to question her anyway. I can't imagine she'll put up much of a fight."

"Don't you dare touch my daughter!" Ella heard her mother shout. Her white sneakers lashed out as other booted feet began dragging her to the door. She kicked and screamed, voice rising to a shriek. "Don't you fucking dare! Don't you-"

There was a low thud, followed by another grunt of pain. Ella flinched, sucking hard on her thumb which had somehow found its way back into her mouth after years of absence. "Shut the hell up. Make another sound and I'll slit your throat and leave you here for your daughter to find. You think I'd touch a goddamn kid? We're not savages, you dumb bitch." There was another smack, and her mom gasped, and then began to cry. She heard a clink of metal and then a grinding sound, almost like a zipper. "Take her and put her in with the old man up in the east wing, for now. Where I can keep an eye on them for a few days. The Doc has plans for them all."

Several moments later, the boots and her mom's white sneakers were gone. The door swung shut with a resonant thud she could feel through the floor. Ella waited until she couldn't hear the receding footsteps anymore, then crawled out from under the bed she and her mother shared. She climbed to her feet. Staining the floor in the center of the room were spots of blood, some smeared by heavy footprints. She stared down at the spots, unable to pull her eyes away. Her nose was running, dripping down onto her upper lip. Like her mom's nose had been running, only it had been running with blood. That blood, right there on the floor. They'd hit her mom. They had hurt her. _Mom_ _my_ _..._ She sniffled and wiped her nose on her sleeve, and did her best to hold in another bout of tears.

She looked around, taking in the empty room. Their bed. Her box of books. A basket of dirty clothes in the corner. It had all happened so fast. She'd been asleep, dreaming about... something, and then she'd opened her eyes to her mother's frantic face as she was shoved roughly under the bed. In the background the door had been thudding, bouncing against the lock while a voice ordered them to open it at once, or else.

And now she was gone. Her mother was gone.

She was all alone.

Ella sat down on the bed. She hugged her arms about her chest. Her body shook, neck tightening, breath rough in her ears as she rocked back and forth. What was she going to do? And how had Mister Overbeek known what they were planning? All she could think of was that someone had heard them, and then told him. Someone who they had known. Someone who they had thought was one of their friends. And now the Doctor had her mom. And Astrid, and Walter and Miss Sonia. What would he do with them?

_Oh geez... Mommy._ She thought of Peter and his warning that they leave at once. _We should have listened, Peter. We should have listened. We're trapped here. Now there's only me. And what can I do?_

What could she do? Fight them? With what? And how?

_They'll be after me. Mister Bald Asshole_ _said so._ It was okay to call him that now, inside her her head, at least, she decided _._ _He said he was gonna grab me. I have to hide._

But then her mother might die. And Walter. And Astrid, and Sonia and Mister Broyles. They would all die. They would all get put in the lightning room, wouldn't they? What else would the Doctor do with them? She didn't know, but it wouldn't be good, whatever it was.

Ella slid off the bed.

She couldn't hide, at least not forever. Could she tell Gina? Or if she told Gina, would she just get in trouble too, and her gram. No. She had to do it alone. There was no one else. She found her coat on the floor in the corner and pulled it on, zipping it all the way up to her chin. Her stomach grumbled on her way to the door, reminding her that she was missing breakfast. Ignoring the hunger pangs, she peeked outside her room.

The corridor was empty. Down at the far end, a single light glowed by the door to the stairwell. Everyone was in the cafeteria, eating breakfast. No wonder no one had heard her mother's shouting. Straight across from their room, Astrid's door stood wide open. Astrid was gone. Her blankets were on the floor, stretching out toward the door. Hoping to find some food, a snack, anything at all, she searched her friend's room, but there was nothing except a notebook filled with Astrid's handwriting. Nor was there anything in Mister Broyles's room further down the hall, or in Walter's even further. She circled back to Sonia's room at the opposite end of the hall.

Inside was the scene of a struggle. Sonia's bed was turned over, her blankets and mattress spread out across the floor. Her bag had been upset, and all her stuff scattered about. Ella moved among the debris, picking up what she could. There was no food, but underneath the mattress she found an odd-looking knife with a flat, rectangle-shaped blade that folded into a thin handle made of tanned wood. She touched the edge and quickly stuck her thumb in her mouth, tasting blood. It was sharp! She shoved the strange knife into her pocket. It wasn't food or a gun, but it was a beginning, somewhere to start.

#

With nothing else to do, she crept down to the lower floors where most everyone else lived. The corridors were empty, and her footsteps echoed in the silence. She wandered, and finally found herself drawing near to the closed door of the cafeteria, through which voices could be heard, the clinks and clanks of dishes and the sounds of eating. The air grew cold and fetid, and the taste of smoke and fire coated the inside of her mouth. She drew close, then cracked one door open and peered inside.

Straight across the cafeteria, the door that led outside stood open, glowing with morning light. People were sitting at tables, bundled up in their coats spooning up a whitish, gluey looking stuff from their bowls. Oatmeal wasn't her favorite food — not even close to mac'n'cheese — but she could have scarfed down an entire bowl from how hungry her stomach felt. Some of the faces were familiar, the women mostly, the ones who would come to visit with Astrid and Sonia and her mom at night. Claire, more often than not, and sometimes Juliet with her hair that was sort of like Aunt Liv's. And there was Sharon — who seemed older than the other women, except for Gina's gram — sitting beside one of the guards, talking and smiling. Sometimes the women would just sit around and talk, and sometimes they would play games — those were the nights she had liked the best — card games, board games, puzzles. She loved them all. It had almost felt like being back home, like the monsters hadn't come to life and ruined the world.

Did they know what had happened? None of them seemed alarmed. But would they? Could she trust any of them? She wished she could be all the way sure about them, especially about the ones she did know, like Claire, who had only ever been nice to her. Ella looked around for Gina, but her friend was nowhere in sight, and to see the rest of the cafeteria would require her to open the door all the way, which seemed like a bad idea.

"Ella?"

Whirling around, she found Gina's grandmother coming straight toward her. Her red apron with the white hearts still hung from her neck, and her hair was covered by a white net above her narrowed eyes.

"Have you seen Phillip this morning?" Gina gram asked. "He never showed up to help with breakfast. Is he feeling all right? Come to think of it, I haven't seen Walter, either. What are they up to, child?"

Ella pressed back against the door, heart hammering inside her chest. _She doesn't know. Or else why would she ask me?_ Did that mean she could trust her? That she could ask for help? _But what if she helps me and they catch her, too? They might hurt her, and Gina._ She didn't want anyone else to get hurt.

"I... I haven't seen them," she lied. Her hands bunched together inside her coat sleeves, forming tight fists, fingernails digging into her palm. "I don't know where they are, Miss Watson."

Miss Charlene's eyes narrowed further. "Are you feeling okay, child? Your face is like a ghost's, and white as a sheet." She reached out, as if to feel Ella's forehead.

Ella ducked under the hand, stepping to the side and out of reach. "I umm... I'm fine," She stammered. "I... have to go. I have to find my mom." She rushed past the woman before she could react. After reaching a safe distance, she glanced back and found Gina's grandmother staring after her, wearing a large frown. _I'm sorry for lying to you, Miss Charlene_ _, but I can't let you get in trouble, too,_ she thought, then turned and fled, racing away down the corridor.

What was she going to do? Her belly ached even more now, and the corridors of the Home had become fearful places, full of scary sounds and terrifying shadows. She felt sure that they were looking for her by now; Overbeek and his men. Would they talk to Miss Charlene? Would she tell them that there had been no sleepover? What would happen then? What if they didn't believe her? What if they thought she was lying to them?

The Home had become a maze with no end. She ran without any clear idea of where she was going, the only goal in her head to get as far away from people as she could. She ran until her legs grew tired, and then she walked. On several occasions, as she slunk from one corridor to the next and searching for what she knew not, the echo of footsteps cut into the silence. Each time was like being dunked in a river of fear, and swallowing it whole, drowning in it. Sometimes the footsteps seemed around the next corner. Sometimes they were behind her, or in the next hallway. She would hide then, ducking into the nearest open door and cramming herself into the space behind it. Then shadowed figures would move past, seen through the crack where the door hung from the wall. Sometimes it was just one person, sometimes more than one, but they always spoke in low, whispered voices, voices harsh and filled with menace, or so they sounded in her ears.

Going back to their rooms was out of the question; they were sure to look for her there, weren't they? Of course they would. In the quiet of her head, she told herself it was like playing hide-and-seek — only if she got caught, if she was found, everyone she knew in the entire world would die. Or they would be put in the black spiderweb and cooked like bugs in one of those blue lights she remembered seeing at her cousins' house once.

Eventually, after what seemed like hours of hiding, of staying in the shadows, of staying out of sight, she found herself down in the basement, crouched beneath the bottom set of stairs where not even a smidgen of light from the floors above could reach. The steps rose up above, the concrete ceiling angled from low to high.

Shivering, she hugged her knees and tried to remember what it had been like at the lab; when her friends had been there; when she would snuggle with her mommy with the smell of Walter's cooking filling her nose; when Aunt Liv would bounce her on her knee and when Peter would tell her stories; and when Miss Sonia and Astrid would hold class after lunch and everything still seemed right and good in her world. Or as right and good as it could be when the world had gone silent, when her father was gone, and when there were more dead people walking around than alive ones.

She might have slept, but it was hard to be sure in the dark, when every moment of being awake was a nightmare. But something lifted her head. A sound, and then a voice.

"Ella?" The hushed voice drifted down from somewhere above her. "You down here, Ella?"

Ella sat up straight, cracking the back of her head on the bottom side of the stairs. "Gina?" she whispered softly, rubbing the top of her head. She scooted out from beneath the stairs, and found a small shadow separating from the blackness. The shadow became her friend, coming carefully down the steps. "What are you doing here? You have to go away! If they catch you with me, you'll be in trouble, too. You and your gram."

"What are you going on about now?" Gina asked, coming to a stop on the step above her. "Where have you been all day? Where's your mom and everybody? Gram was looking for them. Did you eat breakfast early or something?"

"I didn't eat breakfast," she admitted. "I didn't eat anything." Speaking grew difficult, and breathing. A ball of pain rose slowly up her throat. "Everyone is gone. Mom, Astrid, and Walter. Everybody. They're all gone."

"Where'd they go? They leave?"

She shook her head. "They took them. Mister Overbeek and his men. They came this morning and... took them. Mister Overbeek... he hit my mom. He hurt her. " In her mind's eye, she saw her mother's terrified eyes, the blood stretching out, dripping onto the floor. "She was bleeding on the floor, and then he said he'd cut her throat if she kept being loud." His voice played again in her head, and she heard the surety that he would do exactly as he had promised. Her eyes began to sting, her friend's shadow doubling.

Gina sucked in a breath. "You ain't joking, are you?" she hissed, grabbing Ella's arm.

Ella swung her head again, and was suddenly filled with relief that someone else knew — that she wasn't alone anymore. She took in a deep breath, then told her friend everything, from the moment she'd woken up to being shoved beneath her bed to meeting Gina's grandma in the hall outside the cafeteria. Getting it out was like waking up from a dream or coming in from the cold, like soaking down into a hot tub like she had used to do with her mommy, bubbles everywhere, sticking to her chin like the beard her Daddy sometimes wore. She should have known better than to keep it all to herself. Gina was her best friend, and the only other person who knew what the Doctor was doing. When she was finished, her friend remained frozen, eyes wide and glistening with faint light.

"We got to do something," Gina whispered finally. "They say where they was taking Mister Broyles and the others?"

"No. But I heard Mister Overbeek say something about going to the east wing, and putting my mom in with Walter."

"The east wing? Aw, shit," Gina cursed, sounding older than Ella had ever heard her before. "Nobody lives in there but Overbeek and most of his men. We'll never get them out of there, not ever."

The flare of hope that had begun to burn in Ella's heart fluttered out. But then she remembered Peter, and her aunt. Had he done it? Had he found Aunt Liv? Had he rescued her? Something told her he had not. He'd been holding a machine gun, but she had never heard him use it. Wouldn't the Doctor and his men had tried to stop him? They had machine guns, too. There would have been shooting, a battle, like on the old TV shows her Daddy had watched where the good guys would shoot their way out through endless bad guys. She wondered if it was the same in real life. She thought of the kitchen, of the fire that had started about the same time she had seen Peter. Walter had said Mister Overbeek had lied about it, that it wasn't started like he'd said. Why would he do that? She couldn't think of a reason, but might have Peter had something to do with it? Maybe he'd been tricking them, so they would leave him alone while he looked for Aunt Liv. He liked doing tricks. Once he had pulled an entire quarter out of her ear, and when she'd asked how it was done, his only reply had been that he had convinced her eyes to look in the wrong place. She hadn't known what he meant, but the thought of it sparked something inside her. An idea began to form, shapeless at first, but then slowly became something more.

"I have to get inside the Doctor's building," she said, looking at her friend's outline. After saying it out loud, she was suddenly certain that was exactly what she had to do. If anyone could help her mom and the others, it was Peter. And Aunt Liv, if she was there, too. All she had to do was find them.

Gina gasped. "The workshop! Are you crazy? That's even worse than going into the east wing! What would you do in there, anyway? You're only six years old, Ella. Six! You gonna kill the Doctor? With what?"

"I'm gonna find my Uncle Peter," she said, nodding her head. "Or my Aunt Liv. One of them will know what to do."

"Your who? Who's Peter?"

"He's my aunt's boyfriend," she said. "I talked to him yesterday. Down in the tunnel. He was on the other side of the blocked part. I think he might be the one who started the fire. I think he did it to trick the guards, so he could get past them. He was looking for my Aunt Liv. He told me the Doctor captured her. She's a secret FBI agent. If anybody can stop the Doctor, it's them."

Gina whistled softly. "A secret agent? Like in them movies? Why didn't you tell me about them yesterday?"

"Peter told me to go straight to Mister Broyles, and to tell them we had to leave. That's what we were gonna do this morning. I wasn't supposed to tell anybody, and I didn't want you to get in trouble, or your grandma. I'm sorry."

"Never mind. You said the tunnel had fallen in further down. That you couldn't get through. How are you gonna get in there?"

Ella shrugged. "I don't know. But I have to, somehow."

"Ella, we should tell my gram. She could talk to people. Some of them might help us. They aren't all bad, are they?"

"Uh uh," she insisted. "No way. Somebody told Mister Overbeek that we were gonna try to leave. I heard him tell my mom. And I don't know how to tell if someone's good or bad, do you? If we tell your grandma, she'll do just what you said. She'll talk to people. That's what grownups always do. And then he'll find out. I know he will. He'll get us. He's already looking for me."

"Then what are we gonna do?"

Ella's mind went back to Peter, back to his tricks his card tricks, and back to quarters and ears, and back to the idea that had been stewing in the back of her mind. Would it work? Could she convince the guards' eyes to look in the wrong place? She met Gina's gaze in the dimness of the stairwell. "How loud can you scream?"

#

They waited until the sun had sunk well below the horizon before Ella emerged from the depths of the basement. She had finally eaten, thanks to a bag of Cheetos and strips of dried deer meat that Gina had swiped from the food line at dinner, along with a full bottle of water. She didn't particularly like the taste of deer and how chewy the meat was, even more so when she thought of how cute and shy the animals were, but she scarfed it down anyway. The strips of meat were filling, and when she finished, her belly had felt all big and stretched out, like she was having a baby. Or at least that was what she thought having a baby might feel like.

It was getting near lights-out, and the halls of the Home were quiet and empty. Gina's grandma had been questioned by Overbeek, so her friend had reported when she'd delivered the food several hours ago. Nothing had come of it, but Ella knew they were still after her, and she jumped into shadows and empty rooms at the slightest sound on her way to the big sitting room at the front entrance. She hesitated on the threshold. Peering with one eye around the corner, she found Gina waiting on the couch beside the door, looking nervous. Other than her friend, the room was empty, with not an adult in sight.

"Took you long enough," Gina hissed when Ella stepped around the corner. She leapt off the couch, darting quick glances down the adjoining corridors. "I was starting to think they'd grabbed you. I've seen Overbeek's men all over the place since dinner. They were all up in your rooms, going in and out. One of them asked me if I'd seen you, said they was trying to find you for your mom. But I told 'em I hadn't, not since yesterday. Said I was looking for you also. People are starting to ask questions, too. I heard Claire asking around, lookin' for Astrid and your mom and Sonia, for Mister Broyles. Then I heard somebody say that y'all had left, and they heard if from Overbeek himself." She shook her head, somehow managing to watch all three entrances to the room at the same time. "You were right. They got your people, and they're gonna do bad things to 'em."

Ella gulped, thinking of Astrid's black-haired friend. Maybe Claire was okay, and some of the others. But it didn't change anything. There was no way to tell the good guys from the bad. She wet her lips, meeting Gina's gaze. "Are you ready?" she asked. "You're still gonna help me, aren't you?"

Gina nodded, pulling on her gloves. "I got the easy part," she said. "All I gotta do is get them to look at me." She pauses, frowning. "You know it should be me going. I'm older than you, and bigger."

"Only by a little," Ella replied, lifting her chin. "And you don't even know Uncle Peter. Or my Aunt Liv. How would you even find them?"

"How are _you_ gonna find them — if you make it inside?"

She shrugged and looked away, unwilling to admit she hadn't figured that part out yet. Or what she would do if she did find them, and they were already in the black spiderwebs. Or if they were dead, though she tried not to think about that long. She moved past Gina, heading for the front door. "C'mon. You go out first, and then tell me when it's safe to come out."

"How am I supposed to do that if I'm outside?"

"I dunno. Knock or something, then I'll come out behind you."

Gina snorted, shaking her head. "I hope you know what you're doing, girl," she muttered on her way past. "Or else I'm gonna have to come rescue you!" She cracked the door open, then glanced back for an instant before stepping outside and pulling the heavy door shut behind her.

Ella waited, chewing on her lip and staring at space where her friend had vanished. How long would it take? What if someone came into the room before she knocked? What if it was one of Overbeek's men? There was nowhere to hide. They would have her. _Hurry Gina. I don't want to be here anymore. I want to see Aunt Liv. I want to see Peter again_ _._

Feeling needles and prickles across her back, she sat down on the edge of the couch, then jumped up again almost instantly, pacing back and forth across the thick rug covering the floor in front of the door. The rug was bright red in the daylight, and a huge and fiery sun was stitched into its center, with spikes of light shining off in a wavy circle. She found herself counting the jagged rays of light and had reached the count of fourteen when a rapid knock echoed through the door.

She gasped at the sudden interruption, even though she'd been waiting for it to happen at any moment. With her heart blaring in her ears, she crossed over the rug and slipped out into the night. The stars were out, though a thick and grayish mass of clouds hanging over distant trees was slowly swallowing them up.

Gina was waiting to her right, her eyes locked on the men standing out by the gate straight across from the porch. Four of them in all, and all armed with machine guns. "Get in them bushes, quick!" she hissed without looking her way. "Hurry! Before one of them turns around!"

Ella did as she was told without thought. She dove headlong into the narrow gap between the building and the row of bushes beside the entrance. Branches scratched at her cheeks, points like thorns dug into the neck of her coat. She covered her face and crawled further inside, until she was certain her entire body was out of sight.

"Did they see?" she whispered, looking back at her friend, who was still standing where she had been. Her chin stung and she wiped at the spot with her coat sleeve.

Gina shook her head. "No. Never even looked back." She glanced at Ella, and then smiled. "It's gonna be like that day when we were playing knights and castles," she said softly. "Only it's for real, this time, isn't it?"

Ella nodded. It was all real. More real than anything she had ever done before. If she was caught, they would hurt her, and Gina. Maybe kill them both. She just knew it. "Thank you for helping me, Gina," she said. "I'm glad we came here and met you, even if it turned out bad."

"I'm glad we met, too," her friend replied, her voice sounding tearful all of a sudden. "And I'll wait as long as I can. Now you have to go. You have to hurry."

There was nothing more to say. Turning away from the porch, Ella half-crouched, half-crawled through the rows of bushes, heading toward the side of the building, far away from the entrance and the guards, and hidden from view from the men with machine guns. Freezing wind rustled the branches, stung the skin of her face and ears, bit into the scratch under her chin. She tried to ignore the chill as she crawled and scurried along, darting through the gaps, shivering as the brittle wind found its way inside her coat. Upon reaching the corner of the building, she left the cover of the bushes behind and pounded straight for the fence. Just as the dark shape of the Doctor's building appeared far to her left, she threw herself down in the tall grass nearly up to her waist.

She crawled forward, until the grass parted into a stomped path beaten down by men and women walking the fence. She waited for the shouts and screams of alarm, but there were no sounds at all, only her heaving breath and the sighing wind and its icy lashes whipping across her cheeks. After a moment of waiting, she lifted her head up over the top of the grass until the armed guards in front of the Doctor's building were visible, though little more than light smudges against a darker black. They were talking, she thought, watching them. If they had seen her, they gave no sign of it so far as she could tell.

Ella rose to continue on her mission, but then a sudden, low growl seemingly from right beside her sent a ripple of terror down into her belly. She started at the sound, falling back into the tall grass beside the path as a dead man wearing a ragged t-shirt pawed at the fence. Her eyes bulged with fright. Its finger curled into the links like hooks and then it was biting at the metal, splintering its teeth into jagged fangs.

_It can't get in_ , she told herself, scooting away from it on her back like a crab. _It can't get through_. The infected continued to paw at and bite at her, rattling the fence all up and down the line. The metal links seemed like the loudest things she had ever heard. _Shut up_! she yelled at the creature inside her head. _You're gonna get me caught!_

Scrambling to her feet, she left the infected behind, clawing at the fence. She started forward again, searching for Gina across the vast field of weeds, but either her friend wasn't there yet, or it was just too dark to see her. Either way, her only choice was to keep going, and to hope that her friend would do as she had promised. She angled toward the rear of the shorter building beside the Doctor's. The twin smoke stacks were nearly invisible in the dark, though she could make out a bright dot above the one on the left, hanging in the air. The dot was a star or a planet, but she forgotten how to tell the difference.

She lowered her gaze to the guards. The two men were closer, now, and facing away from her. Close enough she could make out the color of their coats, one that might have been a greenish brown color, the other pure black. Each man had a dark stocking hat pulled low over their ears, and the sight of winter's clothes made her wish she had thought to bring hers down before fleeing her room. But she had forgotten, and now her ears were burning, singed cold by the icy wind. Her breath made miniature smoke clouds that rose up in front of her eyes as she padded along, all the while trying to make herself as small as possible without crawling. She prayed that they would keep their eyes forward. She prayed with all her might as the smokestacks began to tower overhead, more above her now than in front of her.

_Don't look. Don't look. Please don't look. Please, please, please, please..._

The guard closest to her coughed suddenly, doubling over at the waist. The cough was deep and wet, echoing across the yard and off the other buildings. She knew that kind of cough. It was the kind that always ended with, slimy wads of green snot coming up her throat, from wherever slime balls came from. After a few moments, the guard straightened, coughed again, then turned his head and spat in her direction.

Ella felt a sickly jolt of fear as the man's eyes seemed to pass over her. But then the building was between them, a wall of bricks and stone and windows so thick that even Superman couldn't have seen through them. She kept her feet moving, though, until she was draped in the smaller building's shadow. She raced around to the backside and over the parking lot where her shoes kicked up loose gravel, shooting it in all directions. She saw the second gate on her right, still locked, still bound tight by the thick lump of chain that gleamed faintly in the dim light.

When she arrived at the narrow gap between the buildings, her nose caught the scent of something dead nearby. An odor so foul her nose burned, so awful her stomach bucked and heaved. She searched around, breathing into the fabric of her glove, but there was no sign of what was causing it. The stench was sort of like an infected, who always reeked horribly, but they had a smell she could get used to at least, after a while. The smell here was different, stronger, like the dead thing was crawling up the inside of her nose, crawling up into her brain and trying to make a home there. _Oh geez, I don't like! I don't like it!_ She tasted puke in the back of her mouth. Her belly tried to come up her throat, bending her over at the waist. She stumbled forward, trying her hardest not to throw up, and at the moment when it seemed inevitable, the horrible smell began to recede, and suddenly she could breathe again.

She kept going.

The Doctor's building loomed above her, blotting out the sky. There were no lights inside the barred windows, and she wondered if Aunt Liv and Peter were in one of them. She wondered if she wasn't making a humongous mistake. She wondered if she was going to be in one of them soon.

She reached the row of bushes where she'd found the strange hole in the ground, and the window into the room with black spiderwebs with all the people trapped inside. Part of her wondered if she'd actually seen what she'd thought she'd seen. Couldn't it all have been a bad dream? She'd had dreams like that before, dreams where she wasn't sure if she was awake or asleep, or if there was even a difference.

Ella ducked into the gap, retracing the path she had taken before, but this time managed to avoid the hole, and several others just like it as she worked her way to the front of the building. Finally, she reached the end, where the branches stopped, and where the armed guards were visible again, now straight ahead and on her left. Puffs of smoke floated up from their noses and mouths and they talked, their voices faint murmurs that faded in and out with the rise and fall of freezing wind.

Stopped just inside the edge of the bushes, she shifted her gaze from the guards to the open field to her right, all the way out to where the fence disappeared around a brightly lit building that jutted out from the main building. The east wing. Where her mom was being held, and the others. Were they okay? A tremble went through her, and she tore her eyes away, instead searching for some sign of Gina, who should have been out there somewhere. How long would she wait? How long had it taken her to get in place? Ten minutes? Twenty? What if Gina changed her mind? She wouldn't, would she?

_No. She won't. She'll do it_ , Ella decided. _She promised to help me and she will. She promised._

Minutes seemed to tick past. The gray clouds she had seen before were devouring the stars at an alarming rate, covering most of the sky now. Ella shivered, hugging herself tightly. Her teeth chattered. The cold was seeping into her, into her bones. Could someone freeze? Like an ice cube? Would someone find her, frozen, almost in the shape of a ball? An owl hooted, asking its questions. A second round of doubts was just beginning to form when a sudden scream shattered the stillness.

_"Ahhh! Help! Help! Ahhh! It's got me! Help! Help!"_

Even knowing that it wasn't real, that her friend wasn't in any danger, Gina's scream still stood Ella's hair up straight. She tensed, fingernails digging into the bricks through her gloves as the guards' heads began to swivel, searching for where the screams were coming from. She held her breath as Gina's voice continued to let out wail after wail, off somewhere to her right, out of sight near the fence. The guards conferred for a moment, then began to move slowly away from their post.

_It's working!_ Ella grinned, willing them to keep going, to leave their posts behind. And they did, or almost. One of the men stopped halfway, and motioned the other forward. _No! You have to go too! Go!_

But the guard stayed put. His head and eyes remained on his partner, who she had lost sight of, but he seemed unwilling to take another step. She peeked out of the bushes and around the corner toward the covered entrance. It seemed impossibly close and so far away at the same time. There were no bushes, she realized, or anything at all for her to hide behind. It was all wide open.

_Go._ A voice that sounded like her own whispered inside her head. _Go now, while he's not looking! Go now or you never will! Or you're never gonna see Mom or Astrid or any of them again! Go!_

Ella went.

She shot one last glance at the guard, and then ducked out of the bushes. She sprinted for the short flight of steps leading up to the entrance. Her heart thudded so loudly she could no longer hear her herself think, like a crazy drum set in her head, and she felt filled with a strange kind of energy, as if she could run forever and ever. The steps were right in front of her. She raced to the top, then yanked on the handle of the door on her right, which to her utter surprise was unlocked. What she would have done if the door had refused to open, she didn't know. But it didn't refuse, and she slipped inside, into darkness.

#

The entryway was full of the same kind of junk Ella had seen down in the basement of the main building, all rusted piles of twisted metal towering in the corners. She moved past the junk pile, toward a dimly glowing light far down a corridor that was straight like an arrow. The building was silent, and her footsteps, timid as they were, still sounded like earthquakes happening in her ears. She wrinkled her nose at a faint, but sharp smell in the air. It smelled bad, but compared to the awful smell from before, the odor hardly bothered her at all.

In no time at all, she determined that the floor where she'd entered was empty, every room and corridor, and in much poorer condition than the buildings where the rest of them had been living. After a while she came to a lit stairwell and found the upstairs also dark and empty. Most of the walls were simply gone, or had cracks and holes large enough she could have crawled through them — if they hadn't all been filled with cobwebs, at least. The webs were everywhere, strung across almost every surface, and thick with dust. She shivered at the thought, imagining spiders in her hair, spiders creeping down the inside of her shirt, the faint grip of their hairy legs as they swarmed over her skin. Thousands of them. Millions. Fear rapidly blotted out everything, and she fled back to the stairwell.

There was only one place left, and that was down.

She hesitated, still feeling the imagined prickles over her skin. Then, taking a deep breath, she plunged down the steps, taking them all the way to the bottom, where she found a door that lead out into another corridor. There were more lights than above, though it was by no means bright.

Ella waited just inside the doorway. It had to be the right place — there was nowhere else to go.

When no one appeared, she started out, but found only more empty rooms, until, after what seemed like hours of creeping through the shadows, a pair of doors emerged from the dimness. The doors were closed, and seemed different than the others. She stopped short then, noticing something else. Something that sent a sharp jolt of panic through her, and sucked her breath away. Without even knowing how or when it happened, she found herself pressed back against the wall opposite the doors, gaping down at a wad of black wires creeping out from underneath.

Was it _the_ room? It was. Somehow, she just knew it.

She didn't want to look and find out, but at the same time a part of her did want to. She calmed herself, then approached the doors. The handles were wrapped in some kind of black tape. She reached out, intending to open one just a crack, but instead became aware of a faint sound coming from inside. Nostrils flaring, she ripped her hand away, and instead pressed her ear to the cool wood.

It was a voice. Someone was talking. A man. No they were whispering. At first she thought it was just gibberish, mumbo-jumbo like she had heard Astrid say about something Walter had said once, but then she recognized a few words, words being said over and over. Something about a fish, and about it not being happy. _A fish?_ She strained to hear better, mashing her ear into the wood.

" _It was supposed to be me! Me! Not her!_ "

Ella jumped back at the sudden shout, fear taking control of her legs and tripping her over the wad of black wire. She landed hard on her bottom, and at the same instant, the lights in the hall all flared to life, burning impossibly bright. There was a strange buzzing sound coming from inside the room, and then one of the lights back toward the stairwell exploded, raining down a shower of sparks. The man inside the room began to scream again, only there were no words, just anger and rage. Something heavy struck the doors, quivering them open and closed. Metal crashed and banged, and banged again. Then another voice began to scream, different than the first, though still a man, or maybe even a boy. She couldn't tell. The new voice was filled with pain, and terror that seeped into her like the cold, until it had filled her up also, and the only thought left in her head was to get away, _to run like hell_.

Crawling as fast as she could, she scurried across the floor, grabbing with her fingernails in the cracks. Rough bits of concrete and tiny rocks bit into her knees and palms, stinging like tiny needles. When she was far enough away, she leapt to her feet and ran. She ran without a thought to where she was going, blind panic urging her forward, whichever direction she happened to be facing. Which as it turned out, was away from the stairwell, and deeper into the gloom. But none of that mattered. All that mattered was getting away from that awful room and those awful voices inside it.

The black wires ran down the center of the hall, then suddenly swerved into an open doorway. She followed them without thought, into a brightly lit room with a tower of rusted chairs stacked in one corner. The wires continued, snaking across the floor and through another door and into a much smaller room, before finally disappearing through a third door, which led to yet another stairwell. She jerked to a stop in the third doorway, gasping for breath. Inside was a cramped stairwell that led only downward. The stairs were tiny and narrow and made of metal, and wound about a rust-caked pole that went straight down the center.

Would they hold her? The thought of going down them made her want to crawl under her covers, but what choice did she have? Where else could she go? There was no going back, even if she wanted to.

She stepped out onto the first tread, and then froze, eyes widening. Voices were echoing up from below, along with the stomp of heavy feet on metal. She could feel them, each footstep, vibrating the stair tread beneath her shoe.

Someone was coming.

Ella gasped silently, trying her hardest not to make a sound as she lifted her foot and backed out of the doorway. She had to hide. Her eyes darted around the small room but there was nothing, not even a trash pile in which she could bury herself. With a mouthful of panic, she fled back to the larger room with the stack of old chairs. There was nothing there either but the chairs themselves, so she crawled into a tiny space down low at the bottom of the stack.

Something wet and sticky and light pressed across her face like a mask made of the thinnest paper. Cobwebs and spiders sprang to life in her mind, pouring over her skin. Quivering, she scrubbed feverishly at a layer of cobwebs so thick they almost felt like strings. Her stomach rolled over. Icy prickles moved along her scalp, and then down the collar of her shirt. It was the flood of endless spiders. They were crawling across her skin, under her shirt and down her back, wiry legs covered with hair that felt like bristles on a toothbrush. She bit down on her tongue, holding in a terrified scream building in her chest.

But then the voices on the steps were right outside the room, and she forgot all about the spiders and the cobwebs. She forgot about everything except the voice of the man who stormed into the room a second later. It was Mister Overbeek with one of his men, following right behind him. She saw the bald overseer and his man for an instant only, before screwing her eyes shut so tightly that she began to see colors floating in the darkness inside her eyelids.

"...that scrawny little weasel," Mister Overbeek was saying as they rushed past. "If it isn't one thing it's another with that guy. What the hell is his problem now? Between that fucking fire and our intruder, and all the fluctuations we've been having lately, I've had just about enough of Meegar's bullshit for one day. Guy thinks he's unexpendable all of a sudden for some reason."

"That dude gives me the creeps," the second man said. "Always has. I didn't even know he could do that. What if he zaps you like he did that woman?"

Mister Overbeek grunted a harsh laugh. "Not a chance. I got Joseph under my..."

The men's voices faded out, along with the clack of their boots. Ella shimmied out of her hiding place and raced back the winding stairwell, heart booming. She paused for an instant and listened, then flew down the steps to a metal door that was all bent and twisted around the lock, and chock full of holes that she thought might be from bullets.

Ella stared down at the mangled lock. She thought of Peter, and his machine gun. The paint around the holes was missing, and the exposed metal beneath shiny and new-looking. Was it him? Had he done it? Had he shot the door up to get inside? Something told her that he had gone in, but had never come out. She bent down and peered through one of the larger holes. On the other side was an empty hallway.

_Peter is in there, and Aunt Liv, too._ They needed her help, so they could get her mom and the others. There was no one else. Just her. Taking a deep breath, she pushed open the door and slipped inside.

The corridor beyond was narrow and silent, with walls that were flat and peeling, like the painted stripes on the playground at her old school. After a short distance, it emptied into another hallway that was much larger, leading off to the left and right. Bright lights on yellow stands stood at the intersection, shining upward onto a ceiling that was a mishmash of concrete and bricks. Doors that were old and rusty, with thick locks and windows full of bars, just like the imagined dungeon in her head. She was about to open the nearest, when she noticed a thin, rectangular panel in the metal, just below the height of her eyes. The rectangle had a handle, so she slid it open, revealing a tiny slot in the bottom of the door. There was little light to see by, but she could make out that inside was a room hardly bigger than a closet. The tiny space was dark and empty, with not even a bed inside.

She peered about, checking the other doors nearby, and found all had the same kind of panel with the handle. What the slots were for, she had no idea, but she thought she was in the right place — that in one of these rooms, she would find Aunt Liv or Peter. _They're here. They have to be here._

Ella headed to her left, peering through the slot in each door as she went, and then turning down another corridor, and then another. The corridor seemed endless, and she worried about finding her way out again. And to make matters worse, the tiny rooms were all empty, until she opened the slot in a door down a short side corridor, and something moved inside.

"No! Go away!" a voice shouted. "Please! Go away! No. Wait! Who are you? Who are you! You have to help me! Help me!" A man she had never seen before crawled forward into the light, wearing only a weird shirt that looked almost like a dress. His legs were bare, with no socks either. His face was pale beneath a scraggly beard, and his eyes seemed to glow in the light.

"The... the door is locked, mister," she squeaked, pulling weakly on the handle. "I don't have the key. I don't have a key. I can't help you."

"I don't want out! You have to kill me!" the man inside whispered. "Before he comes back! Before he does it again. You don't know what he's done to me! I can't take it anymore. You have to kill me!" An arm shot out of the hole, impossibly thin, and she fell back on her rear, avoiding its grip. "KILL ME!"

Ella scrambled to her feet, backing away from the roving hand. "I can't help you," she said, shaking all over. Her eyes bulged open all the way. Her back smacked into the wall opposite the door. She found her hand digging into her coat pocket, holding on hard to Sonia's strange foldable knife.

Without another word she fled, leaving the man behind. His screams echoed behind her, driving her onward as if he were pushing her with his hand. When she reached the main corridor, she tried to remember which way she'd come from but couldn't. Had she turned left or right? The man's voice echoed through the hall behind her.

_He wants me to kill him. Why would he want me to do that?_ The thought kept forming, over and over.

She turned right, hoping it was the right way, and shortly came to a door that was different than the others. Set in its upper half was a cloudy window with a metal grate on the inside. She lifted up on her toes and peered through the glass. Inside was a short hallway, and then another door with a window. The door was unlocked, and she pulled it open. She rushed to the next window and lifted up one her toes, pressing her face to the glass.

Inside was a room full of long tables and shelves full of equipment, that sort of looked like the kind of junk she remembered from Walter's lab, only way more creepy. There was a long sink that reflected the bright lights shining down, and other doors with windows leading out, one on each wall.

_This has to be it_ , she thought for the second time. The room was deserted, and she cracked open the door and slipped inside. _This is the place, I know it_.

The room smelled like metal and blood and something else that made her stomach queasy. She passed through it quickly, and avoided looking too closely at several dark and wet spots near a drain in the center of the floor, or at a number of wicked-looking saws laid out on one of the tables. What they were for she could only imagine, but she tried hard to not to imagine, she tried to think of anything, anything else at all, as she was certain there had been red specks on some of those teeth, red specks and other things which she refused to let her brain classify.

She headed straight for the door opposite the one she had entered, as that seemed the easiest way to remember the way out. On her way there, she passed by a cabinet on wheels with glass doors that was full of tiny glass jars and orange pill bottles like the ones that had been behind the mirror in her mom's bathroom back home. Beyond the next door was another short hallway, with another door at the far end, that lead to another corridor that looked nearly the same as where she'd come from, like looking into a mirror. She wondered how far the hallways went, if they ever ended, and if she would become hopelessly lost and wander forever, like someone from a scary story, trapped in some evil wizard's dungeon.

In the next corridor, she took only a few steps before voices stopped her cold. She held her breath, ready to bolt back into the door behind her, but it didn't seem like they were moving toward her, or moving at all. Who was it? What where they doing? She crept closer until she reached the next hallway. Around the corner was a square of light, cast on the wall by an open door.

" _...never seen anything like this before. I never even imagined it possible, in truth. Teleportation. Think of it, Alex. She could change everything. She could be the link I've been looking for._ "

Ella sucked in a breath, holding it until her lungs felt like they might burst. It was him — the Doctor. She shrank back around the corner, trembling, and then exhaled huge, rasping breaths.

" _What will you do? Continue with the procedure?_ " a second voice asked.

" _No. No, I don't believe so_ ," the Doctor continued after a moment. " _We must study her carefully — the inner brain in particular._ " She heard a fleshy smacking sound. " _Damn this primitive dungeon. What I wouldn't give for a proper MRI machine, but Joseph's control over the grid — or even himself, I'm afraid — have proven he's nowhere near ready for such a task, and more than likely never will be. It's a pity we were unable to locate any of the others. But I must see what is going on inside her head, and I'm afraid the only option left to us is intra-operative brain mapping_ _._ "

The second voice let out a low whistle. " _What if she disappears again? How can you even stop something like that?_ "

" _It seems unlikely that she will, given that if she is able to manifest this ability at will, she would have done so already to escape her confinement. I believe it was merely a reflex action, and that she doesn't actually know what she is doing. But to be safe, it would be best if we proceed with moderate sedation. Perhaps..._ "

" _Midazolam?_ "

" _Just so. Twenty milligrams. Three, no, five doses for the duration, just to be sure._

" _I'll get them ready. We're running low but should have more than enough. What will you do in the meantime?_ "

" _I'm not sure. Something has only just occurred to me, at this very moment. A certain... familiarity. If my memory is correct, there were... rumors, back in my university days. I must consult my journals, they go back for decades. I may have written something down. I'll be in my office_ _. Until then keep a close eye on her. The instant she wakes you must start administering the midazolam, then come find me. You were right, Alex, we dare not take the risk of her escaping again. She's far too important."_

Ella had no idea who the _she_ was, or what tele-port-ing was, either, but she thought they were talking about medicine, about giving shots like how Walter and Peter used to talk about medicine back at the lab with Aunt Liv and Astrid. Back when Walter was still trying to cure the infection. She heard a strange scraping sound, and then footsteps. They were coming closer.

Biting off a yelp of fear, she turned and sped back into the laboratory, where, she saw with mounting horror, Mister Overbeek's bald head through the clouded window in the door directly across from her. He was just opening the outer door, and heading straight toward her. Could he see her if she could see him?

The fear filling up her belly turned hard and cold, all at the same time, and suddenly she had to pee more than she could ever recall. Changing course, she swerved toward the door to her right, crashing through it as quietly as she could manage. No sooner than she shut it behind her, than Mister Overbeek pushed into the lab on her right, and the man that had taken Walter away entered from the left, through the door where she'd heard the Doctor talking. The two men spoke for a moment, and then Mister Overbeek's eyes suddenly seemed to glance in her direction.

With a terrified gasp, she turned and fled through the next door, out into another corridor that seemed a mirror image of the others, with dim lights glowing here and there. She ran without thought, the rush of blood screaming in her ears. She ran as fast as her feet would carry her, flying past the same low slots she'd seen before, the same kind of doors with tiny windows set high up off the ground. There were no sounds, only her pounding feet, the hisses of someone's breath, hers maybe, or maybe it was a monster hissing over her shoulder. Finally, after taking turn after turn, she ducked into a side passage, where the light from the main corridor could barely reach. There was a dark spot at the very back, and she crouched down there, making herself as small as possible.

Had he seen her? Had he known she was watching them? Was he following? Was Mister Overbeek after her? Ella's breath roared in her ears, like the wind between skyscrapers. Surely they could hear it, surely _he_ could hear it, even from all the way back in the creepy laboratory. She waited, lips pressed together, neck straining as she exhaled slowly through the nose. She strained to listen then, certain she would hear the clatter of rushing footsteps at any moment. Time passed, first a minute or two and then more, until it seemed as if she'd been crouched, waiting in the dark for hours and hours.

Quivering in the dark, she waited for some sign that he had, or that he hadn't. Something that would tell her what to do. The floor felt cold on her bottom, like ice was soaking in through her jeans. After a while, her heart began to quiet, returning to its normal gait. With the fear receding, she felt empty and drained on the inside. Or was she just exhausted, like her mom always used to say when she would run around at night before bed time.

Ella yawned, then rested her chin on her knees to wait. _Just a few minutes, and then I'll go. Just a minute, and then I'll be ready_ _._

Shortly, she yawned again. And then her eyelids slowly drifted downward, fluttering once, twice, before she pressed them open all the way. A few minutes later it happened again. Her breathing evened out, and when her eyelids drifted downward a third time, there was no resistance.

#

* * *

#

A splitting headache pulled Olivia back to the real world, yanking her from a cloudy dream in which she'd been trapped inside a dark box that seemed to grow smaller and more cramped with every breath she took, every cry for help.

Blinding lights shone down from above, intensifying a pulse of agony that lay behind her left eye by exponential degrees. She blinked at the brightness and tried to turn her head away, but she could not. With her failure, came the awareness that something large and round was wedged down between her teeth, a something that tasted like sweat and blood and a little like leather. She exhaled blasts of air through her nose, straining to move. The thing between her teeth was a hard gag, and was serving double duty as a means of binding her head in place. Distantly, she felt tight bands clamped about her arms and legs, another across her chest squashing her breasts flat. She had come full circle, right back to where she'd started. Rolling her eyes, she found a pale green gown covering her left shoulder. It was a minor detail, but knowledge that she was no longer naked was somewhat reassuring.

What had happened? She had escaped, hadn't she? _I did. I know I did. There was a hospital, wasn't there? It worked. I went to the other side, to that other world._ She thought about it, and memories came flooding back.

There had been a hospital, a morgue, people had seen her, men and women, children. A security guard, coming straight at her. Had they known she'd hadn't belonged? She'd been unable to hold herself there, and had come back to... what? The fog continued to clear, the veil of confusion parting. She'd been in a dark room. There had been a man. He'd been thin, almost skin and bone, with a wild beard that only added to his aura of strangeness. He'd been raving, had seemed utterly insane. What had he said to her? That he'd seen her? Seen her what? And then he'd done something. There had been a flash of light, and pain.

What had he done? Was he like her? Did he have abilities? Whatever it was and whatever he was, he had been one of Jacob Fischer's men. And now she was back in a cell. Bound hand and foot, and with a gag this time, to boot.

She glanced around the room, taking in what she could of her surroundings. It was a different room. Larger than before, and possibly cleaner, though clean was only a relative term in a basement dungeon. Instead of one surgical light blazing overhead there were two. Their heat beamed down, subtly warming the surface of her skin. At her feet was a row of equipment of some kind, with gauges and dials and lights that would pulse on and off at regular intervals. On the far right edge of her limited field of view was a table with a stainless steel tray holding a shiny assortment of saws and scalpels and forceps and cruel-looking scissors, all laid out in a neat row. She blew out again, fighting to remain calm. There was only one use for such evil instruments, and she had the distinct feeling that it was exactly what she thought it might be.

Abruptly, the hard, leather-wrapped gag between her teeth took on a new horrible meaning. Something was holding it in place. What if it wasn't to keep her quiet, but to keep her from spitting it out? What if she was going to need it? Then a new thought struck, terrifying in its implications.

Fischer had seen her disappear.

_I must have vanished, right before his eyes._ Olivia thought, swallowing a dollop of saliva. A cold feeling swept through her gut. _He knows about me. He knows I'm different._ Her breath whistled in and out through the crack of her lips on either side of the gag.

Before she could deliberate further, a door screeched open behind her. There was a pause of silence, and then footsteps drew near.

The man who stepped into view wore a white smock covered by dark stains, and was familiar to her. She had seen him, several times before. The Doctor's man, Alex, who had come bearing food, and who had tried to break her will. The man glanced once in her direction, then set a handful of loaded syringes down beside the scalpels, along with some kind of bullet-shaped power tool sporting a flat saw blade the size of her fist on its business end.

_Oh, god... I'm in trouble, Peter_. She was unable to tear her gaze from the device, from the saw blade, from its teeth. Was that hair on it? Flesh? _Oh jesus. Oh fuck. This is bad. This is really bad._

The man named Alex approached, watching her closely, as if he thought she might vanish at any moment, or, as if she were a cornered wild animal, and a dangerous one. From the shy way he went about it, she had the feeling that he was terrified of her, bound as she was, as if he thought she might make _him_ disappear. The thought was reassuring, for a moment, at least. Until he reached her side, and quickly stabbed the needle into her bicep, shooting her up with something that seemed to scald her veins from the inside out.

The room, the short little Asian man ( _what was his name again?_ ) and everything else grew foggy, receding away, pulling back, growing smaller and smaller and smaller. _What's... happening?_ Olivia blinked, bowing under the drug-induced fog. She struggled to hold on, to remain conscious, but soon found that forming a complete thought was beyond her. Her mind was decelerating, like a spinning top, slowing, wobbling from side to side before finally tipping over. _I... what... ugh... the... ahhhhh... Peter... where... I... help..._

Something wet slid down the side of her face, rolling down into the neck of her gown. Her gaze drifted to a dark splotch on the ceiling between the bright lights, and stayed there, unblinking.

#

* * *

#

Ella jerked, and opened her eyes. What had just happened? Had she been asleep? _I was. I fell asleep. That was dumb_ _._ How could she have fallen asleep? In the middle of a creepy dungeon? And what had just woken her up?

There had been a noise, inside her dream. A sound. Laughter? Someone had been laughing. Coming from outside. She climbed to her feet, working the pins and needles out of her rear end. How long had she been sitting there? Hours? Anyone could have found her. Anyone at all.

_But they didn't, or I'd be in one of the rooms right now_. That much seemed certain. _Or I'd be dead. Or both_ _._

She searched the nearby darkness and found herself in a short corridor, with locked cell doors on either side. Empty cells. Ahead, the main hall passed by, a gray haze of light. Something had woken her, but it wasn't here. Around the corner? Back in the main passage? There was only one way to find out.

Creeping forward, she hugged the wall. As she neared the main corridor, a voice spoke from somewhere nearby. A man. She moved faster, out into the passage. It was coming from her right, but there was no one in sight. Were they in a cell? She kept going, turning down another side corridor, this one lit by a single light overhead light emitting a warm glow. The corridor contained four cell doors, two on either side. The man continued to speak, his voice droning on. Someone had stolen his blood, it seemed, and more than once. _His blood?_ She homed in on the voice, walking carefully on her tippy-toes toward the last door in the row. There was faint tapping sound, like metal hitting on metal. Then all of a sudden a different voice spoke, from inside the cell door directly beside her.

Ella froze, then turned slowly to the door on her right, eyes widening. The voice let out a low laugh, and she was sure. Suddenly she couldn't breathe, as if her chest was filling up with light, only light made of joy. She had done it! She'd found him.

With a gasp, she dropped to her knees and slid back the narrow slot in the door. "Peter!" she whispered. "Peter, is that you?"

There was a moment of silence. "Ella...?" It _was_ him! He sounded shocked, and she supposed she couldn't blame him. He had told her to leave, after all. A shadow moved inside the room, and then he was there, kneeling down opposite her, his familiar blue eyes shiny in the square of light. "Ella, what the hell are you doing here?"

"Who's there?" the first voice hissed from the next cell over. "Who the hell are you talking to?"

Peter's face turned from the slot for a moment. "It's my... my girlfriend's niece. She's here... Somehow." He turned back to the door, speaking in a rush. "Ella, how _did_ you get in here? Are you alone? Where are the others? And have you seen your aunt?"

Ella shook her head. "I haven't seen her, Peter," she told him. "And the others are all gone. Mister Overbeek came this morning, and took them away. They're all prisoners now, too. But they're in a different building, where all the guards are. I couldn't help them. Somehow Mister Overbeek knew we were gonna leave. When he came to our room, Mom shoved me under our bed, and they didn't find me. Then Gina helped me sneak inside. It was all I could think of to do, Peter."

"Is that a fucking kid?" the man in the other cell said. "A fucking child? You've gotta be shitting me! I can't believe this is happening. The first real chance at escape in months, and it's a fucking kid. What the hell is she gonna do?"

The man seemed mad at her, but she had no idea why he would be. She didn't even know him! Or he her!

"Will you shut the hell up?" Peter growled, darting another glance behind him. "Ella, do you have keys? Is there anyway to open our doors?"

She glanced up at the door lock's keyhole. "The doors were all open on the way here, Peter. I don't have any keys."

"Great! Perfect!" the man in next cell barked. "That's the best news I've heard in months! Kick-ass rescue you've mounted here, Bishop! Fuck!"

"Ignore him," Peter said, eyes tightening with irritation through the window. "Ella, I know this is asking a lot, but you have to find the keys. They have to be arou—"

At that moment a long, drawn out grinding noise echoed through the corridors. Ella flinched, drawing back from the narrow slot and whirling around. The noise continued, along with a kind of rattling sound that made her think of her mother, when she would wash the dishes back home. But whatever it was, it was coming closer, straight toward them, it seemed.

"Shit...!" Peter cursed. "Someone's coming!"

"It's the food cart," the stranger said through his door. "Somebody's bringing us breakfast."

Peter leaned close to the slot, peering down the corridor. "Ella, you have to get out of here. Find somewhere to hide! If they find you here, they'll hurt you!"

Ella looked toward the noise, and then back to Peter's door. An idea began to take shape, the barest outlines of a plan. What would the guard do if he found her standing outside of Peter's cell? She had noticed certain things about almost all adults over the course of her short life; how they often said one thing but actually meant the opposite; and how they would treat her differently if there were tears on her face, if her eyes were red, if she was crying. Such knowledge had been useful in the past, to get out of trouble, mostly — though it had become harder and harder to fool her mother — but could it work here?

_I have to be brave, braver than I've ever been before. Even braver than when I saved Astrid_. Could she do it? Her stomach began to churn, spreading a sick stain of a feeling through her chest. _They're the bad guys_ , she told herself, swallowing down a bad taste in her mouth. _The worst guys_. In her coat pocket, Sonia's odd knife suddenly seemed heavy, like a stone pulling toward the ground. She wrapped her fingers around its cold handle.

"Ella, get out of here!" Peter hissed again through the door. His voice was panicked, filled with fear. "You have to hide. Now. Please!"

"I have an idea, Peter," she said softly, sliding the tiny door shut, and then turning away from him. "Please don't be mad at me."

#

* * *

#

Olivia blinked, then gasped, pulling in a whistling breath around the obstruction wedged between her lips. She tasted blood. Tiny pricks of fire burned at the corners of her mouth where the skin was stretched beyond its limit. Some amount of time had passed, but how much was impossible to guess. A dense fog filled the inside of her head. Light bombarded her eyes from a pair of twin suns circling overhead.

For a while, there had been nothing, and the accumulated awareness in the center of her forehead that made up the entirety of her self had floated in a dull grayness that had no time or meaning. But then something had drawn her back, had jarred her loose from that place, and the passage of time had resumed its steady pace, and so with it came awareness.

"Is she still out?"

The voice that spoke sounded as if it were coming from underwater. Either that, or she was.

A wavy face appeared above her, zooming in close like a curious fish. Something thin and narrow glided back and forth in front of her eyes. She focused on it, and shortly the thing resolved into a yellow stick, with a black number two written below one pink end.

It was a pencil.

_Yes. That's what it is._

As if recognition of a simple object had broken down some sort of barrier holding back her psyche, the clouds in her mind began to part, and she could think again. She took stock of the rest of her, and found her body distant, her arms and legs dull points of sensations far away from the rest of her. They were useless for the moment, even if she wasn't still bound.

"Not completely," another voice answered. It was closer than the first, right above her, in fact. The underwater effect dissipated with each word that followed. "She should be good for another thirty minutes or so before she'll need another dose."

"Excellent. Let us proceed then."

A man wearing a baby-blue surgical mask stepped into view. Though his face was obscured, she recognized Jacob Fischer at once, from the dead eyes staring down, studying her face intently. Olivia met his gaze with the hottest glare she could muster.

"Not quite as out of it as you appear, are you, my dear Olivia?" he said softly, leaning in close enough that for an instant she thought he was about to kiss her through his mask. Revulsion filled her at the thought. "I was going to make you like Joseph, if I could, as you seemed a perfect candidate. Young and healthy, in the prime of your life and strong of will. You might have even replaced him in time, as he is a weak and tepid thing, and more often than not quite difficult to work with. But barring that, I would have added you to the grid, for the benefit of everyone living here. But that's all changed, now. You have changed that. It seems you are hardly in need of improvement, are you, Olivia?"

He straightened and pulled a pair of latex gloves from his pocket, smacking them into place, one after another. "Some time ago, years if not decades, there were rumors spreading through the ranks of certain scientific circles. Rumors of black experiments, conducted out on the fringes of society." He pulled a black marker from his pocket and removed the cap, then leaned in close again, holding the marker steady in his right hand. "The late and great William Bell was always associated with these rumors, Bell and another man. Walter Bishop. Or is it Bentley?" he muttered, then shook his head with irritation before continuing. "Each were brilliant scientists in their own right, but together? Partners in crime, they were. The rumors spoke of unlocking the human potential, of experiments performed on young children, on boys and girls little more than babies. Heinous crimes, if in fact true. Or the rumors claimed. But if someone like you is the end result, are they truly crimes? I wonder. As _homo sapiens_ , our only task is to evolve, is it not? What matters how it comes about?"

Fischer began to draw on her face then, marking wet lines across her forehead, and back into her hair line along her scalp, parting the hair carefully, almost gently. "The human brain is capable of so much," he said calmly. His face was inches from her own, eyes intent on his artwork. " So much more than anyone ever suspected. I've never seen anyone like you before. My augmentation of poor Joseph and the grid itself are rudimentary procedures at best, primitive, compared to what you might be capable of. I'm afraid this is simply too great an opportunity for groundbreaking research to pass up. For the benefit of everyone, on behalf ofour species as a whole, it is my duty to find out what make you different, to find out what makes you tick, in layman's terms." He pulled away, replacing the cap on the black marker. "I must apologize in advance, but I'm afraid it is going to hurt, and more than likely quite a lot. But if it is any consolation, the pain shouldn't last too long. You see, the human brain has no sensory nerve endings."

Olivia bit down on the bundle of leather. Tears rolled down her face as she thrashed about on the table, or tried to, straining weakly against the straps holding her down. _You bastard!_ She screamed over and over around the gag. _Bastard!_ But all that came out were wordless growls, little more than whimpers.

He turned away as if her protests were of no consequence, greeting the arrival of another person, out of her view. "Ah. I see you've decided to join us after all, Kyle," he said. "This should prove very enlightening, to say the least. I'll be removing a section of the subject's scalp to begin, and then we'll take a few peeks inside before we begin the dissection. Alex. Scalpel. And the scale, also. We'll need precise measurements, the parietal lobe, the temporal, and occipital, being our main areas of interest to start."

A scalpel appeared in Joseph Fischer's hand, its blade glistening with sharpness. He turned the handle over with practiced fingers, and she watched the razor descend, unable to look or even blink. The roar of panic filled the inside of her head, her thumping heart, blood rushing, pounding through her veins. Her voice was screaming, echoing, inside, outside of her head, there was no difference. The Doctor leaned over her, breath reeking like rancid garlic as he delicately rested the side of his hand against her forehead.

He was going to cut her open. He was going to cut out her brain. _This can't be happening. This can't be happening..._ Her mind went blank. There was only unbridled terror, mindless, blotting out everything but a single witless phrase stuck in a loop. _Oh god oh god oh god oh god oh god oh god oh god..._

There was pressure, and the fire erupted above her right eye, moving slowly toward her temple. Olivia screamed, agony giving her renewed strength as she clamped down on the leather strap. She felt her eyes bulging, and thought they would either explode, or failing that, pop out of her head. The pressure changed directions, and the fire moved upward toward her scalp. Blood poured into the cavities of her eyes sockets, obscuring the Doctor's face and the pairs of lights shining down, casting the room in a pinkish hue. Screams of agony and rage tore through her lungs, ripping her throat raw. Abruptly, the pressure stopped, and she heard a metallic clink through the haze of pain. Her forehead burned like it had been dipped in acid, like her flesh was being peeled away. Gasping, she tried to blink the blood away but there was too much; it was pouring down her face, collecting in the hollows of her shoulders.

Something whirled to life with an electronic roar that sounded like a drill, but it wasn't a drill at all, but the bullet-shaped power saw. He was going to use it on her. He was going to cut open her skull, and then scoop out her brain, like he was opening a can of tuna.

_I'm going to die. He's going to kill me, cut me open and dissect me like a frog_. They were the first rational thoughts she'd had since the nightmare had begun. And they were true thoughts. _No. It can't end this way. It can't._ The power saw drew closer, raising the hairs on the inside of her ears. Her eyes stung with tears and blood. _It can't end like this. I have to see Peter again. I have to find my family_ _!_

The fiery agony tracing along her scalp deepened. Pain filtered down through her chest, out through her limbs to her fingers and toes. All there was, was pain. She was on fire with it. _Escape. A way out._ Straining against her bonds, she tensed every muscle in her body, until her hips lifted off the table. Some sound was roaring in her ears, even louder than the power saw, and it was her own voice, her own screams of defiance. Jacob Fischer gave a harsh order and then hands were on her waist, slamming her back down with harsh cruelty. The power saw screamed, spinning up to cutting speed with the whine of a mechanical tornado.

Olivia focused on the pain, the agony; they were all she could focus on — there was nothing else. Only pain. And agony. She soaked them up like a dried sponge. Her mind gasped. _Escape. A way out._ The whine of the saw was right on top of her, its biting teeth spinning inches from her flesh. Her head jerked as the teeth bit into her, grinding on bone. The saw's tenor changed, growing deeper. Fresh pain interlaced with old, melding together into a torrent of affliction that she was certain would either kill her, or drive her mad if it continued.

Time slowed down, each moment of agony becoming elastic.

Then, in the midst of her torment, she felt something. A sense of being near something, that she was hovering on the brink. Of what, she knew not, but impressions of _things_ were forming, coalescing, in the recesses of her fraying mind. The _things_ had shapes and sizes, they had the textures of memory, only memories that none of her five faculties were fully equipped to process or even recognize. It was something else. Something _other_. Something foreign, outside of herself. Then it came to her, after a moment or an eternity, and like pieces of a complex puzzle sliding into their proper places, the picture within was revealed.

It was the room.

She was feeling it. The room, and the men in it. The light overhead and its distant heat; the tables and a chair over in the corner behind her; the misshapen bricks inside the walls and the peeling ceiling overhead; the cool concrete upon which the gurney sat, and the must odor of gravel and dirt and clay below, all the way down, to the atoms, where the particles of reality shimmered at light-speed, spinning, spinning, spinning...

And then she became aware of something else — a kind of brightness in her mind, yet separate from her at the same time, apart. Within the brightness was something, an aura, a kind of _potential_. She was feeling it, but how? And with what? _What is happening to me?_ The thought was distant, but the brightness, the _potential_ , was even further, far away from her, yet at the same time, it was paradoxically right beside her, within her reach. Was any of it real? Or was she now insane? She stretched out for it anyway, strained with every particle of her being, every ounce of her will.

Above her, far away from her discorporeal self, there was distant tugging. She came back a little, and felt the Doctor pulling at something, felt his determination. Her skin? Electric pain stretched her will taut. He was pulling something off, some part of her. Outrage filled her then, outrage that he should do such a thing, and to her, that he _could_ do such a thing. Something began to unfurl inside her, a part of her mind, maybe, a part of her soul.

She was a newborn, opening her eyes to the world for the first time. She was a flower, a tulip, petals opening in supplication to the rising sun, straining upward. Time slowed further, to a crawl, bringing an eternity of white-hot agony. The bright something was closer now, tantalizing. She could feel them! They weren't light at all, but some kind of energy that pulsed and beckoned, infinitesimal particles moving at the speed of infinity. And she could take them in if she wanted, if she so chose. She could use it. _How am I doing this? Am I even doing anything at all?_ The vague thoughts were pertinent, yet had no answer. There was no explanation, only that the knowledge was intrinsic, involuntary, like eating or breathing, or making love. She reached out, taking _it_ in, consuming it — with what, exactly, she had no idea — until all that was left was a single, bristly aura that stubbornly resisted her pull.

Far, far away, percolating down from some unimaginable height, distant voices reached her. A voice shouted orders, commanding action. The shouts carried within them traces of desperation, of confusion, of fear. The voices called her back, back to the room, and her body, which was a riot of pain.

Olivia's head was on fire, burning pain without end. Through the pain she could sense the room again, sense the men around her, each staccato thump of their racing hearts, smell the stink of their fear, their confused uncertainty. They were connected — everything was connected. The men and the room, the walls around her. Even the air itself, like paint on a canvas, though it went deeper than that, much deeper. Connected by irresistible lines of force that stitched reality together. She could feel them, sense them, traverse their infinite lengths with a thought. Or, it came to her, manipulate them if desired.

The tulip in her mind was brimming with energy, crackling with potential. Its petals were closed, holding it all inside, bursting at the seams from the effort. _I have to release it, I have to let it out._ Or else that terrible energy would consume her, body, mind, and soul. Without knowing how she knew, she knew it. _But how?_

Like before, the knowledge was automatic, the learning and doing one and the same. Instinctual, like learning to crawl, and then to walk. And then to run. All that was required was to surrender. Become a conduit. A conductor.

Olivia's eyes snapped open.

#

* * *

#

The grinding noise sort of reminded Ella of a grocery cart being pushed across a bumpy parking lot — only full of metal and dishes instead of groceries — came closer and closer.

"Ella!" Peter's low cry carried through the door behind her. "Ella get out of here!"

Ella shook her head and ignored him. She couldn't look back. If she did, she might not be able to do it, to go through with her plan. The Doctor and his men were bad men. The worst men, and evil, it seemed to her. Like in a story, or fairy tale. They wanted to hurt her, hurt her mom, Aunt Liv, and all the others. _I can't let them. Peter can stop them, but he has to be free to do it. And there's only me._

Her idea was dangerous, and it might even make her bad, too; she wasn't sure how being good or bad worked. She thought of her aunt, and what she would do. Once, not too long before the monsters had come, she remembered her mom asking Aunt Liv if she had ever shot someone, if she had ever killed someone. And her aunt had nodded slowly, her face both serious and sad as she replied. _But only if I had to, Rach. Only if there was no other way_ _._

There was no other way.

"Ella! Hide! Ella!" Peter's voice was terrified behind her.

Instead of hiding, she pulled the foldable knife from her pocket and opened it. Carefully, she pushed it up her sleeve, handle first, then let the square tip fall back into her palm, holding it there with her fingers. Then she moved just down the hall from Peter's room and sat down against the wall, hugging her knees, squeezing the knife in her sleeve until her hand shook.

The grinding grocery cart noise was close, just around the corner. The floor was rough and bumpy, and ice cold through her jeans, freezing her bottom. Shuddering more from what was about to happen than from the cold, she screwed her eyes shut and began to whimper, and then to cry. It wasn't hard to make it real because it was real. She let it all out, everything she'd been holding inside. From the moment she'd woken up to being shoved under her bed. The terrible fear, for herself, for her mom and the others, the terror at thought of what she must do; it all came gushing out in a flood of tears that pattered down the front of her coat.

"Hey!" a man yelled suddenly.

Footsteps pounded toward her across the concrete. Sobbing, Ella looked up, lips quivering as she met his gaze. It was a man in a black baseball hat, with white letters overlapping above the brim. He had a pointed nose and big ears that stuck out to the sides. She had seen him before. She thought his name might be Daniel, like a boy from her class.

"What the hell are you doing down here, kid? How did you even get in here!"

"I... I... got lost, mister," she whimpered, trembling all over. "I was... in... the... tunnel... I couldn't get out!"

"Tunnel? What tunnel? What are you talking about?"

"I don't know!" she cried, shaking her head, sniffling loudly. "I can't find it now! And now I'm gonna be in trouble!"

"Ahh fuck...," the man whose name might have been Daniel muttered, rubbing his jaw. He glanced around, as if he was trying to figure out what to do with her. Down the hall, Ella spotted a metal cart on wheels, holding what looked like plates of food. "Hey. Aren't you the one Overbeek was looking for all day?"

"I don't know...," she whispered fearfully. "I can't... I can't find my mom anywhere. I can't find her at all!"

"Well you can't stay here. C'mon. I'll take you out."

She shook her head, squeezing the knife in her fist. "I'll get in trouble if I go back! I'll get in big trouble!"

The man sighed. "Yeah. You probably will. But you can't stay here."

Ella looked down at the floor, shaking her head once more. She heard him sigh again above her, and then a pair of hands reached down, gripping her beneath her shoulders. She was lifted up, and onto his hip. He held her funny, like he'd never picked up someone her size before. His eyes were brown, she noticed, and there was a yucky-looking sore on the corner of his mouth. And when he talked, she could see a large bump in the middle of his throat moving up and down.

"I'm sorry, kid," he said, "but you really aren't supposed to be down here. They aren't gonna like it. Not one bit."

"I'm sorry, too, mister," she whispered, keeping her eyes lowered. Mister Overbeek's warning to her mother from that morning suddenly played in her head, loud, like he was talking beside her. She let the knife drop down into her palm. She felt fire as the blade nicked the edge of her thumb, but she caught the handle before it could drop to the floor. "I'm sorry," she said again, and leaned back in his arms until there was a big enough space between them.

The man named Daniel frowned. "What do you-"

Before he could say anything more, Ella slashed the blade across his throat, pressing in as hard as she could. The thin blade cut in deep, parting the skin where the big lump was like it wasn't skin at all, but butter or jello. Or water. But it wasn't water that came out.

It was blood. Blood everywhere, hot blood squirting across her face, into her mouth and eyes. The man named Daniel let out a horrible, choked scream and dropped her on the floor. Sonia's knife landed beside her, bouncing end over end. His hands went to his throat, eyes widening with terror as blood gushed between his cupped fingers, a crimson river spilling down the front of his coat. Ella backed away on her rear, backed away until her head and shoulders struck a wall. She was screaming also, and couldn't stop. Her voice echoed from everywhere. Peter's voice was there also, but she could hardly hear him.

The man took a step toward her, then fell to his knees. His lips made a terrible wet and bubbly choking sound, widening into a circle, and then blood was pouring out of his mouth, spilling over his chin down into his beard. He crawled toward her, eyes locked onto hers, blazing with something she couldn't recognize. Then the light in his eyes began to leave him. Abruptly, he collapsed on his side, rolling over onto his back, knees bent, red-coated hands falling out to either side. She watched his lips move, opening and closing, his slight gasps growing shorter and shorter. Beneath him, a dark stain was spreading toward her across the floor.

Ella's body shook all over. Her head was empty, filled with nothing. She closed her mouth, cutting herself off. _I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. But you were bad. You were hurting my family, my friends. I'm sorry._

The man stopped moving. Was he dead? She couldn't take her eyes his red lips, and the crimson bubble that had formed between them, all the while picturing the fish tank in her classroom, and how all the fishes would come to the top when it was feeding time, mouths opening and closing.

A voice in her head warned her that there was little time, that she had to get up, and that she had to hurry. _He'll turn into a monster. Into a fresh. Get up. GET UP_ _!_

She got up, wincing as she stepped into the pool of blood, and crossed over to the man's body. His eyes were frozen, staring upward. She looked at them once, then bent down, snaking her hands into his pockets. There was a set of keys in each of them, one set shiny and new, the other set thick and rusted. She snatched them both, and rushed to Peter's door.

"Ella, is that you?" Peter said. His voice was high-pitched and loud through the cell door. "What was that noise? Ella? Ella!"

Ella found that she couldn't reply. She couldn't speak. Peter would see what she had done soon enough.

Her hands trembled violently as she tried the rusted keys first, one after another, darting quick glances back at the body on the floor. It lay still, but it wouldn't stay that way. Finally, one of the keys fit, sliding into the lock with a squeak. She tried to turn it, twisting until her fingers hurt, but it didn't move. It was stuck. She heard a sound behind her, and icy panic flooded her veins. She almost pulled the key out, but then remembered to try the other direction. The key turned but it was rough and sticky, like it needed oil, like her Daddy had used to do with the door hinges in their house. _What's that, Daddy? WD40, Ell. It's the greatest thing ever made, besides duck tape._ She heard and felt a metallic click, and then the key stopped turning. At the same instant there was a groaning noise behind her, and a gush of hot wetness squirted down her leg.

She yanked the door open, and there was Peter, staring down at her. She rushed forward, crashing into his arms, tears burning down her cheeks. "We have to hurry, Peter!" she said into his shirt. "The monster's going to wake up! You have to hurry." Peter seemed to stiffen above her, and she pulled away, cringing in horror at the stunned look on his face, at the way his mouth dropped open at what she'd done. "I'm sorry! But I had to do it. I had to," she wailed.

Peter blinked, then snapped his mouth shut. "I... it's okay, Ella. You did what you had to. C'mon."

He led her out into the corridor, then grabbed the dead man by the ankles and dragged him back into his cell. The dead man's arms and legs began to move as he did so, and a low growl filled the corridor, a hiss of rage. He dropped the body inside the room, then leapt back, slamming the door shut and quickly turning the key. Not more than a second passed before a heavy thud slammed into the door. Peter stared in through the window for a moment, then rubbed a hand through his hair, letting out a long breath.

"Whew. That was... that was too close," he muttered, turning to her. "Are you okay?"

Ella shook her head. "I'm sorry I did it," she whispered, unable to meet his eyes. "But he was going to hurt you and Mom and Aunt Liv. I didn't know what else to do. I'm sorry." She lifted her head. "...Am I bad now, Peter?"

Peter knelt down in front of her. He took a moment, wiping her face with the bottom of his shirt, then enfolded her in his arms. "No. You're not, bad, Ella," he said into her hair. "You haven't done anything wrong. Do you hear me? You didn't do anything wrong. They're the bad ones. And sometimes that's the only way to stop them. Your aunt would be proud of you. Do you understand?"

Ella nodded, wiping her runny nose and sniffling.

"Now. Let's get on with this," Peter said. His face was hard as he rose to his feet. He looked angry, but she didn't think it was at her. Grabbing Sonia's blood covered knife off the floor, he moved down the corridor to the next cell door and unlocked it also.

The man who emerged was a little shorter than Peter. He was thin with dark hair and a beard that covered most of his face, and wore only a grimy t-shirt and a pair of ragged blue jeans. The man looked at Peter and froze. "It really is you," he said. "You've lost weight."

"What..?" Peter frowned and rubbed his head. "Lincoln, this is Ella Blake. You can thank her for saving your ass."

Before Lincoln could reply, every light in the corridor blinked and then turned off, blanketing them in an inky darkness.

#

* * *

#

The room was utterly silent.

Olivia blinked, stretching wide open in the darkness. Drifting in front of her eyes were marbled blobs of purple. An acrid stench hung in the air, a stomach-turning mixture of smoke and burnt meat. Her heart was booming, her breath pumping in and out, hissing around the hard gag holding her head in place.

_What did I do?_ she thought through a cloud of pain.

Where was Fischer? Where were his men?

The purple blobs wavered, beginning to dissipate. They were remnants, the last vestiges of the thing she had done. Floating in her mind's eye, arcs of electricity lanced between the overhead lights and the medical equipment, at her feet, then blasted first into the Doctor, and then to the other men unfortunate enough to be in the vicinity.

_What did I do?_

She had fried them, cooked them like slabs of beef. Her gorge rose up her throat, the taste of vomit building in the back of her mouth. _I'm a freak. A monster, worse than any infected_. At least the undead were mindless. She had been aware, purposeful. The energy she had sensed had been just that — energy. Pure energy. And she had inhaled it, somehow taking it into herself, like breathing in a gasp of fresh air. But what was it? And where had it come from? It had clearly been apart from herself. Separate.

Forgetting that she was bound, that there might well be a hole in her skull, Olivia went to sit up. Raw fury erupted above her right eye, pain worse than she could ever recall. Bright spots danced in her vision. Her head throbbed as if it were being pounded like an anvil.

She heard a noise then, a wet gurgling down low on her right, almost below her. It was not a sound she associated with good health and longevity. Someone was dying — or had died already. _Oh god... I have to get out of here. I have to get out of here now_ _._

A voice shouted, somewhere in the distance. Olivia strained against the straps holding her down, pulling with all her might, then fell back, letting out a frustrated scream around her gag before she could stop herself. Stinging pain coruscated across her forehead, and something hot and wet dribbled down her cheek. It wasn't going to work that way — she just wasn't strong enough. Not even close.

_Stay calm, Liv_ , she told herself as she found herself starting to pant, on the brink of hyperventilation. Above all, she had to stay calm. _You can do this. Like before_.

Settling back, Olivia let her eyes fall closed, separating herself from the physical pain racking her body, and from the nightmares-in-waiting lying on the floor. There had been a sense of connectedness before, between her and everything else. It had been like feeling the texture of reality, or that was how her brain had made sense of it. It had been malleable, and had bent to her will, creating lightning to kill for her. She stretched out with her senses, she tried to recreate the sensation, but there was nothing to sense. Only herself, and her pain. Her heart was beating in her ears, driving the static rush of blood through her veins. Nothing was happening. It wasn't the same as before. Something was missing.

Was it panic? Fear?

Suddenly, she understood what Walter had meant. Emotions were the key, just as he had told Peter. Strong emotions. The kind of intense emotional states only children could attain, before life and experience and repetition dulled those sharp edges as they grew older, as they matured, before the fears of their youth were made small, exposed to the light of adulthood. Emotions strong enough to bend reality.

Nearly every time she had used her abilities before, she had been under extreme stress, or, terrified surprise, acting without thought, on instinct alone. Except for the one time she had crossed over in her cell, which seemed like an outlier more than anything else. There was no way she could force herself to feel panicked, no way to surprise herself. But, she could remember those extreme emotions, recall each of those harrowing experiences with perfect clarity. Every moment. Could she summon those memories? Immerse herself in them so deeply her mind was fooled into action?

She thought of Peter, picturing him in her mind. His face, his eyes, his lips, his quirky, lopsided grin, his fingers capable of so many things. She felt the tickle of his beard against her cheek, his lips on her breast, or traveling along her inner thigh, the love in his eyes that as he stared up at her. _Oh, Peter..._

And then she thought of him missing.

Of him dead.

Of him turned.

Inside the capsule of her memory, she saw the infected in the stairwell again, crawling toward him unaware. She focused on the details, saturating herself in its yellow, burning, dead eyes. Its mouth is opening — she could see it! Its teeth are gray and jagged and strung with bits of rotten flesh. He didn't see it. Peter doesn't see it! He is standing there, peering up at her in bemusement. Her heart is racing, blood rushing to her ears in her panic. She has to stop it! She is opening her mouth to scream, to warn him, but it's too late. The infected is already there, just behind him, its fangs inches from his flesh, inches from ending his life. _No_ _!_

Olivia's heart was racing, blood roaring in her ears. The part of her mind that she'd come to think of as a flower, as white tulip — like the field of them in which she may or may not have met Peter as a young girl — began to unfurl once more. It was back — she could feel it again. The sensation was weaker than before, but it was there. Like an infant's tiny fist unfolding, weak with youth. Or an eye. An inner eye, seeing the world for the first time. The world between worlds, where all was connected, the places where the threads of reality wove together. She let the memory of Peter fall away.

The room was abuzz in the blackness. The walls surrounding her glowed in her mind; the flecks of peeling paint shimmered, the floor, pitted with cracks; a tray of medical tools, scalpels, and the horrific power saw that had nearly ended her life. The bodies on the floor, three of them in all, hovering on the brink of death. Heartbeats not her own shuddered in her ear, all out of sync. They were slowing. Then a man's voice spoke in her ear, loud, as if he were standing beside her. _What the hell is going-_ The voice turned off, became a buzzing sound, as if a bumblebee had taken up residence inside her head. The buzzing vanished, only to be replaced by a woman's voice, whispering a question. The voice was familiar. _Rachel...?_ A tiny voice that she knew as the voice of her consciousness shouted warning that there was little time. Olivia shoved the dying men and their impending fate from her mind, turning her inner eye on the strap holding her right wrist in place.

Worn leather. Tarnished brass. A buckle. She could feel the cool metal, the faint ridges traversing its edges. It had been cast in a mold. She moved in closer, closer, until she could sense every molecule, every atom. And then closer still, down to the finest granularity, where there was a kind of fuzziness, a sense of blurring, or doubling, that upon closer inspection turned kaleidoscopic, as if infinite layers were overlapping, fractals descending unto infinity. What was she seeing? What did it mean? Some part of her thought it was important — perhaps the most important thing of all. There was the sense of being near an edge, a sense of _otherness_. A boundary? Of what? She wished Peter was there to ask, or even Walter, but she was just going to have to muddle through on her own. She _pressed?_ against the barrier, and felt it push back, giving way yet resisting, as if elasticity were one of its properties. Then, without fully understanding how or even what she was doing, Olivia focused harder, imagining the buckle sliding through, picturing the buckle in another place, every molecule of it, every atom, every proton, and electron, and all the way down, down to the blurry granularity. On the other side. All of it.

Something happened. She _felt? heard?_ a faint prick, like a bursting bubble, and then nothing. There was yawning darkness. Or emptiness. The sense of other was gone, the feeling of connection with it. It was all gone.

Olivia opened her eyes to hazy blackness.

What happened? Had it worked? She was almost afraid to check. But then a sound reached her ears, from below, down on the floor. A low utterance, liquidic whispers that sent fear racing down her spine. _Oh jesus. Oh fuck..._

Hesitantly, she tested the leather strap and her arm pulled free at once, without the slightest resistance. She felt along the strap in the darkness. The buckle was gone. Vanished. Her lips slacked open in surprise. _Oh my god it worked. It worked. I don't believe it._ Then something struck the table beneath her, freezing her heart. There was a low intake of breath, an angry hiss.

Reaching up, Olivia tore at the gag, ripping it from her mouth and down over her chin. Her lips burned as blood came rushing back, feeling returning as she tore at the buckle. When her head was free she went to work on her left arm, and then the strap across her chest. Finally, she sat up, gritting her teeth at the rush of pain emanating from her temple. The gurney let out a squeak as she leaned forward, reaching for her ankles. As she finished the last strap, she sensed movement nearby, and heard the unmistakable rustle of cloth, almost on top of her.

Eyes bulging, she threw herself off the operating table, crashing down on top of the tray of medical tools. There was a crescendo of ear-shattering rings as she landed hard on her side, metal implements showering down around her. Something slammed into the gurney, shoving its legs into her side. The fresh let out an enraged hiss, and she felt the gurney start to move, tipping precariously to one side.

Olivia gasped, sensing the imminent disaster, and rolled out of the way. The gurney hit the floor with a deafening boom, mere inches from her head. She continued to roll, spinning and spinning until her back crashed into a wall.

She saw the layout of the room in her head, where the gurney and the men had been situated before she'd cooked them alive. The door was across from her, and slightly to the right. Someone had been standing near it, leaning against it and watching her being sawed open like it was the evening news. Had only one of them turned yet? She prayed it was so, and crawled forward, leaving the hissing fresh behind as it struggled to extricate itself from the overturned gurney. Holding one hand out in front of her, she felt along the wall until she came to a corner and turned, heading toward what she hoped was the way out. Her other hand fell on something metal and slender, with a sharpened tip. A scalpel! She snatched it up and continued feeling her way forward, until her hand fell on top of a leg.

Heat was pouring through the fabric of the dead man's jeans, the heat of infection. She hissed, and then trampled over the body. It began to move beneath her and waves of mind-numbing fear rolled over her, almost primal in their intensity. A hand closed about her ankle, fingernails biting into her flesh. She kicked frantically, holding in a terrified scream, and her foot connected with something solid. She tore free of its grip, then scrambled forward blindly until her head smacked off the wall at the next corner.

Scorching pain erupted anew above Olivia's right eye. She choked off a gasp as a gout of fresh blood poured down her face and bright spots floated in her vision, drifting about like snowflakes. Hissing growls filled the air. They were awake, maybe just the two, maybe all three. Blinking through the cloud of pain, she felt along the wall, searching for the door.

_Oh god, where is it? Where is it?_ It had to be there. Dragging footsteps approached, sending waves of intense prickles down her neck, her spine. She could picture them approaching, their burnished eyes roving for her location. Their vision was poor in darkness, but certainly better than her own. And could they smell her fear? They would be on her in mere moments, surely. She crawled a few paces to her left and her fingertips ran into a door-frame, then a door, and then a handle. Olivia's heart leapt. She clambered upright, then lunged through the door, stumbling out into a lighter darkness.

She found herself in a long, narrow corridor, vaguely lit. No sooner than she'd taken in her immediate surroundings, than the door slammed into her back, throwing her a few steps forward. With a desperate cry, she shoved the door back, pushing it closed with her shoulder. She searched for some way to hold it shut but there was nothing — no knob, no lock, nothing at all she could use. She pressed her back up against it, and reached out for the far wall with her foot to brace herself, but it was too far away. The door surged open again as something heavy crashed into it, sliding her bare feet forward across the rough concrete.

"No, you don't!" Olivia grunted, shoving back with all her might, and the door slammed shut once more.

Inches from her face was a chorus of harsh breathing, of fingernails scratching, clawing at the door. She took in huge breaths and looked around, searching for an exit. To her right, far down the corridor was a pale light that glowed feebly, flickering on and off. On her left, an abyss of darkness. Which way? There was no way to know, but the thought of racing blind through that darkness with at least two freshes on her tail seemed like a not so good idea.

Her feet slid forward again as the infected renewed their efforts, the pads of her feet rubbing raw across the concrete. She felt the brush of dead flesh against her ear, and fingers entwining in her hair. Heart racing, she gasped at the undead's touch, shoving the door back once again. Another heavy something thudded into the door, forcing it open in spite of her best effort to keep it closed.

_Oh fuck, I can't hold it. I can't hold it!_ The door opened further, wide enough to allow an arm to snake out, feeling around for her flesh. Her strength was flagging, and she thought it might be all three of them now. Eyeing the distant light, she filled her lungs to bursting. _You can do this, Olivia. Just don't stop._

Gritting her teeth, she leapt away from the door and sprinted toward the hazy light, patient gown fluttering behind her. Almost immediately the door slammed open, and fleshy thuds sounded as the freshes tumbled out of the room. It was a race, now, and one she intended to win.

Her head throbbed with pulsing pain, each footfall a lance of agony driving through the spot above her right eye. She passed door after door, cell doors, she recognized from their shape. She rounded a corner and found another long, dim corridor, identical to one she'd left behind. There was no obvious exit, so she kept going, her pace slower than before. Her head seemed heavier than it should, wobbly on top of her shoulders. Behind her, she heard the pounding of booted feet, off kilter and out of rhythm, but still gaining on her. She rounded another corner and saw a door swing open, far ahead down the corridor.

A man stumbled out into the hall, and the light above him flared like a white star as he did so. Olivia's eyes widened. She knew him. Or of him. It had to be the man Joseph. The man that had shocked her like he was some kind of human taser. Was he like her? No. Fischer had done something to him. Augmented him, whatever that meant. She felt sorry for him, but not sorry enough.

She raced toward him with a sudden burst of energy. Luckily, she'd held on to the scalpel, still gripped tightly in her right hand. From the way the man staggered against the wall, he seemed out of it, or confused, which was just fine with her. He looked up right before she crashed into him, eyes bulging with surprise and recognition.

Olivia let out an enraged scream, thrusting viciously into his mid-section with the scalpel, driving him back into the wall. Over and over she stabbed, pressing the tiny blade in as far as it would go. The man the Doctor had named Joseph shrieked, and doubled over, clutching at his chest. Her hands came away wet and sticky, his blood so hot it seemed to scald her skin in the cool air. He had not even attempted to defend himself, and she felt sorry for him again, but as before, not sorry enough. No matter who he had been before, he was one of _them_ now, and had already proven his colors.

She glanced back and saw a horde of shadowy figures racing toward them. The shadows resolved into former men, one of which was Jacob Fischer, his face a ghastly mask, his eyes glowing with the color of rotten gold. Beside him was the bald man she suddenly remembered kicking in the crotch. Their gaits were uneven and off-balance, but still frighteningly, mercilessly quick.

There was no time.

Olivia grabbed hold of the stricken man's shoulders and shoved him stumbling toward the freshes, then turned and fled through the door he'd just exited without looking back, relief that it swung outward flooding her veins like a cool, sighing breeze. She found herself in a short hallway or vestibule, with another door facing her. Screams echoed behind her, cries of rage and fear. A light on the ceiling flared suddenly, then popped, sparks and shards of glass raining down. She dashed forward, covering her head.

She shoved into a square-shaped room that was clearly a laboratory of some kind, full of equipment reminiscent of Walter's back in Cambridge. The room was empty. On each wall was a door with a window, similar to the one she'd just come through. Only a single light fixture worked, buzzing fretfully off to one side. She hesitated on the threshold, blinking at a sudden wave of lightheadedness, along with an unhealthy dose of nausea.

Leaning against the door frame for support, she reached up a trembling hand, stopping just short of the pulsing wound on her forehead. The wound felt strange, as if it had weight. She was afraid to touch it, afraid of what she might find there. A hole? She imagined reaching in and touching her brain. What would it feel like? Rubbery? Warm? Bile surged up her throat at the thought. Blood continued to stream down into her right eye, a constant flood that she could taste on her lips like a burnt penny. She looked down at herself and found the front of the patient gown drenched to the hem, her bare breasts underneath glued to the fabric like twin volcanoes — one just a hair larger than the other — erupting from a snowy plain. The thought amused her for some reason, though why it should was beyond her. Then she became aware of the slow thudding of her heart, and how it echoed hollowly inside her head. It sounded wrong, off beat somehow.

_This is... not good_ , she thought with a swallow. Her tongue felt thick and sticky, and a sudden wave of exhaustion pulled her eyelids downward. _Not good at all_. Her strength was failing, the adrenaline of her escape leaving her system. _Keep moving,_ _Liv_ _. You have to keep moving._

With an effort, she shoved away from the door, the floor tilting to one side. Her head spun and she stumbled into a table, and then toward the door on her left. Clenching her jaw and forcing her eyes open all the way, she yanked on the handle and staggered into a short corridor that seemed an exact copy of the one she'd left behind, complete with another door opposite her.

Beyond the next door was a familiar corridor lined with cell doors and a few dimly glowing lights that seemed to go dimmer even as she looked at them. She stumbled down the corridor, passing door after door after door, turning corner after corner until she finally stopped, swaying in the center of the hall as the floor rocked from side to side. _Where the hell am I?_ The thought came from far away. _How do I get out of here?_ It was like being in a maze, or some kind of fun-house, where every direction looked the same. She heard someone mumble, a voice muttering in a cell on her right. The voice seemed familiar, but how, or who, she couldn't say. Then she heard something else, explosions booming in the distance. The explosions faded out.

She kept going, until after a while, the corridor began to spin ever so slowly. She heard an eerie tune coming from somewhere. The tune was whimsical, and sort of reminded her of old spaghetti westerns, and of the gunfighter with no name. _Gunfighter? Spaghetti_ _?_ She wiped at the blood flowing down her face ineffectually. _What's... happening?_ Why was she thinking about such things?

The whistled tune grew closer, repeating like a needle on a record player stuck in a rut. It took several moments for her mind to catch up with her ears. _Whistling?_ Someone was whistling. Someone was coming.

The song seemed to be coming from her left, so she went in the opposite direction. She stumbled down the hall, toward a turn in the corridor. Closed cell doors passed by on either side. The whistling behind her faded in and out, sometimes close, other times as if it were a mile away. Was any of it real? Or was she hearing things? Who knew what having a hole sawed into your skull would do?

_And... how big is this fucking place?_ she wondered, putting one foot in front of the other. Her head felt empty, and simultaneously stuffed full of cotton. It still hurt, but the pain was different no, as if it belonged to someone else and she was merely holding onto to it for them. Was that possible? She took another step forward, wiping again at the sticky layer of blood on her face absently.

_I don't think that's possible_ , she thought dazedly. _I... don't think..._

Olivia's knees buckled, and suddenly something cold was pressing against her left cheek. The floor was even with her eyes, stretching out forever. _Get up, Olivia! Get up!_ The frantic order was distant, and meant for some other Olivia, somewhere far away from her, possibly in another universe. Her heart thrummed through a soft, velvety cloud of static that crowded the space between her ears. The white noise was soothing in a way, gentling her mind.

_I should... get up..._ She tried to lift her head, and it was like lifting a mountain. The corridor grew dimmer, darkness bleeding in on the edge of her vision. Why was she so tired? _I should... shouldn't I? I think I... should..?_

Her eyes closed, and the questions remained unanswered.


	32. Daylight

**-March 2009**

The darkness that enveloped the corridor outside of Peter's cell was as black as pitch, as black as the bottom of a torrential abyss, or more like being struck blind, he supposed. There was nothing. Not even a hint of light, not even the merest glint of a reflection from around a corner. The blackness pressed down, as if it had weight, its own peculiar substance that he could feel settling over him.

Grinding scratches sounded behind him. Angry hisses cut into the silence and heavy thuds rattled the door to his cell on its hinges. He swiveled his head, peering back toward where he thought his cell lay. The fresh trapped inside could probably see them through the tiny window in the cell door, at least in part. Unlike the body's original owner, the infected had at least some visual acuity in the dark, though how that could be possible he and Walter had never been able to ascertain. Were rudimentary images of sinking its teeth into their flesh passing through what little, if any, remained of its brain function? Suddenly he was grateful for how sturdily the cell door had been constructed. Very grateful.

"Peter? Peter, where are you?" Ella's frightened voice sounded down low to his right. "It's so dark in here! I can't see anything!"

"I'm right here, Ella," he said quickly, then reached out, searching for Olivia's niece in the blackness. After a moment, he found her coat, and then her hand. "I've got you."

Her hand seemed incredibly small, even fragile, like a porcelain doll's hand, despite her gripping him with a kind of manic desperation. He rubbed a kink in his neck with his free hand, again seeing her blood-drenched face when she'd opened his cell door. _Jesus. She just killed someone._ And not just killed him, but lured a grown man in with her tears, and then sliced his throat as well as any professional. _Jesus._ His brain insisted that it wasn't possible, that a sweet little girl like Ella wasn't capable of such a thing, but the proof was standing just on the other side of his cell door, grinding its fingernails down to nubs. Where had she even found a straight razor? Did people even shave with them still? He thought of something else, something that made his stomach churn. _Fuck. What the hell am I gonna tell Rachel? Or Olivia? They're gonna flip out._ Would it matter that she'd had no other choice? Would they see her differently? Would their relationships be irrevocably damaged? She didn't deserve that. Not in the slightest.

He squeezed Ella's hand. "Are you okay?"

Ella sniffed, her coat rustling in the darkness. "I'm... okay. I guess. I'm scared, Peter."

"Aren't we all, kid," the man named Lincoln Lee said from off to Peter's left. "You mind telling me how you managed to get our doors open? What are you, some kind of child lock-picking prodigy? What happened to that guard?"

"The guard's dead," Peter said quickly, "and it doesn't matter how she got them open. All that matters is that she did. Now let's get out of here."

The other man didn't need to know what had happened. It wasn't his business. It wasn't anyone's business but his and Ella's, and the former man in his cell. He made a pact with himself then, that if they all made it out alive, he would sit down and have a long talk with her. She had to understand that the world wasn't the same one that she'd been born into. And that sometimes, in this new world, it was necessary to kill, no matter how wrong it might feel. Even more, that it was a good thing that she felt terrible about it; feeling terrible meant that she was still good on the inside, that the cruelness of their new world hadn't left its taint on her. He would tell her that if she ever didn't feel terrible about it, then he would start to worry.

Feeling their way forward through the darkness, they left the hissing fresh behind. The corridor was short and narrow, and emptied out into a larger one that seemed a main passage of some kind, judging from how wide it felt in the dark. They turned left and the corridor went straight for a while, passing by other side corridors that upon inspection were identical to the one they'd left behind. When the corridor began to straighten out again, Peter began to suspect the main hall was nothing more than a long rectangle, and if they followed it long enough they would again hear the fresh scratching to get out. And from the ever-present darkness, it also became apparent that the power outage wasn't a local event, but was affecting all of the facility, or at least the entire wing.

Why had the power even gone out at all? According to Lincoln it would flicker occasionally, but there had never been a prolonged outage such as this. Had something happened? He heard the man muttering somewhere behind him and off to his right, something about his secretary being full of shit. What was his deal? Something felt off about him, not to mention that he knew next to nothing about the guy. What had he done before the outbreak? His story seemed plausible, but anyone could tell a story, even a psychopath. To be safe, he kept himself between Ella and the stranger, keeping a tight hold on her hand. She squeezed back, sometimes tightening until he was sure she was clenching as hard as her six-year-old muscles would allow.

"You have any idea where any other prisoners are being kept, Ella?" he asked as they moved slowly through the black ocean. He held his free hand out in front of him, feeling for a turn in the corridor. Truthfully, he doubted she knew anything or would have already told him, but he thought talking might keep her mind off the darkness, and more importantly, off the horrible thing she'd been forced to do. The section or wing or wherever it was he and Lincoln had been kept appeared empty, other than themselves. He wondered why they were separated. "Any idea at all where they might be? We have to find your aunt."

"I only found the room with the black wires," she replied in a whispered voice, "but that was back upstairs. I did hear the Doctor and the man that took Walter away, though. And then I almost ran into Mister Overbeek. I thought they were after me, so I ran and hid, and then I heard you and him talking."

"Do you remember how to get back there?" he asked as his hand landed on cool bricks directly in his path. He held Ella back before she could walk into it at the same instant a fleshy thud sounded to his right, followed by a grunt of pain, then a curse from Lincoln Lee.

"Ow, fuck!"

"Hey, there's a wall there," Peter commented.

"No shit? Thanks for the warning, Bishop! I just bashed my fucking face into it."

"Well I was just about to mention it," he quipped, unable to stop the grin from forming on his lips. He glanced toward where he thought the other man might be, and saw a haze of dim light. The light was distant, like looking up at the sun from the bottom of the ocean. "Hey, there's a light. It's gotta be the way out. Do you think that's where you came from, Ella?"

"Maybe, but what if Mister Overbeek is still there, Peter?" she replied, and her voice began to grow shrill as she continued, picking up steam. "He was there in the lab when I ran away. He might still be there. He'll get us!"

"He's not going to get us, not if we can surprise him."

"Did you say a lab, kid?" Lincoln Lee asked sharply. "What kind of lab?"

"I dunno, just a lab, mister," she said. "Kinda like Walter's, maybe, sort of. Only smaller. And creepier."

Peter hesitated. He reached into his pocket for the folded straight razor and found the handle sticky with congealing blood. The razor wasn't much of a weapon, but the one thing it did do, it more than excelled at. The fresh — whose grunts and scratches had long since faded away — was evidence enough of that. "If someone's there, we'll just have to deal with them. That's all we can do."

Occasionally the light would blink and flicker as they moved toward it, and he worried that it might fail completely. Each time it did so, the tiny grip on his hand tightened. He felt nothing but sorry for her, and wished he could somehow make her forget. No child deserved such a burden, let alone Olivia's niece. It was a wonder she wasn't screaming, gibbering with fear-soaked madness. He tried to picture himself at her age, under the same kind of pressures she was under, and the comparison was laughable. He would have gone mad. He would have been a quivering mess, drooling and pissing himself in the corner.

"Peter?" Ella said in a small voice. "Why would the Doctor make Walter better when he was sick? If he's been a bad guy all along, why would he make him better?"

"Our dear Doctor likes to fatten the calves before he eats them," Lincoln muttered. "Guy's a real piece of work. Where I come from, he'd have been locked up and the key melted down."

Peter frowned at the other man's comment. In New Jersey? He was wondering what town the man was from when Ella's original question penetrated. "Wait. Walter was sick? How sick?"

He felt a tugging on his hand, and thought Ella might be nodding her head. "Astrid said he had something called... pneumonia," she said, sounding the word out carefully. "She said that he could have died, but the Doctor gave him medicine."

Walter had almost died? A dull pain percolated through his rib cage, leaving him breathless. His father had almost died. From pneumonia? He poked and prodded at his feelings, and to his surprise found the idea of his father dying, of their encounter in the lab's basement storage room being their last words more than a little troubling — even knowing what he'd done to Olivia so long ago. There was no way to rationalize it, other than that it was his father, no matter what he'd done.

They continued on, until the haze of light became an elongated slant falling across the roughshod floor. The light was coming from a window, set in the upper half of a gray metal door.

"Hold up a second," he hissed, bringing Ella to a stop. He pulled the straight razor from his pocket. "Let me check it out."

He crept forward and peered through the window. On the other side of the glass was what appeared to be a short vestibule passage, connecting their wing to some kind of central junction. There was another door with a window, and through it was some kind of lab, with shelves and tables of equipment beneath a hanging light fixture emitting a feeble glow. The room appeared empty, and he heard nothing when he pressed his ear to the glass. He checked the door handle and found it unlocked.

"C'mon," he whispered, motioning them forward. "I think it's clear."

Ella and Lincoln Lee came forward, following him into the short vestibule space and then into the lab itself. The tables and countertops were scattered with a plethora of medical tools; bone saws and forceps, cutters and cruel-looking scissors that sent ripples of fear racing up his spine. It was the lair of a madman, he decided, and one that might return at any moment. Centered on each wall were doors similar to the one they'd just come through. Did they lead to more cells? Four wings of cells, with the lab at the center? There was nothing, no signs at all, nothing that might indicate through which door was the path to the surface.

"Which way, Ella?" he asked, glancing around. He spotted a flashlight, standing lens down on a table and picked it up, flicking on the switch to see if it worked. It did. "Ella?"

Her face was scrunched in thought as she swung her head from door to door. "I heard the Doctor through there, I think," she said, pointing to the door on the left. "And I think I came from over there before that." She thrust a finger at the door on the right.

"That's the way out?" Lincoln said anxiously, close to bouncing up and down as he eyed the second door. "That'll take us out of here?"

"We're not leaving yet," Peter said, leaving no room for argument in his voice. "We have to find her — my girlfriend, her aunt. I'm not leaving without her. And if you leave before us and sound the alarm..."

"Fine, fine... I get it. Let's just get on with it. Standing here's giving me the jeebie-heebies."

"You mean the heebie-jeebies," Ella said, peering up at him.

Lincoln laughed, cackling as if she had said something outrageous, but said nothing more. Peter wondered at his fellow escapee, feeling a touch of uneasiness. _What the hell is this guy's deal_ _?_ He seemed slightly off his rocker, more often than not. The man seemed desperate to escape, and desperate men could reach out blindly, like someone drowning, pulling their would-be rescuers down with them. It wasn't going to happen. He wouldn't let it happen. If the man turned out a threat to their escape, steps would have to be taken.

Shining his new flashlight ahead of them, he led them through the door on their left, through another vestibule, and into a different wing of the sub-level. Bundles of shiny new black wires hung from hooks bolted up high near the ceiling — wires he assumed came from the human battery array. The wing seemed nearly identical in layout to the one they'd left behind, though some of the rooms had obviously been used for something other than detainment. Flat tables of rusted metal sat in the center of most spaces, tables near the length of a man's body. The sight of them gave him the chills, tickling the hair on the back of his neck. Who had resided in these rooms in the old days? Why so far underground? Patients? Or had they been prisoners. What kind of treatments had been common at the turn of the century and even earlier? Lobotomy by way of hand drills? Insulin comas? Electro-shock therapy? Horrific images ran through his mind, dredged up from old black and white horror flicks he'd lived on in his youth.

Suddenly the flashlight beam fell on a lump of something blocking the corridor ahead. He hesitated for a moment, holding the light steady. What was it? A pile of clothes? He moved closer. No. Not clothes. Or not just clothes. There was a body inside them, sprawled on its back, arms and legs askew. Then the stench of burnt human flesh filled his nose. It was a smell he would never forget, nor the screams that it summoned inside his head. His heart quickened, blaring like a snare drum.

"What the hell is that smell?" Lincoln Lee hissed.

Peter shook his head, unable to speak as he drew near. Images of blonde hair flooded his mind, matted with blood, her beautiful face scorched and charred. He came to a stop over the body, exhaling ever so slowly. It wasn't her. It was a man. A bald man, heavily built, as if he'd been one of those workout-aholics in his youth. His face was a pale, pasty white, his eyes the color of burnished gold. A fresh. And obviously dead. A patch of skin above its temple was charred back, ruptured and cooked. Ella froze beside him, drawing in a jagged breath.

"What is, Ella?" he asked, glancing down at her. "Do you know this guy?"

She nodded, lips pressed together tightly. "It's... it's Mister Overbeek, Peter. He... he's dead. He was the one in charge, besides the Doctor. How can he be dead?"

"Dead? No kidding?" Lincoln whispered, then let out a harsh laugh. "They don't come any deader than that." He crouched down beside the body. "What killed him though? I thought you had to plug these things in the head to put 'em down. I don't see any penetrating wounds."

Peter bent closer, but then noticed a large bulge beneath the dead man's drab army jacket. He darted a hand inside and felt cold steel. His fingers recognized the shape, and he couldn't help the fierce smile that formed on his lips. "Well, whatever killed him, I'm fairly certain he won't be needing this anymore," he said, and pulled an absurdly large chrome-plated handgun from the shoulder holster and held it up to the light. The gun was huge and gaudy, and he had always assumed men who carried such a piece were making up for deficiencies in other areas. He checked the chamber and found it loaded, the magazine full.

Lincoln's eyes lit up. "Now that's what I'm talking about," he said, giving a savage grin. "All of a sudden I'm liking our chances, Bishop."

Straightening, Peter swept the flashlight further down the hall, only to discover another body sprawled against the wall. "There's another one," he said, and rushed forward to find another man, wearing a gray lab coat. When he saw the man's face, the blood froze in his veins. For an instant, he couldn't believe what he was seeing, but it was true, confirmed by Ella's and Lincoln's mirrored gasps of recognition.

It was the Doctor.

_Son of a bitch_. So much for his chance to kill the bastard himself — someone had already done it for him. Lincoln growled a curse under his breath, and then booted the dead man in the face, breaking his jaw from the horrific cracking sound that rang out.

The shock of finding the dead scientist had only just begun to wear off when he became aware of the stomp of running feet from somewhere ahead. He raised the flashlight and found a body rushing toward them out of the blackness. Yellow eyes caught the flashlight's beam. The fresh charged, arms flailing, teeth gaped open for the kill. The creature let out an eerie hiss that stood Peter's hair up, and its face glowed as it bore down on them. For a heartbeat he couldn't move. Then Ella's ear-piercing scream echoed in his ear.

"Peter!"

He raised the automatic and fired. The gun boomed, bucking in his hand. He squeezed off round after deafening round, until his ears were ringing, filled with a high-pitched tone that seemed to originate deep inside his skull. The fresh's white lab coat exploded with puffs of red, of blood; in the center of its chest; its right shoulder; in its neck, just below its bobbing chin. Distantly, he thought he recognized the face.

"Fucking shoot it, Bishop!" Lincoln Lee shouted over the furor, backing away. He snatched up Ella, as if he intended to flee with her.

On his next shot the fresh's face exploded into a bloody mash. The body stumbled at once, then skidded forward on its face until it came to a stop just a few paces away. Peter lowered the pistol, taking in a deep breath. _Goddamn freshes_ , he thought, swallowing down another gulp of air.

"Fuck! What the fuck is that thing?" Lincoln Lee gasped, eyes bulging. "And if that's the best you can do, maybe I should have the gun." He said something else under his breath, something about someone being a better shot where he came from.

He eyed the man askance. "You've never seen a fresh? Where the hell have you been?"

"I've been in that goddamn cell for months! Excuse me if I haven't been getting out much lately!"

How had the man never seen a fresh before? It hardly seemed possible, given that they'd been everywhere during the first few weeks of the infection, like packs of rabid wolves devouring everything in their path. "This is what they're like when they first turn. Were you living under a rock for the first three or four months of the outbreak?"

Lincoln shrugged, swallowing visibly. "Something like that," he admitted. Ella squirmed in his arms, and he let her down carefully.

Peter shook his head. The man was damn strange. He shoved the handgun into the waist of his pants, then toed the fresh over onto its side. It was the man he'd seen with the Doctor. The squat Asian. The dead man's skin burned in places like the Doctor's and the bald man's, but unlike them, he'd still been animated. "You know this guy, Ella?"

She nodded. "I think his name might have been Alex. I didn't really know him."

"Why was this guy still alive?" Lincoln said, peering about with obvious unease.

It was a good question, but there was no obvious answer other than that none of the burns seemed to be on the fellow's head. Was that it? Peter shined his light about and spotted a trail of wet stains on the floor. He touched one of them, and his finger came away red. Blood. Following the trail with the light, it seemed to lead straight to a closed door just down the hall.

"Is that blood?" Lincoln said.

Peter ignored the question, approaching the door carefully. The trail _did_ lead inside. He listened, and then cracked open the door when there was only silence inside. His flashlight found a bearded man lying on his back in the far corner. The man's eyes were vacant, but his lips were moving wordlessly as blood trickled down his chin. On the floor beneath his dark blue jeans was a pool of wetness, spreading out from a massive stain on his chest that seemed the obvious source of all the blood. Someone had gone to work on him. If the fellow was aware of the light shining on his face, or of anything at all, he gave no sign of it.

"Who the hell is that?" Lincoln whispered, looking over his shoulder.

Peter shook his head. The man was wearing Converses. Converses. Just like the guy who had seemed to be controlling the human battery array. Could he manipulate energy somehow? How was that possible? Had he killed the Doctor and his men? Why? Whatever the reason, the man didn't look like he had much time left. He stepped back, shutting the door behind him. The room had been an office or a storage room before, and unlike their cells, the door opened inward. If he died, the fresh he'd become would be trapped inside. It was enough.

"What, you're just gonna leave him like that? Why don't you put him out of his misery?"

"Be my guest," Peter said turning away and taking Ella's hand again. "I'm not sitting here and waiting for him to bleed out, and I'm not a murderer."

#

Leaving the dying man, he started off again with Ella, searching for any other signs of life, or Olivia, whichever he found first. Not more than twenty seconds passed before Lincoln Lee caught up, joining them silently. Peter eyed the shadowed profile as he drew abreast of them. The strange vibes the man was emitting had not diminished, and if anything they had grown stronger. What the vibes were signaling though, he had no idea. He made a mental note to watch carefully, however. Such feelings had come upon him before and they rarely, if ever, meant something good was about to happen.

Around the next corner, they came to a room that was clearly someone's office space. There were no decorations or furniture to speak of, only a single desk and chair. Atop the desk was a thick journal full of slanted handwriting, along with several books and open file folders. Against one wall sat a swiveling chalkboard with chemical formulas as complex as Peter had ever seen in his life sprouting in all directions, covering nearly every square centimeter of the board's surface.

"I've never seen anything like these before," Lincoln commented, studying the chalkboard with squinted eyes. "It looks like he was trying to bond organic and inorganic molecules. Though for what purpose, who the hell knows."

Peter darted a sideways glance at the other man. The guy might be slightly off the reservation, but Lincoln Lee was far from stupid. Studying the formulas, he saw that he was correct. Was this how the feat of generating power with human bodies was achieved? A combination of drugs and some kind of inorganic component? He wondered what Walter would make of it. He had almost died. His father. Why did the thought of him dying hurt so much? The man had done horrible things to who knew how many people, to children — including the woman he loved. _I should hate him._ But for some reason he wanted nothing more than to see him again, no matter how annoying he could be, no matter how crazy the man could drive him. Wetting his lips, he turned away from the chalkboard.

"On my way in here," he said, "I saw a room full of people. Maybe a dozen in all. They were sedated, but all wired together in some kind of array. I'm fairly certain they were being used to generate power. Like batteries."

Lincoln let out an impressed whistle. "Really? Now that's a first."

_A first?_ "What exactly did you do in New Jersey?" Peter asked, glancing down at Ella. She was standing quite close to him, and hadn't spoken a word since the fresh had appeared. Her oval face was pale, her tawny eyes turned inward. He suspected she wasn't seeing or hearing anything around her. Was she in shock? Or just shell-shocked. He had seen similar looks before, in the aftermath of suicide bombings on the other side of the world. How was she still even functioning? _Fuck. I've gotta get her out of here. And soon._ No matter what she'd done, and all the horrors she's been subjected to, she was still just a little girl.

"I was in... law enforcement," Lincoln replied in a cautious voice. His gaze shifted around the makeshift office as he twisted the hairs of his scraggly beard. "I doubt you've ever heard of my division."

Peter waited, but he seemed unwilling to offer up anything more about himself. _Whatever. For all I know he could have been a mall cop_ _._ With a shrug, he led Ella back out into the corridor. The next room contained a modern stainless steel gurney, complete with a surgical light mounted overhead on a bendable arm. On a tray beside the gurney a number of syringes waited, barrels full of whatever drugs the Doctor had been planning on dosing his next victim with. The sight of so many needles made him shiver, and he left the room behind.

Where was Olivia? Where was she? _She has to be here. She has to be okay_. He stepped through the doorway of the next room and froze.

Inside was a scene of chaos. His heart thudded loudly has he swept the light around the space, taking it all in. Lying on its side was another modern gurney, amid a dizzying array of saws and scalpels, needles and medical vials, all scattered about, as if the room had been hit by a tornado. Sprays and splatters of blood covered the walls, and the ceiling, particularly the dual surgical lights which hung limply over where the gurney would have rested had it been upright. The flashlight beam fell on a power saw, complete with wheeled blade for cutting through bone. The toothed blade was streaked crimson with blood, still fresh from the pool that had formed on the floor beneath it. The singed odor of fried electronics hung in the air, mixed with the coppery tang of death.

"What do they do in here, Peter?" Ella's voice was so quiet he could hardly hear her.

"They hurt people," he replied, filled with disgust, with sudden rage. He wheeled out of the room, suddenly tense all over.

Whatever had happened to the Doctor and his men, it had happened here. In that room. But what? And where was Olivia? He looked around with the flashlight and it was then that he noticed the bloody smear of a bare footprint on the floor in front of the door, and then a hand print on the wall beside it. The footprint was small — for a man, at least. But for a woman? The air in the corridor grew thick like molasses. He couldn't breathe, nor could he look away from the bloody hand print on the wall. Something had happened in that room. Something horrible.

"What is it?" Lincoln said. "Bishop?"

Peter couldn't reply. His lungs refused to draw breath. He made sure Ella was with him, then started forward, muscles tightening up strand by strand. A short distance away was another footprint, and then another, even further, as if the one who had made them had been running, their stride lengthening. He followed the trail, moving faster and faster, tension forcing him forward with a stiff hand between his shoulder blades. After a while, the footprints began to fade out, but there was still the occasional spot of blood to mark the path. The trail of blood splatters led around a corner, and it came to him that they were almost back to where they'd started, back to the door that would return them to the laboratory. It was there, just ahead on the right. He came to a stop in front of it.

Far down the corridor ahead, the flashlight beam caught the rumpled clothes that were the dead bald man Ella had named Mister Overbeek, and beyond him, the Doctor himself. He wiped a hand across his face. Had the trail been here all along? And he'd missed it? All of a sudden he felt sick. His stomach heaved violently. If the trail had been there, he'd missed it. But had it? Either he had, or it hadn't been there. Either way, it was here now.

Peter steeled himself, then tore open the door into the vestibule. Inside, he inspected the floor carefully and found a larger grouping of blood splatters next to the wall beside the door into the lab. Why were they larger? He pictured someone standing there, injured, dripping blood, peering through the window into the next room. An escaped prisoner? Was that it? Was that the explanation?

It was the only one he could think of. The only one that made sense.

Suddenly light flashed in his eyes, filtering in through the window in front of him.

"Shit! Someone's coming!" Lincoln hissed, grabbing hold of his arm.

Peter flicked the light off at once, thankful it had been pointed at the floor, and out of sight below the window. They ducked down, pressing up against the wall on either side of the door. Ella's slight weight pressed into his side. She was shaking, and more violently by the second. He took her hand, squeezing, gently. Straight across from him, Lincoln Lee was crouched in front of the window, peering over the lip.

"You see anything?" he whispered. He handed Ella the flashlight, then pulled the big handgun from behind his belt. "How many are there? Are they coming this way?"

Lincoln hesitated. "Two perps. Both are armed. They're just talking. Hold on." Peter's eyes widened as the other man cracked open the door, ever so slowly, letting out a pair of male voices.

" _... the hell is going on with the lights? They're out all over the place_."

" _No idea. That fucking freak Meegar has been getting weirder and weirder. No wonder the Doc is looking for a replacement. And where the hell is Danny? He was supposed to relieve me so I can eat._ "

" _What was he even doing down here?_ "

" _Delivering our resident losers their meals. You hear they caught the guy that hacked up Dale Mueller up at the farm? Fucking psycho with a samurai sword_."

" _No shit? A sword?_ "

" _Kyle told me all about it last night. He was looking for his woman. And almost made it, too. Had a rifle up against the Doc's head. He was the one that set fire to the kitchen._ "

" _Wait. You mean_ the _woman? The one everybody's talking about? I heard she was gorgeous._ "

" _She is. Hey, since the power's on the fritz, they're gonna be busy. You should go check her out before they put her in the grid tonight. She ain't gonna be so gorgeous after that. I'm gonna go pay her boyfriend a visit. I've got a little score to settle. Dale was a friend of mine. We knew each other, from before."_

There was a series of grating laughs that raised Peter's hackles. There were talking about Olivia. His vision tinted red around the edges, the sounds of the men, the world itself, all fading away. He wanted them dead. They were dead. Never before had the urge to attack, to kill, to commit murder, been so powerful. He raised the pistol, intending to throw open the door and put an end to their miserable existences.

"What the hell are you doing, Bishop?" Lincoln Lee whispered harshly, grabbing his wrist in a painful grip. "Jesus, you're just like him! I said they were packing. You gonna get in a gun fight with this kid here? And with the way you shoot? What if you miss? I doubt you've got more than three rounds left in that thing, anyway. You want to get her out of here and find your girl? That isn't the way to do it."

Peter met the other man's gaze with a glare cold enough to shatter glass, but he didn't flinch, nor did Lincoln release the heavy grip on his wrist. After a moment, he gulped down a breath, trying to regain control of his emotions. _Just like who?_ Crazy or not, Lincoln was right. He looked down at Ella, and found her quivering up against him, her face buried in his side. She was terrified. It was a wonder she wasn't screaming.

He leaned forward and peeked over the lower edge of the window. The two men were little more than shadows, one taller than the other, with the shorter wearing a dark baseball hat. A Yankees hat, if he wasn't mistaken. The taller man said something else to his fellow, then turned and strode through the door that would lead back to the cell block he and Lincoln had been held in. When he was gone Yankees hat hesitated, then turned and disappeared through the door opposite, to their left. Another cell block, Peter presumed.

"Now," Lincoln hissed.

Peter nodded and pushed through the door, keeping hold of Ella's hand. They crept out into the dimness of the lab, angling between the shelves and tables to the door on the left where the man in the hat had disappeared. Following in the guard's footsteps, they slipped into the next vestibule, where he hesitated, glancing down at Ella, and then over at Lincoln. He didn't know anything about him, but he was going to have to trust him now. He couldn't take the chance of Ella being struck by a stray bullet, or any of the other unknown variables that were inevitable during violent confrontation. He couldn't risk it. He thought of the fresh, waiting in his cell. Would the other man open the door? Did he even have keys? How many sets could there be? The guy had been planning some kind of unauthorized revenge, so he must, surely. It was another variable, which was altogether too many to take into account.

With a sigh, he passed the other man the handgun. "Here. Watch her while I'm gone. Or hide. Or whatever. Just keep her safe until I get back. If anything happens to her..."

"I'm not a fool," Lincoln muttered, but took the gun anyway. He held it as if he knew what he was doing, which could be taken as a good sign. Maybe. "What about the other guard? What if he comes back?"

"With any luck, the fresh waiting in my cell will take care of him."

"And if it doesn't?" From the tone in his voice, he didn't have much confidence in Peter's impromptu plan.

"Then do what you have to do. Just don't let him sound an alarm."

The other man nodded again. "Good luck. Go find your girl."

"I'll be right back, Ella," Peter said, touching her face. She looked up, eyes huge and glistening. "Lincoln will stay with you, okay? You can trust him."

Ella gave the barest of nods, and then he couldn't wait any longer. Olivia was in there. Or she had been. He pushed through the door into the next cell block. Inside, the corridor was a stygian cavern, a fissure of darkness stretching out to either side. The man in the Yankees hat was nowhere to be seen, but he found that he could hear him; the faint trudges of boots on concrete, and a whistled tune he immediately recognized from a brief childhood obsession with old Westerns, Clint Eastwood's, in particular. Apparently Yankees hat was a fan also.

He raced after him, keeping a hand on the wall on his right, all the while doing his best to not make a sound. The man would not expect to be followed, and was likely too busy trying to keep a tune to hear him, but surprise was his only chance. The wall ended abruptly, and turning the corner, he saw the white beam of a flashlight glowing in the distance, along with the vague outline of a man in a baseball hat. He hugged the wall, rapidly closing the distance between them. Ahead, the man's flashlight bounced around the corridor, off the walls, the pitted ceiling. The man was oblivious, consumed with his crooning. As Peter closed in, he removed the straight razor from his pocket, snapping open the blade carefully.

Suddenly the man's whistles cut short. He stopped with an audible gasp, followed by a string of low curses.

Something was wrong. Peter's pulse began to accelerate, picking up speed as he crept even closer, until the man was within spitting distance. Then he saw what had caused the fellow's surprise.

It was a body, sprawled in the middle of the corridor floor. A body with golden hair. A woman.

Peter's heart lurched, leaping in his chest. The air sucked from his lungs, like he'd just entered a hard vacuum. Was it Olivia? He couldn't tell. The woman's face was turned away from him. But she seemed bathed in blood, and was wearing what looked like a patient's gown. The pair of slender legs and bare feet that protruded from the gown were also smeared red. The man swept the flashlight ahead, revealing a line of bloody tracks receding in the distance.

The man in the Yankees hat stood over the woman silently, shaking his head. Then he let out another curse, and his silhouette reached for something on his belt. Peter found himself in a horrified daze, unable to pull his eyes from the tangle of the woman's gilded hair. Only when the metal _ca-chink!_ of an automatic's slide being drawn back and slammed forward did he realize what the man was about to do. He lifted his gaze and saw a handgun pointed at the prostrate woman's head.

"NO!" Peter leapt forward, the shout bursting forth from the depths of his soul.

The man in the hat jerked and whirled around in surprise, trying desperately to bring the gun up. Blinding white light flashed. He lashed out with the razor where he thought the man's head was, and felt the blade meet fleshy resistance. The man let out a shriek, and for an instant, his face was illuminated in the white glow; a broad nose and terrified eyes above a pair of stubbly cheeks, lips bisected, spurting twin gushes of blood that spilled over his chin. Peter instantly reversed the blade, and taking a cue from Ella, dragged it across the man's throat, cutting deep. The handgun boomed. A blast of orange light lit the air and fire burned through the meat of his right arm. Then the man was screaming, horribly, clutching at his throat, the gun and flashlight clattering to the concrete. Blood sprayed out between his fingers, splashing across Peter's cheek. With a roar, he kicked the man's knee out, then clubbed him across the face with the back of his fist, knocking him over to one side. The man collapsed on his side, twitching, a horrific gargling noise issuing forth from his ruined throat.

Peter ignored the dying man and the freshly lit fire raging in his right arm, and fell to his knees beside the woman on the floor. His hands shook as he turned her over gently, until he could see her face in the muted light from the fallen flashlight.

It was Olivia.

The air in the corridor suddenly seemed to have weight, as if it were crushing him from the inside out. "Nonononono..." he cried, picking her head up, cradling her as hot tears made tracks down his cheeks. Her body seemed light, like she weighed nothing at all. Her eyes were closed, and, he saw with burgeoning horror, that flaps of her silken skin had been cut away from her forehead, peeled back above her right eye like a banana. He could see her skull. There was a cut in it. A cut. A cut. A cut. He bit down on his lip, tasting blood. There was a cut in her skull. A slice, as if she'd escaped mid brain surgery. Or during her own vivisection.

Eyes bulging with rage and tears, he gently pressed the flaps of skin back into place, doing his best to control his quivering fingers. Olivia's skin was warm to the touch, and gathering himself, some semblance of rationality, he pressed a finger to the side of her throat. Then he waited, praying to any god that would listen for a pulse, all the while his own heart sounding peels of doom inside his head, his right arm almost numb with white-hot throbbing. She had to be alive. She had to.

He dimly heard footsteps approaching behind him, but couldn't look away from her face. He rubbed the palm of his free hand across her cheek, tracing the line of her jaw down to her lips. It was coming apart; his world, his life, like a sheet of shattered glass collapsing piece by piece; all collapsing, pillars crumbling, walls tottering; perhaps even his own sanity slipping away.

But then he felt something, a faint tremor against the pad of his finger.

Peter gasped, choking out a huge breath. He hugged her limp frame to his chest, pressing his lips to her temple. He could taste her blood, his tears, and his heart began to beat again. She was alive. The shroud of darkness began to pull back.

"Bishop? We heard the shot... and she had to come."

He looked up to find Lincoln Lee standing on the edge of the light, face cast in shadow. Ella was peeking around his leg, eyes growing huge.

"Aunt Liv?" Her voice began to rise as she rushed forward, throwing herself down beside him. "Aunt Liv! What's wrong with her, Peter? What's wrong with her!"

"I don't know," he said, smoothing Olivia's hair back. "I don't know. But she's alive. She's alive."

Suddenly the other body on the floor began to stir. A low, shuddering rasp filled the corridor, and the dead man's boots began to kick, smearing streaks of blood across the concrete. Ella let out a terrified scream. Before Peter could react, Lincoln rushed forward into the light. He glanced around, then smartly snatched up the fallen straight razor and carefully inserted it into the dead man's eye, pushing it in until the boots stopped kicking.

"Thanks for that," Peter said, meeting Lincoln's gaze as he straightened. "I forgot he was even there."

"No prob..." Lincoln started to say, then cut himself short. He gasped, eyes widening, and then backed away, until his shoulders hit the wall behind him.

Peter frowned and glanced about. There was nothing around. Nothing to cause such a reaction. "What the hell is the matter with you?"

"It's her!" Lincoln hissed, jabbing a finger down at Olivia. "You didn't tell me it was her! She's a killer! She'll kill us all! Just by looking at us. Just like she killed all the others."

"Hey! Aunt Liv hasn't hurt anybody!" Ella retorted with a fierce glare. "Not anyone who wasn't a bad guy or girl! You take that back!"

Peter stiffened, suddenly ice cold on the inside, frigid, and seething with rage. What now? He spotted the dead man's gun lying in the pool of blood, and gently laid Olivia back down on the floor. His right arm was numb, and drenched with his own blood, but that didn't stop him from grabbing the gun up and lunging to his feet. The gun he had loaned the other man was stuffed down the waist of his jeans, forgotten. Peter approached him, and then before the other man could react, he shoved the barrel of the dead man's gun deep up into the flesh beneath Lincoln's chin, pressing in until he heard a painful gasp.

"I don't know who the hell you're talking about," he whispered slowly in the man's face. "But whoever it is, it's got nothing to do with my Olivia. If you have a problem with that, Lincoln Lee from New Jersey, then our partnership ends right here, right now." He shoved the gun harder, until the other man lifted up on his toes. "She's been hurt enough. You get me, pal?"

Lincoln Lee's eyes rolled toward the ceiling. His chest heaved, taking in measured breaths. After a moment, he nodded. "I'm sorry," he said, blinking, gulping down air. "I'm sorry. All right? I... thought she was someone else for a second there. I'm sorry. Okay? You're right. It's not her."

Peter held the gun under Lincoln's chin a moment longer, studying his face for subterfuge. He'd thought she was someone else? Someone who could to _that_? _What the fuck is going on here?_ Something was out of whack. In his old life, when such feelings had occurred, it was usually about when the mark would begin to sense that they were being played. He could feel it now, like a moon with an erratic orbit circling overhead. Sooner or later it would impact, and then shit would hit the proverbial fan.

"You're damn right it's not her," he said, withdrawing the gun. "Lay a finger on her, and I'll kill you myself."

"I won't," Lincoln insisted. He stretched his neck out, rubbing underneath his chin. "I told you, I'm sorry. It's this... place. I've been here too long."

"Whatever..." Peter muttered, bending down beside Olivia. He sighed, and then passed the dead man's gun back to Lincoln. "We have to get out of here, Ella. Grab the flashlight."

Taking care not to disturb her wound, he gathered Olivia into his arms. With a grunt, he straightened, staggering to one side before catching himself. His right arm burned, throbbing with ice-hot pain. Finally, he let himself look at it. The bullet had only grazed him, and had gone straight through the meat. All things considered, it could have been worse. Much worse. Now they just had to make it upstairs, and somehow out of the compound without being gunned down. Between the four of them, they had one straight razor and two handguns — one of which was nearly empty — and two flashlights. _Piece of cake, right? Like stealing candy from an infected._

"Let me help you," Lincoln said.

Peter shook his head. "I got her."

"But-"

"I said I got her," he repeated.

"Dude. You need medical attention. You both do."

"Yeah? Well, I don't see any ER nurses hanging around, do you? The longer we stand here, the less likely any of us are going to make it out of here alive. Now let's go."

#

With Lincoln and Ella lighting the way with both flashlights, they made their way back to the laboratory at the center of the complex. When they arrived, it was clear that something had happened in their absence. The overhead light was out, and the door straight into their former cell block stood wide open. A table had been upended, scattering medical tools, and equipment lay out on top of it across the floor. They moved inside, and found thick spots of blood heading straight for the door on the left, which also stood wide open. Peter pictured in his mind what had happened. Someone had passed through in a hurry, taking the straightest path to the door. They'd been disoriented, and bleeding profusely.

"That's the way out, Peter," Ella whispered, pointing the flashlight toward the open door to the left.

"Get those guns ready," he whispered to Lincoln, hugging Olivia to his chest. The fresh in his cell had done its job. But were there two to deal with now? One would be bad enough. "I hope you're as good a shot as you think you are."

"I learned a thing or two from the best," Lincoln replied in an oddly bleak voice. "Stay behind me with her."

Peter nodded and followed them into another cell block. Olivia was growing heavy in his arms, but he refused to give in to either pain or exhaustion. The blood spattered torture room had been hers. They'd been cutting into her head, while she was awake, while she was conscious. The thought made him want to retch, and also filled him with hatred, with simmering fury. He wanted the man's head, but that man was already dead. She had killed him. It was the only explanation. How had she escaped? He looked down, trying to discern her face through the gloom. She was the strongest person he had ever known, and in that moment, he knew he would lay down his life for hers, if it came to it. It was the least he could do, the least she deserved. Not that he wanted it to come down to that. He wanted to be with her, to make a home with her — if that was even possible in their new world — for as long as they were both alive.

The trail of blood led to the far side of the cell block, to the very same door he had shot his way through. It went up the winding staircase, then through the decayed offices, and back to the long hallway with the black wires running down its center. As they neared the doors with the electrical tape handles, he felt Olivia stirring in his arms.

A breathy sigh escaped her parted lips, and then her voice was a barely audible caress. " _Rach... I... have... Peter..._ "

"I'm here, Liv," he whispered, pressing his lips into her blood-crusted hair. "I'm here. You're gonna be okay. You're gonna be fine." He waited, but there was no reply. Whatever brief flare of awareness she'd had, if it had even been that, had passed. It was a good thing, wasn't it? Surely waking, even if for a moment only, had to be a good sign. It had to be. And as much as he hated to admit it, he needed Walter, and he needed him now.

The doors into the nightmare human battery room appeared out of the darkness. Ella swerved to the far side of the corridor, keeping herself as far away from them as she could. What would happen to the ones wired into the array? The lights had gone out completely, and he could only assume that meant the man in the Converses was dead. Would they recover? Or were they already doomed, too damaged by what had been done to them?

They passed by the room without stopping to find out. The trail of intermittent blood splatters headed straight for the stairwell to the first floor without wavering. The man must have been running, but where did he think he was going? Outside? Looking for help? If he'd been bitten, surely he was aware that he was a dead man walking. Was it simply panic? It must be. Still, it was sort of impressive that he'd made it so far, without either dying, or turning. Or it was, until a flurry of gunshots suddenly boomed down from above as they began climbing the last stairwell.

Ella jumped with a squeak, and the flashlight beam jumped with her, ricocheting off the stairwell walls. Lincoln took the lead then, holding both his light and one of the guns out in front of him. Peter suddenly recalled Olivia using a similar technique in a darkened warehouse, way back during the man-baby case. Maybe the man was telling the truth. Maybe he had been in law enforcement. Not that it changed anything, or explained how he knew how to read the formulas on the chalkboard below. Whoever the man had been before was irrelevant. But it made him feel better, if only slightly.

"Dim that light, Lincoln," Peter whispered as they arrived at the ground floor landing. The air had grown colder with every step upward, until he could see his breath, until the cold stung his cheeks, at the sweat beading beneath his shirt. Shivering, he knelt down for a moment on the top step, catching his breath. The darkness was lighter ahead, out in the corridor beyond. "If there are any infected out there and they see it, they'll be all over us."

"They have white light sensitivity?" he said, glancing back with surprise.

"Anything on the spectrum above red is like... like a beacon to them. It drives them crazy. My father and I tested it, back near the beginning of the outbreak. Red light they can barely see. That was all we used, back at our lab. It seems like years ago, now."

"Your... father? Is here, too?"

"Supposedly." Peter thought there was a hint of wariness in the other man's voice, though it made no sense at all. Much like many of his odd comments. "He's harmless. Mostly." _Now, at least. After years of incarceration_.

They continued on, leaving the stairwell behind, navigating by way of faint light filtering in through the barred windows in the rooms to either side. They turned a corner and straight ahead was the exit; two dimly glowing rectangles off in the distance. Peter felt a surge of excitement, a rejuvenating shot of adrenaline that renewed his flagging strength. At one point, he'd been certain he'd never see the light of day again, much less with Olivia. They were so close. He could see out through the windows now, see snow falling in huge flakes that turned the air white. Above, the gray cloud cover was tinted with oranges and red, streaks of yellow. It was the color of morning. The color of the dawn, of the rising sun. The pair of doors grew larger, and the darkness turned to a gray haze.

Then a dark stain appeared on the floor in front of them, reflecting the light dimly. Lincoln risked a light for an instant, revealing a wide pool of blood. Someone had bled out. The man from below? Had he finally succumbed? And he had taken someone with him. Not far down the corridor was another fresh blood stain, along with chunks of torn flesh and sodden hair. Lying nearby, forgotten against the corridor wall was a sleek sub-machine gun. Lincoln snatched it up, letting out a gleeful cackle as he did so. Peter could only imagine what the man was feeling, after so long in the darkness of his cell.

When they reached the exit, the view outside turned Peter's blood cold, and at the same time filled him with a ray of hope. A man was stretched out on his back in the snow. His face was turned toward them, and his eyes were wide, his mouth gaping open. On top of him were a pair of freshes, devouring him alive; one tearing out the flesh of his throat, the other with its teeth buried in the cavity of his chest, ripping out stringy chunks, gulping them down. The man blinked, blood pouring from his lips. His hand, visible in the blood-stained snow, clenched, fist opening and closing. Could he see them? For an instant, it was as if their eyes had met, and he'd felt the breadth and width of the man's terror and pain in that gaze.

"Dear God...," Lincoln breathed, face pressed to the glass. "Should we help him?"

"He's a dead man," Peter replied coldly. He glanced down at Ella and found her watching the man die without even a glimmer of emotion crossing her face. He didn't like the look of that face, not at all. "Ella, what building are the others being kept in? Do you know?"

She blinked, seeming to shake herself free of whatever dark place her thoughts had been submerged in. "I... I think it's the one over there," she said, pointing out a section of the asylum complex to the east of the main building and its clock tower. "That's where Mister Overbeek and all his guards stay at night. I heard him say that's where they were taking them."

Peter eyed the distant building. It was easily a football field away, if not more. Attempting to reach it with the freshes out there was suicide. But killing them would only alert the rest of the compound that something was amiss. An alarm would be raised. Men with guns would come to investigate. But how many more men loyal to the Doctor could there be? He glanced down at the dying guard and found his eyes sightless.

A moment later the freshes climbed to their feet, as if they had somehow sensed the moment when the change had occurred in their victim. The dead guard sat up. Its face was white, it's eyes the mustard yellow of infection. Blood continued to pour from its wounds as it stood up and joined its fellows. Now they were three.

"What now, Bishop?" Lincoln Lee's face was white beneath his beard, his eyes wide and gray.

Before he could reply a pair of men wearing army fatigues came into view, strolling around the corner from the front of the main building. They were both armed, each gripping what looked like assault rifles. One of the men waved, and they changed their course, angling straight for the trio of freshes.

"Oh shit..." Lincoln breathed. "This seems like... not a good thing."

Peter held his breath as the two men crossed through the snow. One of them waved and must have shouted something, for no sooner than he lowered his arm the freshes bolted, charging straight toward the newcomers with terrifying speed. Their arms flapped and flailed, swinging in all directions. He waited for the men to raise their guns, to fill the air with bullets, but they seemed oblivious to the fact that their friends were no longer their friends — until it was too late, at least, and the freshes were bearing down on them like an avalanche. Finally, the men realized their mistake and a burst of automatic gunfire sounded dully through the glass. Distant starbursts erupted from the barrels. The freshes staggered as bullets tore straight through them, and one even went down, skidding on its face in the snow, but the other two kept on until they crashed into the pair of guards, tackling them down into the snow. The men's struggles ended quickly.

He watched it all unfold, reliving again the terrifying first days of the infection. The chance of it getting out of hand was becoming a real possibility. Now they were four. A few more and the freshes would be difficult to contain. They would spread like a virus through the rest of the asylum's population if they made it inside. But he couldn't think about that now. He had to find Walter. He had to free the others.

"We have to go," he said, renewing his grip on Olivia. "Now. While they're distracted."

Lincoln nodded his agreement, then pushed through the door, letting in a blast of freezing and swirling snowflakes. He held the door open, and Peter staggered out into the cold with his burden, and Ella trailed just behind. As he made his way down the steps, Olivia groaned, her body jerking spasmodically in his arms. Then a woman's scream tore through the gusting wind, filled with fear and terror.

Peter looked up and found a door out of the main building standing open — the same door, he noticed dimly, that opened into the kitchen — and that a black-haired woman had just stepped outside. She pointed at the freshes, and then screamed again. The freshes charged, and she leapt back inside, slamming the door shut behind her. A second later the undead guards barreled into the door with heavy thuds that echoed across the yard. The infected battered at the door and the windows to either side with claws and teeth, as if they were trying to eat their way through.

"Go!" he rasped, and put words to action.

They raced across the field, shoving their way through ankle deep powder. Snowflakes stung at his eyes, the freezing wind burned his cheeks. The distant building where he prayed his father was being kept grew closer. At the halfway point, Olivia's weight, seemed to increase tenfold, and Peter came close to dropping her, at the same time nearly falling on his face as he stumbled in the snow. Off to their right, the freshes were stalking the backside of the main building, searching for a way inside. He prayed the snow would obscure their view.

"Let me take her!" Lincoln said, suddenly at his side.

"I've got her," Peter said, shaking his head. His arms were burning, his lungs filling up with fire. _I can make it. I have to make it._

"Stop acting like an idiot and let me help, Bishop! In case you haven't noticed, you got shot. Now give her to me." Peter saw something then in the other man's eyes. A kind of compassion he hadn't noticed before. "I won't drop her," Lincoln said softly, his gray eyes intent and serious. "I promise you that. She... reminds me of someone I know."

"C'mon!" Ella cried from just ahead. "They're looking this way! Hurry, Peter!"

Chest heaving, Peter shot a glance at the curious freshes, and reluctantly passed his delicate burden off, arranging Olivia's arms across her chest. He took up the sub-machine gun and led the rest of the way, singling out a westward facing door as their point of entry into the east-facing wing.

The door was paneled, with upper and lower sections of glass. It was clearly not original, and he supposed it only made sense that at some point in the past some parts of the asylum had undergone renovation. The thought was fleeting and distant, and before he knew it, he was throwing the door open and charging inside, gun pressed hard against his shoulder.

Peter found himself in a small lobby area, where he guessed there had been a nurse's or receptionist's desk at some point long ago. The room was empty, the building silent. He motioned for Ella to enter, and then Lincoln with Olivia. He held the door open, making sure she didn't bump her head, particularly the horrific wound on her forehead which continued to trickle drips of blood.

"How many guards live here, Ella?" he whispered once everyone was safely inside. "How many bad guys?"

"I don't know," she replied in her hushed voice. Her face crumpled as she thought about it. "Maybe ten or twelve? Not all the people are bad here, Peter. Some of them are just regular. Like us."

Peter grunted, then moved deeper inside. Regular? If they knew what the Doctor was doing and supported it, then they were hardly regular. Still, he doubted more than a handful of them knew exactly what was happening, more than likely just the Doctor's inner circle. It was safer that way, for all involved. If they surrendered, that was fine. If not, then that was fine also. Either way, someone was going to pay.

There was only one exit from the lobby, a drab hallway lined with wooden doors. He stuck his head in the first and found a spacious room with a wide wooden desk crammed into one corner. The next room was similar in size and shape, though it was missing a desk. A row of chest-high file cabinets stood against the wall beside the door. Rusted drawers hung crookedly on their slides. It was an office. Had they all been offices? Were they in the administrative wing then? It seemed in better shape than the rest of the place, and he could see why the higher-ups among the Doctor's men had taken up residence in it.

The building remained quiet, but outside the wind howled. Had it covered the sounds of gunfire? It must've or surely someone would have come to investigate. Slashes of light fell through open doorways across the corridor ahead. Then, as they neared the end of the hall, a man in a black coat stepped out of a doorway ahead. He was staring down at a sheet of paper between his hands, and was oblivious to their presence, until he looked up, at least, and found himself staring down the barrel of Peter's gun. The man froze, mouth dropping open, sheet of paper fluttering lazily to the floor.

"Hey there," Peter said with a tight grin. "How's it going?" He saw a bulge beneath the man's coat on his hip, and noticed the fellow's hand drifting downward in slow motion, fingertips moving ever so slowly. "I wouldn't if I were you, buddy. Get those hands up."

The man went still, then raised his arms as if he were doing a bench press. He was young, perhaps low to mid-twenties, Peter guessed from his smooth face. His dark hair and olive complexion brought to mind European descent. Spanish. Perhaps even Italian. "Who... who are you guys?" the man said, and then his eyes shifted down to Ella, as if he recognized her.

"Escaped prisoners," Lincoln said from behind. "Your psycho Doctor's dead. Turned into one of those freaks on two legs. And the big bald guy, too. You want to be next? Please say yes."

The man shook his head rapidly, glancing between them. Peter noticed Ella giving the fellow an icy glare beyond her years. "I... No. I don't."

"I'm looking for some other prisoners," Peter said, stepping closer. "Two men, and three women. Where are they?"

"They're... they're upstairs. In the cells," the man said quickly. "Third floor."

"Are there any other people here?" he demanded, moving even closer, until the maw of the sub-machine gun's barrel was only a hand span from the man's eyes. "Any other guards? Tell me. Now."

The man nodded, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down as he swallowed thickly. "Two... no, three! Three others," he stammered, eyes nearly crossing as he stared down the gun barrel. "They're... they're upstairs, too. Please don't kill me. Please."

"Empty out your pockets and put that gun under your coat on the floor. Slowly. If you try anything, you're dead. If you do anything other than what I just said, you're dead. Capiche?" Unsurprisingly, the man did exactly as he was told, pulling a revolver from under his coat along with a small pocketknife, a packet of peanut butter crackers, and a pair of car keys. He set them all down, then raised his hands once more. "Now step back," Peter ordered, gesturing with the gun. "Against the wall. Turn around. Ella, grab his stuff. Be careful with that gun."

Ella scampered forward, pocketing all of it except for the revolver. Much to his surprise, she reached down and picked it up, holding it in both hands as if she'd been doing it her whole life. He blinked at the strangeness of the sight. "Be careful with that," he warned her. "Keep your finger away from the trigger, for now. And the barrel pointed at the floor."

"I know that, Peter," she said, giving him a pert look that reminded him of her mother. "I've used a gun before. When we were escaping the lab. I even shot an infected."

Lincoln let an amused grunt. "You're _her_ niece?" he said, nodding down at Olivia. "That makes perfect sense."

Peter gave the man a sharp look. What was with his cryptic comments? _Why does he act like he knows us? Why does he act like he knows me? Like we're best friends?_ The man had been calling him by his surname, almost from square one. Who did that? When it was all over with, the man had some explaining to do.

He motioned at the terrified guard, who'd been eyeing them all in his peripheral vision. "Lead the way, pal. To the other guards first. If you try to warn them, if you try anything at all, you'll be the first one to die. I promise you."

The man nodded fervently and led them to a stairwell, then up to a room on the second floor where three men were playing cards on a low table. Rummy, from the look of it. The trio of guards jumped up, knocking their chairs over as Peter shoved his prisoner into the room in front of him.

Peter squeezed off a few rounds, blasting a ring of holes in the wall beside the window. Plaster rained down on the guards' heads, who had gone as still as statues. One of them was short and fat and reminded him of Mario the plumber, but the other two were hard men, slender like knives and with eyes as dull and flat as slate. He had been in the company of such men before, and recognized their type instantly. Killers. If there was trouble, they would be the ones to start it.

"Gentlemen," he said, letting a wolf's grin stretch his lips wide. "Sorry to interrupt your game, but I'll let your friend here explain what's happened. For now, empty your pockets and put any weapons you might have down on the table in front of you. Carefully. Then step back. Now. Or, I can just kill all three of you. It's your pick. Personally, I'm leaning toward option number two, in the interest of saving time. Choose."

Hard men or not, they couldn't empty their pockets fast enough.

#

They found a room down the hall to secure the four men in, a former padded cell from the remnants of cloth stuck beneath grids of rusted rivets protruding from walls of solid concrete. Peter forced the men inside at gunpoint, then heaved a heavy door of solid iron shut behind them, slamming home a thick bolt-type lock that seemed impervious to time. There was a tiny window at the top of the door that at one point might have held glass, but no longer.

"Have fun in there, boys," he told them, peering into the cell. "I'm sure someone will be along to deal with you eventually. Or not. I don't really care."

"Piss off, asshole," one of the hard men snarled in a British accent.

Peter gave the man an impudent wink through the window, then rushed back to a common area on the second floor with a pair of wide leather sofas and a ping-pong table of all things, complete with a net and an array of paddles. Olivia was laid out on one of the couches, her head propped up on a padded arm rest. Blood stained her face and neck, her hair, there seemed no end to it. Her eyes were closed, the rise and fall of her chest almost imperceptible. Crouched at her side was Ella, holding one of her hands.

Lincoln came out of a nearby room with a patched quilt and draped it over her sodden patient gown, covering Olivia to her chin. "What the hell were they doing to her?" he asked, scratching the back of his head.

"I don't know." Peter bent down, brushing her hair back from the L-shaped wound above her right eye. A trickle of blood rolled down her temple. "I think that bastard was trying to cut out her brain." Why else have a powered bone saw? His face began to grow hot at the thought, rage-induced tunnel vision intruding.

"Then how the hell did she escape?"

Peter shook his head and forced an iron steadiness into his voice. "Stay with them, Lincoln. I'll free the others. My father will be able to help her."

Lincoln's eyes narrowed, but he nodded his assent. "I checked outside. Those things... those freshes, are still out there. They seem pretty hot to get in."

"They'll have to wait," he replied, straightening with a grunt.

Now that the adrenaline of escape was wearing off, the throbbing in his right arm became magnified, each pulse felt like being stuck with a hot poker. _Fuck me. That hurts_. He passed Lincoln the sub-machine gun, swapping it out for a Glock from one of the imprisoned guards that was nearly identical to the one Olivia had always favored. He was certain she would have approved the trade.

"Ella, I'll be right back," he told her, then trotted slowly back to the stairwell.

Peter could feel blood trickling down to his wrist as he lunged up the steps to the third floor. How much had he lost? Enough to cause worry? It didn't seem nearly as bad as the last time he'd been shot. Maybe he'd let Walter patch him up, too. After he saw to Olivia.

When he stepped out onto the third floor, there were voices speaking off to his right. He hurried that way past rooms similar to those below, with the same types of doors and locking mechanisms, only without windows. The voices were familiar, and hearing them was like watching storm clouds recede, like watching nascent rays of sunshine beaming down. The voices grew louder as he neared the middle of the hall. His boots echoed on the tiled floor, and the voices cut off with a hushed warning as he drew near. He couldn't help but grin as he reached the first closed door.

He unlocked the first door and went to open it, only for it to slam outward instead, the edge catching him in the chest and face. The blow left him in a daze, and then a body crashed into him, hurling him onto his back. He found himself staring up into the enraged face of Astrid Farnsworth as something incredibly sharp was jabbed into the flesh beneath his jaw.

"Astrid!" he gasped, trying to free himself to no avail. "It's me! It's Peter!" But she wasn't listening, and had him pinned as well as any wrestler, knees on wrists, forearm shoved hard against his throat, forcing his head back, cutting off his air. "Astrid! It's me! It's Peter!" he choked out again.

Astrid blinked above him, nostrils flaring. She stared down at him with wild confusion for a moment, and then the fury seemed to leave her gaze all at once, and she was herself again, a pretty young black woman with curls that never ended. "Peter...?" she said, pulling what looked like a prison shiv from the side of his neck. The tip was red with his blood. "Peter! It is you!" Her eyes lit up, and she squealed, then dropped a wet kiss onto his lips that left him stunned. "I can't believe you're here. You're here! What are you doing here?"

"I... I thought I was trying to free you," he said, still befuddled by how quickly she'd overpowered him. "But... I guess you already had that covered."

"Oh, geez! I'm sorry! I almost killed you!" She leapt off him, her face ashen. "I'm sorry. Are you okay?" She helped him to his feet, then took a better look at his condition, her dark eyes widening at what she saw. "No. You're not okay. Jesus, Peter, you've been shot!"

Peter shrugged. "Yeah. Again."

"What's going on Agent Farnsworth?" Broyles's voice said sternly from the next room. "Are you okay? What happened?"

Astrid looked past him, searching the hall. "Where are the guards? How did you get in here? Where's Olivia? Ella told us she'd talked to you. Have you seen her? Do you know where she is? Rachel's been losing her mind."

"The guards are taken care of, for now. And Ella's downstairs with Olivia." He shook his head. "She needs help. She's hurt. Where's Walter? He has to help her. We have to hurry."

"Then what are you standing here jawing for?" she asked, spinning away from him. She went down the line, unlocking the remaining two cell doors.

Broyles exited the first cell, along with Sonia, looking much the same as he always had, shoulders straight and imperious. "Good to see you alive, Bishop."

"And yourself too, sir," he replied, taking his former boss's proffered hand. "You don't know how glad I am to see all of you." And it was the plain truth. He was glad, more glad than he would've believed possible.

"Peter!" Sonia said, throwing her arms about him. "You're okay! Sort of. You're bleeding, like everywhere. And you smell awful. Huh. I guess I never noticed at the lab."

"Thanks, Sonia," he said dryly, unable to hold back a chuckle. For some reason, his lips refused to stop smiling. "Thanks a lot."

Rachel flew out the last cell, her eyes filled with fright as she locked onto him. "Peter. Thank God. Where's Ella? Please tell me you've seen her! Please tell me she's okay! And where's my sister?"

His smile did dip then, as he took in Olivia's younger sister's face. Someone had hit her. Someone had blackened her eye, and possibly broken her nose from the way it was swollen. She began to cry as he pulled her into an embrace, quivering against his chest. "Ella's fine, Rach," he assured her, looking her in the eyes. "She's just fine. She's waiting for you downstairs, with a... a friend of mine. They're with Olivia."

Rachel pulled away from him, sniffling. "Thank you, Peter," she whispered. "Thank you." An instant later she was gone, sprinting down the corridor to the stairwell.

"Peter...?" Walter stood before him. He was trembling, eyes watery with tears. "My son!" he whispered, then came forward hesitantly. Peter let himself be pulled into a fierce embrace, his father gripping the back of his shirt. "Are you okay, son? I've been so worried about you. I was afraid I'd never... that we'd never..."

With a sigh, Peter met his father's gaze. A lump of pain rose up his throat. "I'm fine, Walter. It's not me you need to worry about."

Walter released him, stepping with a frown. "Fine? But, Peter, you're dripping blood! You really need to take better care of yourself, son."

Peter shook his head. "It's not me you need to worry about, Walter. Bullet went straight through." His arm throbbed at his statement, begging to differ. "It's Olivia that needs your help. She's been... injured."

"Injured how?" Broyles said.

"It'd be easier to just show you," he said, shaking his head again. "C'mon."

He led them back down to the common room on the floor below where Lincoln Lee and Ella — now gripped tightly in her mother's arms — were waiting. Olivia lay still on the couch, just as he had left her. Lincoln turned from the window where he was peering outside, and his eyes came close to dropping out of their sockets as they approached. He added the man's strange behavior to the list of questions he had for him when this was all over.

Walter took one look at Olivia's wound and gasped in horror, and then recovering, took charge of the situation. "This is not good," he diagnosed, shaking his head. "Not good at all." His voice filled with outrage. "Who would do such a thing! It needs cleansing, and sutures immediately. We can't risk an infection, not with a wound such as this, with direct access to her cranial cavity. I need medical supplies, anything you can find. At once." His eyes darted around the common room, and he clapped his hands together. "Well? Someone go find them, now!"

Rachel released and rose to her feet. "There's a storage room on the first floor," she said. "I think I saw some first aid kits when I was in there once. I'll be right back." She loped off the toward the stairwell, and the room was silent in her wake.

Then Lincoln spoke from his place beside the window. "Don't those people have any weapons? They've broken out some of the windows. Oh. And there's six of them now, Bishop. Two more guys just came around the corner and got mauled. Neither of them even fired a shot."

"What's happening out there?" Broyles said, giving the stranger the stink-eye. "And just who are you?"

"Everyone, this is Lincoln Lee from New Jersey," Peter said, gesturing with both hands. "Lincoln this is everyone. Short version — we helped each other escape and now there's a pack of freshes outside, all former guards, I think, who worked for the Doctor, who by the way, is dead. Somebody killed him, maybe Olivia, I dunno, when she escaped in the middle of her own vivisection."

Astrid's eyes bulged. "Are you kidding me? That son of a bitch."

Broyles limped over to the window and took one look outside before turning in alarm. "There's dozens of innocent people in there, and they don't have any weapons that would be of use against those things. Not everyone was a part of the Doctor's madness. Some of them are our friends, Peter. We have to help them."

Between them there were five handguns, along with the sub-machine gun. As the others armed themselves, Peter hesitated, glancing down at Olivia. She seemed so small and alone, he loathed to leave her side. Even for this. What were those people to him? He didn't owe them anything. Did he? The only thing that kept him from refusing to help outright was the knowledge that if Olivia was in his place, she would surely do so without question. She had always been too good for the likes of him.

Walter approached, touching his arm gently. "I'll take good care of her, son. I promise."

#

* * *

#

Olivia first became aware of an orange glow.

The glow deepened slowly, becoming bright light intruding from all sides. The light pushed back the darkness holding her mind, her thoughts in a kind of temporary stasis. The darkness receded and she became aware of a band of tight pressure above her eyes, and then came awareness that she was seeing, that her eyes were in fact open, and before her was a row of windows, windows taller than they were wide, windows with square sashes of clouded glass through which the sun was setting, falling toward a horizon of distant, snow-capped treetops.

She blinked, and then became aware that she wasn't alone. There was a man standing on the far side of the room, staring down through one of the windows at something on the ground below. His back was to her, and he was draped in a heavy coat that was much too large for his frame, but she would have known that pair of slouched shoulders, the head of wavy, graying hair anywhere.

_Walter._

Walter? For several moments, she thought it was a dream. How could Walter be there? She held still for a moment, taking stock of her body, of the various aches and pains, and then images began to return. Memories. The taste of blood in her mouth. Jacob Fischer. His empty gaze as he leaned over her, the whine of the bone saw, and then blinding, terrible pain. Her head began to throb, spikes of pain driven into her forehead by an invisible hammer. She brought a shaking hand up to the band of pressure above her eyes and found a thick bandage, wrapped across her forehead.

A torrent of questions assaulted her, picking up speed with every new thought. _How did I get here? And where is here? Where's Peter? And Rachel? And Ella?_ Her heart battered the inside of her chest. More memories returned. Of darkness. Of lightning... passing through her. The stink of burning flesh. _I killed him. I killed them all._

"Olivia," Walter's voice intruded. "You're awake, finally." He had turned from the window, and was watching her with a sad smile. "I was beginning to worry. Perhaps I'd missed something? Some deeper injury I was unaware of."

She held his gaze for an interval before replying in little more than a croak. Her throat felt cracked and dry, as if were lined with wax paper. "Where is everyone? Is my sister okay? And Ella? What about Peter? We were separated... the Doctor was going to..." Her voice broke apart and she trailed off, trying to work moisture back into her mouth.

"They're fine, my dear," he replied, nodding as he massaged his left hand. "They're all fine." He glanced outside again, frowning. "Little Ella saved us all. She... she's much like you at that age," he added in a murmur. "Impetuous to a fault."

_Ella? My sweet baby girl..._ Tears blurred Olivia's vision. She inhaled, letting them come, tears that for once were not of sorrow. They were okay. Against odds that seemed insurmountable, they were all okay. She half-expected Walter to say more, considering the audacity of his last statement, but he chose to remain silent, eyes turned back to whatever was happening outside. Somehow, he seemed smaller than she remembered, the slump in his shoulders more pronounced. It was the posture of a man who was guilty, and knew it.

A thick quilt was draped over her body, all the way up to her chin. After a while, she dabbed at her eyes with the tasseled edge, wiping away the last remnants of her tears as she studied Walter from across the room. She had imagined this moment, from the instant Peter had told her of Jacksonville, and of what had happened at the day care center she'd been sent to as a girl. Since then, a million ideas of things she might say to him had crossed her mind in moments of barely-contained fury, but it wasn't going quite as she'd planned. She tried to summon her rage, but mostly, she just felt tired, of all of it. Perhaps she was simply too exhausted, too injured. But that wasn't going to stop her from bringing it up, however.

"Why did you do it, Walter?" she asked, putting as much ice in her voice as she could muster. "You and William Bell. Tell me you had a reason. Tell me it had a purpose."

He went still, then turned to face her slowly. His lips quivered, mouth working silently before he finally managed to speak. His voice was filled with a kind of tremulous sadness that might have torn her heart asunder under different circumstances, but no, not today. "We did it because we could, at first," he admitted, and shrugged pathetically. "I'm so terribly sorry, Olivia. But, we truly never meant to harm you."

"And then...?" she said, trying to ignore the last part of what he'd said. Her insides began to turn hot, the anger and fury she'd been looking for finding fertile ground. "You said, at first. What changed?"

Walter's gaze darted up to the ceiling, sweeping from side to side before returning to the view outside. He continued rubbing his palms together, faster than before. "He was sick, you see," he whispered at last, just loud enough for her to hear. "My son. _My_ Peter. He was dying."

Olivia swallowed. "What did that have to do with me?"

"Nothing. Not directly, at least. But then... you see, my Peter died."

"What...?" Her pulse began to race, and the air in the room seemed to grow thinner, as if there weren't enough of it. For a second she thought she'd misheard him, but she hadn't. His words echoed inside her head. _He just said Peter died_. The anger and rage building her chest turned cold in an instant.

Throwing back the quilt, she sat up swinging her legs off the couch. Distantly, she noted that the blood-stained patient gown was gone, and she was now sporting a thick, cotton sweatshirt that she dimly recognized as Rachel's, along with a pair of her sister's jeans. She stood up, and the throbbing inside her skull began to roar. Wincing, she gritted her teeth and staggered across the room, closing the distance between them. "What did you mean Peter died?" she questioned. "What does that mean, Walter?"

He wiped a tear from his cheek. "Peter died. _My_ Peter. I couldn't save him. I was too late."

Olivia stumbled, barely catching herself on a window sill as the room tilted to one side. What was he saying? Her mind couldn't process it. Surely he was mistaken. Peter wasn't dead. Her gaze went out the window, to a large open space blanketed with a layer of trampled snow, surrounded by ancient buildings. _See? He's right there_. And he was. A crowd had gathered, at least several dozen men and women, her friends among them. Broyles was there. And Astrid. And Sonia. And her Peter, standing on the edge of the crowd. He looked angry, his jaw fierce and clenched, as he tended to do when his temper was rising. She loved him. She remembered coming to the conclusion in the darkness of her cell, and the sight of him only confirmed it.

Peter was standing beside a man she didn't recognize, whose face was covered by a thick beard that hung low off his chin, like some kind of old miner from days of yore. Bodies decorated the yard, lying here and there, snow blotted red with blood. Clearly, there had been some kind of battle, and they had won.

In front of the crowd was a line of several men and one woman, all kneeling in the snow, hands tied behind their backs. Guns were being trained on them. _Prisoners. Jacob Fischer's men?_ she wondered, watching them. The civilians' — and she could only thing of them as civilians, for some reason — faces were filled with rage. They pointed and screamed. She could hear distant shouts through the glass. Charlene Watson was there, she noticed, standing at the front of the crowd. She was one of the shouting people. In her hand was a black automatic.

"What's going on?" she asked, turning to Walter.

"You shouldn't be on your feet, my dear," he replied. "You really should be lying down."

"What's happening out there, Walter?" she demanded.

"I... I believe there's going to be an execution. A series of them, in fact."

"What? They can't..." She turned to go out there, to stop it. Hadn't there been enough killing?

But Walter stopped her with hand on her arm. "Those people," he said in a voice as sane as she'd ever heard from him, "they were a party to something monstrous, Olivia. Monstrous."

"And you weren't?" she hissed, tearing his hand away.

A gunshot cracked outside, and she saw Charlene Watson lowering her pistol. The lone woman in the line of men topped to one side, the snow behind her splattered with gore. She looked at Broyles, at Astrid. Down at Peter. All of them were standing apart, letting it happen. Her own people. Why? And then it came to her. It was a new world. They were the outsiders. The survivors living here were the ones to mete out justice. And it was a harsh justice indeed.

"I saw what this man was doing below, this so-called Doctor," Walter said with distaste. "It was clever, if not crude. That woman lost her son. We were told he was out hunting. I assume they'd have told us he'd suffered an accident of some kind, eventually." His voice dropped to a low murmur. "What a parent wouldn't do for their child."

Another civilian stepped forward, a heavyset man whose face was pink in the cold. He raised a chrome-plated automatic and blew away the next two men in line, gunshots echoing in rapid succession. The bodies toppled, snow painted red behind them. And on it went, one after another until the second to last man in the line suddenly leapt to his feet without warning, and dashed toward the distant fence with surprising speed, kicking up snow behind him.

A flurry of gunshots filled the air. Broyles and the bearded man beside Peter opened fire with automatic weapons, along with the other civilians who were also armed. Olivia watched, sickened, as the fleeing man finally collapsed, face down in the snow, but only after making it shockingly far before succumbing to the hail of bullets.

She turned away from the window, unwilling to watch another second of it. "What happened to Charlene's son?" she asked. "How did he die? We met them on the road, Peter and I."

"He was subjected to horrible experimentation. In the end, turned into little more than a human battery, his very life drained out of him. We found him strapped to a bed frame, wired into some sort of harness the Doctor used to generate electricity. They were dead. All of them, turned, infected. Whatever is happening down there, those people were a part of it."

Olivia froze. His life had been drained? Electricity? Memories bloomed in her mind, of the moments before she'd killed Fischer and his men. The moments before she'd sent lightning bolts lancing between them with her mind. The strange energy, auras, she'd thought. And she had taken them, it in, every bit, except for one, one that had stubbornly refused her pull. Had they been people? Suddenly it all made sense. One had refused her, had fought back. Had it been a man? Had it been Joseph Meegar? He'd been confused, disoriented. Because of her, because of what she'd done? And the others? They hadn't been so lucky. _Oh god. Were they all people?_ They were. She didn't know how she knew it, but she knew it. And she had killed them. Sucked them dry like some kind life-force stealing vampire. Jacob Fischer hadn't killed Charlene Watson's son, she had. And who knew how many others?

_Oh my god... oh my god. What have I done? What am I?_

"Olivia, are you all right, dear?" Walter's voice was far away, as if he were speaking to her through a straw. "Are you feeling faint? Is it dizziness? Nausea? You must lie down, my dear. You are not fit to be up yet. I've told you this before."

Ignoring him, she stumbled back to the couch, dropping down hard on its cushions. "I killed him," she whispered, covering her mouth. "It was me. I killed them all. I... I used them. But I didn't know... I didn't know what I was doing! I didn't know that it was people. Oh god... it should be me kneeling out there. It should be me."

Walter was beside her in an instant, kneeling down in front of her. When he took one of her hands, she let him. "No, you mustn't think that way, Olive," he said urgently, rubbing his thumb across her palm. "You've been used most horribly, my dear, starting with Belly and I. None of this is your fault. Whatever it was, whatever you did, you couldn't have known. I'm so terribly sorry."

Olivia shook her head, staring down at the floor. But it was her fault. She knew it in her soul, even if it could never be proven. Ignorance didn't mitigate culpability — it never had. She lifted her gaze, looking Walter in the eye. "What did you mean before, when you said you couldn't save Peter? That he... died. What did you mean by that?"

Before Walter could reply, however, a door down from the common room opened, and Ella and Rachel stepped out into the hall, followed by another little girl she recognized as the one who'd been with Charlene Watson in the road. _Gina. Her name is Gina._ Her eyes were bloodshot, as if she'd been crying recently. Seeing them, Walter took the opportunity to flee, quickly returning to his spot by the window and refusing to even look in her direction.

"Aunt Liv!" Ella cried, seeing her. "You're awake!"

"Hey, baby girl," she said, and suddenly found herself grinning from ear to ear. Ella charged across the room and threw her arms round her waist, nuzzling her head up under Olivia's chin like she used to do, before the world had gone to hell.

"Not so rough, Ella," Rachel said crossing over to the couch and sitting down beside them. "She just woke up." Olivia gasped at the condition of her little sister's face. Someone had hit her. One of her eyes was black, and her nose was more swollen than not. "I'm all right, Liv. Walter doesn't even think it's broken, this time."

Their eyes met, and an instant later they were both crying, arms flying around each other, sandwiching Ella between them. They were okay. Everything was going to be fine. Then, through the blur of joyful tears, she became aware of the blatant distress painted across Walter's face as he watched their reunion from afar. The sight sent icy chills racing up her spine.

He was terrified.

#

* * *

#

The executions were over.

Peter eyed the men and the single women who had served the Doctor, who now lay dead, their blood red splotches in the snow that sort of reminded him of abstract art for some reason. He turned away, a sudden wave of disgust twisting his gut.

Once the freshes had been destroyed it had not taken long to explain what had happened, what the Doctor had been doing down in the depths of his research building, and, where they had all been getting their power. Most of the survivors hadn't believed any of it, not at first, until they'd made the trip themselves down into the Workshop, as they morbidly called it, down to the room where the Doctor's little science project had been kept. Then the horror had come, and the outrage. The ones loyal to the Doctor had been picked out and thrown in with the others they had already captured. And then had come the justice he'd just been witness to.

He wasn't sure what had killed all the men in the generator array, as he had privately come to think of the grid of beds, but some of the infected squirming on the bed frames had been recognized. Friends. Loved ones, all thought dead, victims of accidents or attacks on the outside — or so they had been told. Had it been the man in the Converses? They had found him, dead and turned, and still stuck in the room where they'd left him. He had seemed to be in control of the grid. Was his death linked to theirs? Perhaps it was a true link, some sort of mental connection that was dependent on the head end? Why not? The impossible was now possible. Walter had refused to speculate when he'd inspected the lab, and even he had seemed offended by the atrocities that had taken place there.

Seeing Walter again bordered on surreal. They had hardly spoken — he had not yet decided whether or not to make peace with his father — but at least he had kept his word with Olivia. She was resting, and would wake as soon as her body was ready, or so Walter had told him when he'd finally made his way outside, leaving her in the company of Ella and Rachel. His own injuries had been tended to, cleaned and wrapped, stitches applied. His wounds ached, the one in his side and the new in his arm, pulsing in counterpoint.

The crowd began to disperse and Peter glanced among his fellow survivors, cataloging names and faces, those few he knew, at least. He would learn the others in time — if they stuck around long enough. He wasn't sure he wanted to, though Broyles had not been kidding when he'd said they'd had friends among them. The former Special Agent was off to one side, talking to the woman Charlene in low tones. Her son had been one of the Doctor's victims. And there was Astrid, standing with one arm wrapped around a woman about her age with black hair cut short. Her face looked familiar, but from where he couldn't say. The woman's name was Claire, and she had introduced herself by leaping into Astrid's arms when the freshes had finally been dealt with. Not far away Sonia and Lincoln Lee were talking, though about what he couldn't quite make out. He had a sense that she found him amusing, though, which he could understand. The man had a sharp sense of humor, which was in itself surprising, given what he had endured, the months spent alone in a box.

It was over. Finally. All that was left was the details, as the old saying went.

Most of all, he wanted to get back to Olivia. He wanted to be there when she woke up, if at all possible. With that thought in mind, he turned do just that, but before he could even take one step, a shout went up, from a blonde-haired woman that also seemed familiar. The woman was frantic, calling everyone to her.

Peter frowned. She was standing over the body of the man who'd tried to escape. Could he be turning, now, so long after the fact? With all the bullets that had flown the fellow's way, surely one had struck him in the head. One must have, or else he'd have turned already. But the woman kept at it until a crowd gathered around her. Instead of comforting her, however, the woman's panic seemed to spread. The big man who'd killed two of the guards sprinted for the main building, his eyes bulging with fright.

"What the hell is it now?" he wondered aloud, scrubbing a hand down his cheek. It was cold out, his toes were frozen, his fingers also. He just wanted go back inside, back to Olivia. And maybe lie down. Was that too much to ask?

"Whatever it is, it looks like more than nothing," Lincoln commented, glancing between them. His eyes lingered on Broyles, expression unreadable.

Peter sighed, shoving his hands deep into his pockets. Then, as if some silent threshold had been reached, they made their way over to the crowd, shoving their way to the center.

"What's the matter, Juliet?" Broyles asked as they reached the distraught woman.

"It's Jonas," she replied, her face so pale it bordered on translucent. "Look at him! That ain't right! What is that shit? I've never seen anything like that before!"

Peter shoved his way to the front, until he stood over the body. A wave of icy chills swept through him, sucking the moisture from his mouth. Bullet holes riddled the dead man, including one that had passed straight through his skull, exploding outward beneath his right eye. The flesh surrounding the exit wound was peeled back, only instead of blood, streams of bright silver had dribbled out onto the snow, leaving bright streaks behind on the man's cheek. The rest of him was in similar condition, his coat saturated, leaking from at least a dozen bullet holes.

He stared down at the body, unbelieving. _Oh shit. It's another one._ He'd been hoping it was just the one. Because if it wasn't, then anyone could be one.

Broyles bent down, as if he were preparing to collect a dollop of silver blood on his fingertip.

"Stop! Don't touch it," Peter gasped. "That's mercury, and who knows what else."

The former Special Agent froze, fingers inches from the dead man's face. "You mind explaining how you know that, Bishop?" he asked, peering up with narrowed eyes.

"Olivia and I came across another one of these things after we left Cambridge," he explained. "It was in a bar, maybe a mile or two from here. Someone had killed it already, but it had the same kind of blood — mostly mercury." A murmur went through the crowd surrounding them as he finished. Voices of fear, of amazement. The woman with short blonde hair — Juliet, apparently — along with most of the others standing closest stepped back, faces pale with fear, as if he'd just announced the dead man was radioactive. Some of them outright fled, hightailing back to the main building, kicking snow up as they went. He looked over and found Lincoln gazing down at the mercury man with a stunned expression. "You know something about this?" he asked, meeting the peculiar man's gaze.

Lincoln shrugged, clearly uncomfortable. "I'd heard... rumors about things like this," he said with a frown. "Back where... I'm from."

"You mean back in New Jersey?" Peter said with a smirk. The man was hiding something, and was certainly more than he was letting on. One way or another, he was going to find out what. But that would have to wait. He glanced over at the building where Olivia was convalescing under Walter's watchful eyes. "My father needs to see this."

#

Voices and laughter filtered down from above as he lumbered up the steps to the second floor. He stepped out of the corridor and saw Ella bouncing up and down on one of the leather couches in the common area at the end of the corridor. Rachel's voice rang out from somewhere out of view, warning her to be careful, but from the sound of it, her heart wasn't in it. Someone else spoke, and there was a rippling laugh that drew Peter's attention like iron filings to a lodestone.

He hurried down the hall toward them, pulse accelerating until he could hardly breathe. As he neared the common room, his footsteps echoing before him, Ella noticed his approach, her face lighting up with excitement.

"Uncle Peter!" she cried, motioning for him to hurry. "Aunt Liv's awake!"

Peter stepped into the common room and there she was, sitting up on a couch, turned away from him, hair in a tight ponytail down the center of her back. Rachel was beside her, but he had eyes only for Olivia. When she swiveled to face him, it was as if time itself slowed down, dropping into stop motion, and every inch of her face revealed to him sent jolts of warm light filling his chest. Her generous lips parted slightly, and then her beautiful green eyes seemed to open all the way as they rapidly swept over him from head to toe, as if she were cataloging every one of his injuries in a single glance. The white bandage taped across her forehead diminished her beauty not at all, and he thought his swelling heart might burst.

She was awake, and she was okay. And nothing else mattered.

A voice was speaking from somewhere to his right, and it came to him that he had stopped moving, and was standing frozen in the doorway. He saw Rachel's mouth quirk upward into an amused smile. Walter was standing near the north-facing windows, where he would have had a clear view of the executions, and what had happened afterward.

"Can me and Gina go outside now, Peter?" Ella was saying. She was now standing in front of him, looking up at him with a small frown. "Peter...? Gina's grandma said we had to wait."

Peter wet his lips, tearing his gaze from Olivia. What had she asked him? To go outside? "Um... sure? Why not?" he said with a shrug. "They're all done out there, just do me a favor and stay away from all the bodies." He wasn't sure why it should matter — both girls had seen more than their share of dead people since the start of the infection — but the fact that none of the men or the woman had turned made it different somehow.

Rachel rose to her feet. "I'll go with you, Ell," she said. "And how about you go out front instead? You two shouldn't be running around alone right now, anyway. I'll see you later, Liv." Olivia nodded, and she crossed the room, collecting Ella on her way. She paused beside him and brushed a kiss across his cheek. "Thanks again, Peter," she whispered in his ear. "For everything. And for the record, I think you'll make a great uncle for Ella someday. And a brother-in-law." A moment later she was gone, and the two children with her.

In the aftermath of their departure, a thick silence filled the room. _Brother-in-law? Where did that come from_ _?_ Peter found Olivia gazing after her sister, eyes narrowed. What was she thinking? She had yet to speak to him, or even acknowledge his presence other than that single, brief look upon his arrival. His mind began to race. Had something changed between them? A sick feeling pervaded through his chest like an inkblot, spreading across his emotions. But then, as if she'd sensed his rising dismay, Olivia met his gaze coolly. She tilted her head toward his father, who was standing about as far away from her as he could get, while still being in the same room.

The flare of panic fled in an instant. No. Of course nothing had changed. Why had he thought it might? Was it fear? Fear that her captivity had changed her from the woman he'd fallen in love with? Fear that he knew nothing of what she'd gone through, what kind of horrors she'd been subjected to. Were there worse things than being held captive? Than being experimented on? Undoubtedly. There were humiliations, degradations that would change anyone — even someone as strong as her.

He followed the tilt of her head to his father, whose eyes were glued to the view outside the window. From his wilted demeanor and the way he avoided looking at either of them, something had obviously happened in his absence. Had Olivia confronted him? He wondered how it had gone, what she'd said and how hard she'd been on him.

"Walter," he said, moving to stand beside Olivia's couch. "There's something you need to see outside." When his father didn't respond, he tried again, louder. "Walter!"

Walter jerked as if he'd stuck his finger in a light socket. His eyes rolled around the room, before settling on Peter's face. They were red, tinged with tears both shed and unshed. He looked a mess. Something _had_ happened between them.

"Oh... hello, son," his father said with a swallow. "I didn't realize you'd returned. Too busy woolgathering, I suppose. Did you say something?"

"I said they need you outside. There's something you have to see. Like right now. It's important."

"Oh...?" Walter blinked, and his face began to take on color again. "Is it a surprise, then? Is that why you're building such suspense, and not just coming out with it?"

Peter sighed an exhale, rubbing his eyes with thumb and forefinger. None of the last few minutes were happening at all how he'd envisioned. He'd missed being there when Olivia had awoken, and now he was beating around the bush instead of just coming out with it. It was a measure of how out of sorts finding her awake had left him. She stirred on the couch, her obvious impatience with his handling of the situation rolling off her in waves.

"It's a body, Walter. A dead body. Only it's right up your alley. You ever performed an autopsy on someone who had mercury for blood?" Beside him, he felt Olivia stiffen.

"Mercury?" His father's face became animated, his curiosity piqued. "Now that is unusual. Is that what all the commotion was about a few moments ago? I'd thought perhaps someone might have been struck by a bout of excessive flatulence. I suppose a man with mercury for blood would be a shock." He gathered himself, then hurried out of the common room, only to stop a few paces down the hall before turning back to them. "Aren't you coming, son?"

Peter glanced down at Olivia. She hadn't moved from her seat, but there was no doubt she was chomping at the bit to go all investigatory on him, no matter that a mad scientist had tried to removed her brain less than twelve hours ago. She was just going to have to wait. "You go on ahead. I'll catch up in a bit."

Walter's gaze shifted between them. "Oh. I see." He gave them both a tremulous smile. "Very well, then," he murmured, before turning and walking away.

The echo of his footsteps faded, and then disappeared. The silence that followed stretched out, filling with sudden tension. Only then did Olivia rise from her seat, standing before him, close enough to touch. Her eyes seemed huge as they moved over his face, always cataloging. Peter found himself lost, floating in an emerald sea tinged with specks of gold. She reached out, slowly touching his face with her fingertips, dragging them through the stubble of his beard, before stepping in close, letting him enclose her in his arms.

He held her that way for an unfathomable amount of time, feeling her heartbeat against his chest, the caress of her breath against the side of his neck. He could have held her that way, perhaps forever, but it was not to be.

"Oh, Peter...," she whispered, pulling away slightly to meet his gaze. "I was so worried about you. Are you all right? Rachel told me what you did." Her breath hitched. "Fischer told me what he had planned for you. He was going to infect you. I couldn't let him. Not you."

"I'm fine," he said, wincing as he shrugged. "A little beat up, I guess. But nothing compared to what you went through. I should be the one asking you. Are _you_ okay? Did they... hurt you, very much? I mean I know they hurt you, but the things I imagined being done to you... After you were gone, I think I started to lose it for a little while. If anything had happened to you, if I had never found you, I think I would've gone crazy, Liv. Just... checked out." He raked his fingers back through his hair, shivering as he relived those first few moments after the truck that had taken her had disappeared. "I can't do this without you, you know? This... world. This apocalypse. Any of it. Not without you."

Olivia stared up at him without blinking. "You can and you would have, Peter," she told him simply. "It was terrifying, for the most part. But I'm all right. God, I have so much to tell you. Some of it is just... insane. Crazy, like you said. But... I'm all right."

Peter pulled her close again, sighing into her hair. Fischer? Was that the Doctor's name? She did have a lot to tell him. But it could wait. "I guess I was afraid if they hurt you enough, even if I did find you, that you wouldn't be you, not anymore."

With a smile that suddenly turned sensuous, she pulled his head down and kissed him, savagely at first, curling his toes up, before pulling slowly on his lower lip as they separated. "And what about now?" she murmured. "Are you still afraid?"

He pulled her slender frame against him, hugging her tight and chuckling over her head at her sudden forwardness. She _was_ okay. "So. What exactly happened that night? Did you ever make it to the bathroom?"

Olivia threw her head back and laughed, but quickly gasped, pressing a hand to her forehead. Her eyes bulged with pain. "Ow, crap that hurts. Ahh... Please don't make me laugh, Peter. Please."

"Are you sure you should be up and about, Liv?" he asked, eyeing her again. She looked like someone in the throes of an intense migraine.

After a moment, she relaxed, exhaling in relief. "I'm fine, Peter," she insisted. "Truly. I just have a bitch of a headache."

He opened his mouth to tell her that that was exactly why she should be lying down and letting her body recuperate. But she seemed to know exactly what he was going to suggest, and had already arched an eyebrow, waiting for his delivery. He thought better of it and changed the subject. Convincing her to do anything but what she wanted was mostly futile, but also part of what had drawn him to her in the first place, her unfailing independence.

"I wasn't kidding about the mercury man," he told her. "There was one here. It was one of the Doctor's men."

Olivia nodded. "I already knew, or thought I did," she said. "There was a man. He... visited me in my cell, not long after I arrived here." She hesitated, and a shudder went through her. A flicker of emotion he had never seen before crossed her face for an instant; a mixture of revulsion and humiliation and fear that he never wanted to see again, ever. An inner heat began building up beneath the surface of his skin, rage that tinted his vision red around the edges. "It's not what you're thinking, Peter," she added quickly, taking his hand. "Not exactly, at least. This man. He acted like he knew me. I think it was Agent Rodriguez."

"Agent Rodriguez? Isn't that the guy we found stuffed in a cabinet? Charlie said he was dead."

"Apparently, he wasn't. Maybe these things aren't so easy to kill. I mean, they're not even human, are they? Maybe the infection doesn't touch them."

Peter studied her face, still seething on the inside. Something had happened. Something she wasn't telling him, and more than likely to keep him from worrying about her. But then again, he wasn't telling her everything, was he? All he could do was trust that someday she would. Or maybe he was just better off not knowing the details.

"Peter, I'm all right," Olivia said, capturing his gaze. "If you really want to know what happened, I'll tell you everything, but it was more strange than anything else. He came in and touched me, then said he'd wondered what I tasted like, and that he'd seen me on TV."

"Huh? What you _tasted_ like?" He shook his head, trying to dispel images of how that might have been accomplished, and decided he no longer wanted to know. Some things couldn't be unseen, or unheard. "Were you on TV a lot before? For some of your cases, maybe?"

"Not that I recall. When John and I were working together, he always wanted to talk to the press if we had to. Maybe this thing thought I was someone else."

"I'm sorry," he said after a moment. "I wasn't kidding when I said I went a little crazy with you gone. The night you were taken, I captured one of them. Olivia, I... I tortured him, chopped off his hand, then let him bleed out, let him turn." He lowered his gaze to the floor, unable to look her in the eye any longer. "He was a cop before. Like you. Told me he had a family, but they were dead, that he was just following orders. But I didn't care. I did it anyway, just to watch him suffer."

Olivia reached out, lifting his chin with her fingertip. "Peter, that man made his choice, and paid for it. The world isn't the same as the one we knew. The old laws, the old rules, they no longer apply. Not right now. And maybe never again. We do what we have to do, and try not to hurt too many people when we do it." She gave him a sad smile. "I think I only just realized that myself, too."

Unable to help himself, Peter pulled her close to him again, soaking in the feel of her against him. "Olivia, how did you escape? And what the hell was the Doctor even trying to do?"

"I... burned him," she whispered, another shudder running through her. "With lightning. Him and his men. He... he told me he was going to cut out my brain, just so he could see what made me different. He saw me cross over, Peter. To that other world. I was trying to escape, but no matter what I did, I couldn't get far enough away."

He leaned back, looking her in the face. Her eyes were far away, and she seemed terribly sad for some reason he was at a loss to explain. "So, it _was_ your abilities. You figured them out?"

"Sort of. It's kind of hard to explain, and I don't even know how to begin." She hesitated, and suddenly seemed uncertain of how to proceed next. "Peter, I talked to Walter..." She broke off as the thump of footsteps rang out from down the hall.

They turned just in time to see Astrid spin out of the stairwell, her boots skidding across the tiled floor. She hurried toward them and her face lit up with excitement when she noticed them watching her.

"Olivia! You're awake!" she said, rushing into the common room. "Thank god you're okay, even though you look like hell." She gave Olivia a brief hug, then stepped back. "I'm not interrupting, am I?" she asked doubtfully, shifting her gaze between them. After they had assured that she was not, the excitement crept back into her voice. "Good. Because you guys have to see this. That thing down there with mercury for blood — Walter wants to start the autopsy. But he says he needs your help, Peter."

Peter glanced at Olivia. What had she been about to say? Her lips were quirked to one side, pressed together like something was bothering her. "You all right?" he asked.

Olivia gave a noncommittal shrug. "Yeah. Sure. It can wait. Let's go see this body."

"It'll be like old times, you two," he chuckled, walking between the two women on their way to the stairwell. "The three of us and Walter and a dead body? Together again."


	33. The Man From Another Side

**-March 2009**

The body was sprawled on its back across a wide table, shoved beneath a westward facing window. Rays of orange sunlight slanted across its gaping chest, bringing to life an aura of iridescent glitters. Pools of silvery liquid mixed with what may or may not have been blood spread out over the table, dripping over the edge onto the tiled floor. Circling the table was a ring of sterling shoe prints, a ring that grew ever more defined as Walter moved about.

Arrayed at one end was an assortment of medical tools, the usual sort employed for conducting an autopsy. They'd been retrieved from Jacob Fischer's lab, and the mere sight of them gave Olivia the chills. She avoided looking at them too closely, or even standing near them if at all possible. Feeling the effects of such a phobia was new to her, and she wondered if it would become a permanent addition to her personality, or whether she could work her way through over time. Her forehead throbbed and her view of the room and what was happening in it was skewed by a slight fog, courtesy of the double dose of narcotic painkillers Peter had found for her somewhere.

She watched Walter as he stood over the dead man, or the dead thing, she amended, as whatever it was, it clearly wasn't a man, despite being shaped like one on the outside. He wore latex gloves and a cooking apron over a white lab coat he'd found somewhere, and both were painted silver and red with splatters of its blood. He muttered to himself as he went about it, reaching into the cavity of its chest with a silver-coated scalpel. He cut an unrecognizable organ free and dropped it in a bucket beside the table with a wet, fleshy-sounding splat. Unlike other autopsies she'd witnessed, there were no odors to speak of, no stenches of decay, of human waste, or the metallic tang of blood. Which only reiterated the blatant fact that the thing on the table was not a human being.

"Down low there," Peter said from nearby, pointing but not touching. "Down at the base of its spine. You see that?"

"Ahh...," Walter murmured with an approving nod. "Yes. That _is_ interesting, son. Sneaky little bugger, eh? No wonder I missed it on my initial inspection. Looks like some kind of electronic device? Some sort of interface? Perhaps a power source." He reached for a pair of cruel-looking scissors with curved blades that appeared stout enough to cut through a tree limb, and began cutting away something out of view down low near the dead thing's waist.

"Ugh..." Rachel grunted as a series of sharp, crunching sounds filled the room. "That's god-awful. This was your day job before, Liv?"

Olivia smiled faintly as others around the room echoed her statement, most of whom were still unknown to her. She eyed them discreetly from her vantage point against one wall; the raven-haired young woman standing beside Astrid; another woman with hair the color of fine straw talking quietly to Sonia; a heavy-set man whose face was red and puffy as if he'd just run a marathon and looked as if he'd rather be anywhere else. And there was the thin, dark-haired man with the overgrown beard she'd seen talking to Peter during the executions. He stood apart from everyone, watching Walter's impromptu dissection from across the room. What was his story? According to Rachel, the man had played a large part in their rescue, along with Ella, as improbable as that seemed. How that had come about she wanted to know, but it could wait. Peter would no doubt tell her all about it when they were alone. She noticed the bearded man's gaze would shift between several people in a perpetual loop, eyes widening as if he were continually surprised by what he was seeing. Walter, then Peter, then Broyles and Astrid. And then herself.

Each time she'd caught the man looking at her, he seemed to flinch. When he looked at her again, she held his gaze this time, only for the man to turn away quickly, the parts of his face not covered by his beard paling noticeably. He was clearly uncomfortable, and with herself in particular.

 _What the hell is that about?_ she wondered, continuing to eye the stranger. She was all but certain she had never seen him before in her life. He refused to even look in her direction again.

Charlene Watson was standing near the exit, her eyes red-rimmed and bloodshot. Outside in the hall, Ella and the woman's granddaughter were kicking a soccer ball back and forth. The girl hadn't been told about her older brother yet. And Olivia had yet to speak with the grieving mother, and had no idea what she was going to say when the inevitable confrontation occurred. _Hi, remember me? We met on the outside. By the way, I also sucked the life out of your son earlier today. How have you been?_ It was ridiculous. A wave of revulsion filled her. Revulsion for her own skin. She was a monster. A killer of innocents. How could she possibly ever look the woman in the eye? She would know in an instant. How could she not?

"And here we are," Walter announced, holding up a small, silver-coated disc-like object in his gloved hand. Several strands of hair-thin wire dangled down, dripping liquid silver. "Whatever this is, it was connected directly into this being's nervous system by way of these fibers."

"Have you ever see anything like this before, Doctor Bishop?" Broyles asked, motioning toward the body. "Who could have made something like this? The Russians? The Chinese? Japan?" He held up one of the strange devices she and Peter had found on the first body, with the same three-pronged clip at the end of a flat cable. The device had been in the dead thing's pocket, and was just as mysterious as the other. "Where could it have come from?"

Walter shook his head, setting the disc down on the table. "No, never. Agent Broyles. It is technology quite unlike anything I have ever seen or heard of before." He paused, and his voice took on a lecturing tone. "It is certainly far beyond the capabilities of ourselves, or our Russian comrades, or the Chinese, or even the Japanese or the Koreans, who are the closest to achieving such a feat, and even then their technology was heading in a different direction altogether, as I understand it. No, I suspect, that whoever made this... thing, they were not of this Earth. They and it, are from somewhere else altogether."

"What are you saying, Walter? That it was sent here by aliens?" Astrid scoffed, then glanced around nervously. "You aren't are you? Cause... cause that would be ridiculous... wouldn't it?"

"Sent here by aliens?" Walter frowned, shaking his head. "No. And as much as such an occurrence would delight me, it is clearly of human design. All the telltale signs are there. The attention to detail is far too high, it's understanding of our cultural and social interactions and its ability to blend in among us only something a human could have designed. And what use would such a creature be to an extra-terrestrial species? Any race of beings capable of traveling to Earth from another star system would be to us as we are to the cave men. Or to the ants. No. It was made by man, just not one of _us_."

"Then who the hell are you talking about, Walter?" Peter said.

"I said someone not of _this_ Earth, Peter. Not this Earth, but another. The very same world that is attacking us. The same world I've long suspected is the source of the infection."

The room was utterly silent in the aftermath of Walter's statement. Outside in the hall, the bouncing soccer ball sounded like bombs going off. Olivia drew in a breath, filling her chest as the idea percolated all the way down the base of her brain stem. Another world. Another Earth. She saw the Boston skyline again, the strange and giant domes enveloping the buildings on the horizon. Were they one and the same? It seemed incredible that the dead thing lying on the table could be from there also.

"...Excuse me?" Broyles said after a moment. "You expect us to believe that this... thing, that it's from another Earth? You are aware of how insane that sounds, aren't you, Doctor Bishop? And on top of that, that this world is causing the infection. How is that even possible?"

Walter's lips turned down as he picked up the unknown device, turning it over in his hands. "The pliability of space-time, Agent Broyles," he intoned without looking up. "It is a common misconception that our live unfold in linear fashion, progressing from one experience to the next, and that what happens is what is meant to happen. But this is not the case, this is merely an illusion hoisted over us by our brains. In truth, the reality we experience is simply one of a nearly infinite number, all unfolding simultaneously. Each day, each moment, we are faced with an array of choices, and these choices — whether we go to work or to church or to the grocery store, whether we go up or down, right or left, in or out — these choices, create new branches of history, new realities that are constantly-"

"We get it Walter," Peter interrupted. "The multi-verse."

Astrid spoke up, her lips scrunching into a confused frown. "No... I don't think I do get it."

"I don't get it either," Rachel added.

"He's talking about the many-worlds interpretation of quantum theory," Peter explained. "Parallel universes. Basically it states that there are an infinite number of realities, one for every possible future and past, and everything in between."

"Yes!" Walter exclaimed, looking up. "Precisely, son. Except it's no theory. There is a universe for every possibility. Including a reality where the dead can rise from their graves and walk, so to speak. And another where humans have created mechano-organic hybrid beings such as this fellow here," he finished, waving vaguely at the body on the table.

"Yes, but how can we be certain this thing is from another... universe?" Broyles said, his voice still skeptical. "Excuse me, but it all sounds so..."

"Ridiculous...?" the black-haired woman next to Astrid finished for him. "I mean, come on, are any of you guys buying this?"

"If you have nothing to contribute, young lady, then I suggest you leave," Walter said, giving the woman a disapproving stare. "I have little patience for small-minded fools. And furthermore, a mere look out the window should be enough to convince anyone that anything at all is possible."

Lifting her one eyebrow not taped down by her bandages at the exchange, Olivia found herself holding back a grin when Astrid leaned over and began whispering furiously in the young woman's ear. A moment later the woman's face turned ashen before turning a bright shade of scarlet.

Walter continued to glare at the woman, before turning back to Broyles with a grunt. "As I was about to say before I was so rudely interrupted," he said, "we must merely apply Occam's razor to the problem. I assure you, Agent Broyles, the technology to create this creature does not exist on _this_ Earth. Yet, it was clearly made and designed by man. Hence, the only reasonable explanation left to us is that must have been made on another, one that more technologically advanced than our own."

Olivia tucked her bangs out of her eyes, wincing when her fingertips grazed across her forehead. Could it be from the same world as the one she'd been visiting? Why was it here? For how long? And more importantly, did it have something to do with the infection? She glanced at Peter to see if he'd reached the same conclusions, and felt a rush of alarm at the look on his face.

He was utterly still, his eyes somewhere else, narrowed as he was wont to do when he was thinking hard about something. Then, as if he were moving in slow motion, he turned and faced the stranger who had helped him escape. "You told me you'd heard of these things, Lincoln," he said in a voice that could only be described as deadly. "Back where you came from — that's what you said. I didn't know they had these in _New Jersey_." The man whose name was apparently Lincoln shrank back, edging toward the door of surprise echoed around the room. Peter beat him to it, ripping a sleek Glock that might have even belonged to her from the waist of his jeans. "Don't move!" he warned, aiming at the man's head.

The bearded man froze, and Olivia saw Peter's finger tightening on the trigger. What was he doing? "Peter!" she said pushing off the wall and stepping between them. "What's going on? What are you doing?"

"Liv, he knows about these things, back where he's from. That's what he said when he first saw it. And he's been acting like he had a screw loose from the moment I first met him. He acts like he knows me, like he knows you. When he first saw you, he said you were a murderer. A killer."

"...He said what?" Olivia turned to face the stranger, dull explosions of shock detonating inside her skull in silent cacophony. On the periphery of her vision, Rachel's face tightened into a fierce, protective snarl. A killer. _A killer_. It struck too close to home. Way too close.

"You've seen one of these before," Broyles asked, limping up beside her. His hand was on his weapon, though he'd yet to draw it. "And where might that have been?"

The man named Lincoln wet his lips and swallowed, but before he could reply Walter spoke suddenly, both his arms buried deep in the hybrid creature's chest. "He's from the other universe," he commented in a conversational tone. "It's elementary deduction, given what we know. The tech does _not_ exist here, so logically, the only way this man could know about it is if he is from there also." He smiled pulling a fleshy mass free and dropping it in the bucket. "Again, Occam's razor at work — it truly is a remarkable principle, isn't it?"

"Is that true, Mister Lee?" Broyles asked. A hint of iron had entered his voice, which Olivia knew from experience could turn into cold steel in an instant.

Lincoln Lee's eyes darted around the room, as if he was searching for a friendly face. There were none. Only hard eyes and hostility greeted him, even Sonia, who Olivia had seen talking to him from the upstairs window. Charlie's widow even had her gun drawn, though its barrel was pointed at the floor.

"Guys, what if he's one of those... things?" Astrid said, raising her pistol beside Peter's. The black-haired woman who stood beside her appeared to have lost her skepticism, and followed suit. "You all saw how hard that thing was to put down. He could tear right through us."

Suddenly the bearded man found himself facing an array of gun barrels, all aimed directly at his head. He raised his hands slowly. "Now hold on a second," he started. "Wait! Just... just let me explain! I'm not... I'm not one of them, I swear." He nodded over at the body on the table. "You can check my blood if you want, I'm not one of them."

"Maybe not, but Walter's right, isn't he?" Olivia said, stepping closer to him. "You _are_ from that other world, aren't you?" The man's face drained of color as she came to a stop in front of him. He appeared terrified, and again of herself, in particular. _He knows something about me._ And he was going to tell her what it was. "You don't belong here. I think you have some explaining to do, whoever you are."

Olivia waited for the man to speak. As she did so, the throbbing pulse above her right eye began to intensify, then blasted through the opioid haze of the painkiller. She pressed her palm to her temple, sucking in a breath between gritted teeth. Peter was at her side in an instant, hand pressed against her lower back.

"Are you all right," he said, eyes frantic with worry as she studied her face. "Maybe you should sit down, Liv. Somebody did just cut a hole in your head, you know."

"I'm fine, Peter," she assured him, and took a deep breath to gather herself. "It just hurts, that's all." She turned back to Lincoln Lee and found him watching their interaction with a look of bemusement. _He does know something. Something about us. Something about me and Peter, and maybe all of us. But how can he? I've never met him before._ "Who are you? What's your real name?"

"I wasn't lying about my name," the man said finally, for once addressing her without flinching. "It's the one I was born with, the one my parents gave me, back in New Jersey. _My_ New Jersey. I'm a Captain, Fringe Division, Department of Defense."

"Fringe Division?" Olivia uttered. _But that's impossible._

"Fringe Division was a subset of the Department of Homeland Security," Broyles disagree, eyes narrowing. "And you weren't a part of it."

"Not, where I come from, sir," Lincoln replied, and something in his stance changed subtly, becoming more rigid, as is if he were standing at attention.

"Sir...?" Broyles eyebrows climbed up his forehead. "Explain that. You don't know me. Why would you address me as your superior?"

Lincoln shrugged, relaxing slightly. "Habit, I guess. I work beneath you, or did, back home. _You_ are my superior officer. Or someone very much like you." Broyles eyes seemed to bulge as the man continued, and Olivia felt hers doing the same, as were Peter's and Astrid's. "I know almost all of you. We were colleagues."

"Wait. You know... another me?" Olivia asked. The conversation had taken a sudden and surreal turn for the bizarre. _This can't be real. He has to be making this up._ But why would he? What could he hope to gain?

"Not you, exactly," Lincoln replied with a crooked smirk. "It's kind of screwed up to think about, I get it. The Olivia Dunham I know, she's... well, she's different than you. Her hair's red for one, but you're all different. Some of you way different." Oddly, his eyes drifted to Astrid as he spoke, though he didn't appear eager to elaborate.

At this, Walter spoke up from where he was examining the body. "We are all reflections of ourselves, of choices made or not made, products of varying circumstance. The multi-verse."

Lincoln nodded, glancing his way. "You would know, wouldn't you?" he muttered so quietly Olivia thought she might have been the only one who'd heard.

Dyed her hair red? Suddenly she was back in college, back in her dorm room, staring at herself in the mirror, staring at her face framed by scarlet locks. Beth, her old roommate was behind her, giggling, adjusting the wig she'd borrowed from her theater class. A wig with long tresses, with short bangs. She had not liked the way she'd looked, had not liked the red. Despised, it more accurately. _Why on earth would I do that?_ She came back to the present then, and found Lincoln watching her.

"Why are you here?" she asked him. "Why are you in our world? Do you have something to do with the infection? Is that why you're here? Is your world attacking us?"

"I don't know anything about that. I'm not even supposed to be here. And I didn't know anything about this... infection, or whatever it is, until I got here and nearly had my face torn off. There's nothing like this happening in my world, and everything I know about physics and biology tells me it shouldn't even be possible."

"Then why are you here?" Peter asked bluntly. "You told me that you were on your way south to New York when the Doctor's men captured you. What's in New York?"

Lincoln Lee shrugged, his eyes downcast. "I don't know. Nothing, probably. Maybe a way home. I didn't know what else to do."

"Why don't you start from the beginning, Captain Lee," Broyles suggested. "Starting with how you got here."

The man from the other universe exhaled, wiping his forehead. "That's kind of a long story. And me arriving here is the end of it. But the short of it is that I'm here because I got sent here, only on accident. Or maybe it was on purpose. I don't really know. Either way, I wasn't trying to come here. I was just trying to get home."

"Home from where?" Broyles questioned. "And who sent you?"

"To understand that, you have to understand my world, and what's happening there."

#

The story he told spanned decades, stretching all the way back to the mid-nineteen-eighties. The room was silent as he spoke, except for the occasional clatter as Walter continued his dissection of the shape-changing hybrid. He spoke of war being waged, a war against nature itself, and how they were losing. How it had started with massive die-offs of vegetation in the Northeast, and subsequently huge losses in animal life, with species after species going extinct as the phenomenon began to appear in other places also. Of weather anomalies, of degrading air quality, the break down of the atmosphere in random places. He spoke of something called molecular dissolution, of reality itself unraveling, and of terrifying phenomena called vortexes — which to Olivia sounded like nothing so much as black holes sucking the Earth inside out — and how their only defense against them was a strange gaseous substance they called amber capable of turning the air solid, that sounded suspiciously similar to the substance used in the bus attack before the outbreak. He described massive mounds of this amber dotting the East Coast, of entire cities like Boston, abandoned, citizens trapped inside, forever encased, frozen in time.

Olivia found she could only gasp as each nightmare was revealed. She had been there. She had seen them, mounds like drops of honey. _He's telling the truth. This man is from another universe._ Just hearing the thought in her head made her feel like she was losing her mind. Or that she'd lost it already. Even knowing what she knew and had experienced firsthand, she just couldn't wrap her head around it. How was it possible?

"But then," Lincoln went on, "about a year ago, something different began to happen. Something horrible. It was like the laws of probability, of chance, like they were... no longer random. Like they were breaking down also."

"What does that mean?" Astrid asked. "No longer random? Like all of a sudden everyone's a winner? Doesn't sound so bad to me." At this, Lincoln's eyes seemed ready to pop out of their sockets, and the former junior agent frowned. "What's the matter? Is there something on my face?"

"You... you're just not who I'm used to," he replied, scrubbing a hand through his dark hair. "You are right, though. It was like that, at first. Casinos began reporting a rise in losses. It was subtle. We didn't think much of it, until things started... happening. All over."

"As the old adage goes, what can go wrong, will go wrong," Walter mumbled suddenly.

Olivia glanced over at him and found his face pale. The sight sent a current of uneasiness shooting through her gut which she couldn't explain, only that it felt like a portend, but to what exactly, she couldn't say.

Lincoln nodded. "Casualties were in the millions worldwide. Planes were falling from the sky daily. Car crashes, horrific fatalities. And it kept getting worse. Sink holes appearing out of nowhere, buildings collapsing, bridges giving way, terrible earthquakes in faults not active in eons. And there were freak accidents everywhere — the kind of shit you'd think was impossible, but they were happening everyday. Just walking down the street was like running a gauntlet." His gaze turned inward, filling with bleak tragedy. "I lost one of my best friends to a flying manhole cover," he said with a sad laugh. "Charlie was just on his way to work when BAM... underground explosion blasts a cast iron frisbee right through his windshield."

"Charlie?" Sonia spoke up, her eyes wide. "It wasn't Charlie Francis, was it?"

"Yeah. You know him on this side?"

"He... he was my husband. He... died here also."

Lincoln shook his head again, grimacing. "I'm sorry. Charlie never married where I'm from. But his luck seems to run bad in every universe. Though maybe not all bad here," he added, eyeing Sonia with a slight grin.

"You know of others?" Olivia asked sharply. "Other universes? Besides ours?"

"Yeah," he replied with a grunt. His gray eyes turned flat, filling with a kind of inner rage. "You might say that. What I didn't know until recently was that all the anomalies, the freak accidents — they weren't natural. Someone was causing them. Someone was doing it to us. Or at least, that's what he told me." His eyes flicked to Walter so fast Olivia nearly missed it. "The Secretary must have known all along, but I was only given the truth at my mission briefing. It turned out we were at war, that we'd been at war for decades, and everything I grew up thinking was the truth was a lie.'

"So you were at war with another universe?" Peter guessed, rubbing his neck. "Not withstanding how insane that sounds, and completely pointless besides, it could be the same party behind what's happening to us."

Lincoln's gaze darted to Walter again for an instant before coming to rest on Peter. "It's possible, I guess. Though what's happening here is nothing like what's happening back home. I haven't seen any evidence of molecular destabilization, and it's not something you could miss, believe me."

"What started this war, Captain?" Broyles said. "Were they after your resources? An invasion?"

"No. It was something much simpler than that. A woman died."

"What woman?" Olivia asked.

Lincoln glanced yet again at Walter, who seemed intent on the body, and paying them no attention at all. "It was the Secretary's wife. The Secretary of Defense, though he wasn't back then." he added at their inquiring looks. "In 1985 a man walked into their house and tried to kidnap their dying son. A man who looked and sounded just like the Secretary, only it wasn't him. The Secretary was in Boston at the time, with at least a dozen witnesses. The Secretary's wife noticed something was off and confronted the man, and after a struggle, he fled, knocking her down a flight of steps. She broke her neck, but lived long enough to tell the police, and her husband, who arrived at the scene just before she passed away. Her son was able to call them, told the same story. In the police report, she said the man was her husband, only slightly different." Lincoln paused, locking eyes with Peter. "I told you the name Peter Bishop was famous where I come from. That sick boy was you, or a version of you. And the Secretary is his father."

Olivia blinked. Her heart took a giant leap in her chest. "What did you say?" she gasped. On the edge of her vision, Walter was looking their way, face drained of all color, eyes rapidly filling with horror.

"I guess it happened differently here," Lincoln went on with a shrug. "No one tried to kidnap you when you were a kid?"

Peter frowned, narrowing his eyes. "Kidnap me...?" he said slowly. "No..."

But Olivia could already see the gears turning behind his eyes, the tumblers falling into place one by one. The story he'd told her about once thinking he'd woken up in a different world came screaming to the front of her mind. A dying son. Could it be? Walter wouldn't have... would he? It was crazy. It was madness. Walter's voice reverberated in her ears. _Peter died. My Peter. I couldn't save him._ My _Peter._ His words, straight from his bastard mouth. Peter had been ill as a boy. Deathly ill. Death.

It _was_ true.

Not daring to breathe, she found herself gazing upon Peter's face and caught the moment when the realization struck home. There was a slight widening of his eyes, and then his face went slack. No... She wanted to take him into her arms, to protect him from the truth, but it was too late. As one, their eyes swiveled to Walter, who suddenly seemed a thousand years old. Tears were rolling off his chin as he backed into the wall behind him. The room was utterly silent, that atmosphere contagious, like a funeral parlor.

"Is it true, Walter?" Peter's voice was tight, emotions barely held in check brimming below the surface. Olivia watched his jaw flex, and wondered that his teeth didn't shatter under the pressure. "Is it true?" he said again, louder than before.

Walter raised his hands slowly, as if he were being held at gunpoint. "Peter... you would have died if I hadn't!" he choked out. "Please let me explain! You would have died. Your father missed the cure. He didn't see it! His back was turned! Only _I_ saw it. You would have died. I had to save you! I couldn't bear to watch you die, not again!"

"My father...," Peter whispered, voice taut with sudden rage. Olivia could feel him trembling beside her. "My mother knew. That's why she... why she did what she did. She knew! And she couldn't tell me. You son of a bitch. You..." Trembling, his eyes blinked open and closed, open and closed. "I have to get out of here," he said, turning abruptly. Without another word he stalked out of the room, brushing past a startled Charlene Watson, who quickly stepped out of his way.

Olivia stared at the spot where he'd disappeared. A string of dread was cinching around her heart, squeezing with ruthless pressure. For several moments it was as if she'd forgotten how to breathe. _Peter, don't go,_ she sent the thought after him _. I love you. You have to stay_. Her heart wanted nothing more than to rush after him, but her mind wouldn't allow it.

"I'm... not sure what's happening here," Broyles said in the aftermath of Peter's sudden departure. His voice was troubled, as was the glance he sent Walter's way. "But what does any of it have to do with this... thing? This man with mercury for blood. What is it? Is it from your world?"

"I don't see how it could be," Lincoln replied doubtfully. "They were only ever rumors. Experimental technology above top secret. If the Secretary was using them in the field, it was above my clearance level. But here's the thing. Where I come from, Peter Bishop was cured. He was never kidnapped. After the Secretary's wife died, Peter recovered. It was a miracle. That was part of the story also, part of why he was famous. I know Peter Bishop. I work with him. Or did." Over in the corner behind the body, Walter began to sob, his lined face turning into a crumpled mask. Lincoln eyed him as he continued. "I told you, I'm in the wrong place. But if these things are here, they're from somewhere else, from some... other world, I guess. But it isn't mine. As for what they are, I don't have any idea. I only heard rumors."

"They're shape-changers," Olivia said softly. Gasps echoed throughout the room. Head and eyes swiveled to regard her. "They can change their shape somehow, their faces. They can look like anyone."

"And how exactly do you know that, Dunham?" Broyles said.

"Someone told me," she replied, staring down at the floor. She couldn't concentrate, not fully. Part of her was still with Peter, and wherever he'd gone.

"Who told you?"

She hesitated, suddenly missing Peter desperately. Where was he going? Surely he wouldn't leave without talking to her first. Would he? The urge to leave the shape-shifter and Lincoln Lee in Broyles's capable hands and chase him down was overpowering. But she couldn't. Why did duty always seem to conflict with what she wanted most?

"Dunham? Dunham!"

Olivia met Broyles's gaze. "There was a man," she said, and then told them of their encounters with the bald man, how he had spoken to them, how he could appear and disappear at will.

Broyles's eyes were huge when she finished. "You're talking about the man we called the Observer. We'd been tracking him, right up until Flight 627. Then he disappeared and we never saw him again. You say you've spoken with him?"

"You _knew_ about him?"

"Only in images. In pictures. He was spotted at nearly every Fringe event, either before or after, going back decades. No one knew who he was, or what he was doing."

"He was my friend," Walter whispered out of the blue. Every one turned to look at him. "The night I... I cured Peter, a bald man saved us. He saved us both from downing. He told me Peter was important. That he had to live."

"Important how?" Broyles said.

"I don't know. He never said. I never... I never saw him again."

"I'm not sure it matters anymore," Olivia murmured. "He told me that, too. About Peter. But in the past tense. Like it was irrelevant, now."

Walter nodded sadly. "Yes. Probability. Reality is constantly unfolding, off-shooting branches, layers of choice and consequence peeling off like layers of an onion. In one of those realities, Peter must be important."

Olivia decided it was a rather bleak and depressing lens through which to view the world. She was not an off-shoot, a second rate version of herself. None of them were. They were all important. Their world was important, and worth fighting for. Whatever was happening in some faraway version of her world meant less than nothing to her. She wondered why the bald man, this Observer, had even bothered to appear before them. Were they his playthings? His pets? She wished he was there in front of her at that moment, so she could ask him.

"What was your mission, Captain Lee?" Broyles said. "You said you were trying to get home."

"I was carrying a message for the Secretary to his counterpart on the other side. A truce. Or if that failed, to sabotage their device, or find some way to counteract it, if possible."

"And did you succeed?"

Lincoln Lee snorted, shaking his head. "No. Didn't even come close. We couldn't get near them." He turned and met Olivia's gaze. "She stopped us."

"Me...?" Olivia could feel her eyes bulging. "I stopped you?"

"The other you," he said, and suddenly she could see the fear lurking behind his eyes. Fear and horror. "She has... powers... mental abilities, or something. I only escaped because she looked at me last, right as I was activating the transporter device. But she must have done something or it malfunctioned, because it didn't take me home, it brought me here. So when I told you I knew another you, I was talking about the Olivia Dunham from my world. But there's another Olivia Dunham out there, and she's a fucking psychopath."

A coldness radiated through Olivia's chest. Tiny feelers of ice were spreading through her veins. "Tell me what happened," she said, and suddenly felt the need to sit down, or even better, lie down. "Everything you can remember, Lincoln, down to the smallest detail."

#

Some time later, after the gathering — or the debriefing, as it turned out — had dispersed, Olivia found herself alone, meandering through the decrepit corridors of the asylum. The sun was down, and the dim moonlight outside was barely enough to see by. She'd been looking for Peter, but at the same time, her mind was elsewhere, still reeling under the magnitude of Lincoln's revelations concerning herself, or at least the other version of herself.

Was that her fate? To become a cold-blooded killer? To rip men and women limb from limb with her mind? To fling them about like rag dolls, crushing bone, rending flesh. To kill with a single thought? And to enjoy it? To laugh about it, as if it were all somehow amusing? The thought was anathema, utterly revolting. And yet power inevitably corrupted. History was littered with evidence, all the way back to the very beginning. Why should she be exempt?

_You're not exempt. And you already have proof. That's you, Liv. Endgame. A monster._

Olivia wrestled with the thought. _No. I won't use it then. I won't allow that to happen to me. I'll kill myself before I let that happen._

 _Sure you will_ , the voice whispered back. _Sure you will._

"Liv!" someone called out behind her. "Olivia, wait up!"

She turned and found Rachel hurrying toward her. The sight of her little sister's swollen nose and blackened eye awakened her rage for a heartbeat, but then the knowledge that that perpetrator was undoubtedly dead, and by her own hand, interceded. "Hey, Rach," she said as her sister came to stop. "What's up?"

Rachel shook her head, and Olivia found herself being guided back the way she'd come. "What are you doing, Liv? I've been looking all over for you. You shouldn't be on your feet. Some psycho tried to cut out your brain this morning, if you remember. You should be lying down. Or resting at the very least. I won't take no for an answer."

"I... I was looking for Peter, but... I can't find him anywhere."

"That's part of why I've been looking for you. He isn't here. Ella told me she saw him walk out the front gate with one of the rifles. He's gone."

"He's... gone?" Olivia stammered, and nearly stumbled in her confusion. Peter was gone? He'd actually left? For some reason she couldn't process it. They'd only just been reunited. She'd thought he might disappear for a while, somewhere. The asylum was full of nooks and crannies that a person could hide in, perhaps even for days, if they truly wanted to be alone. The knowledge that he hadn't, that he had chosen to leave instead, and without even talking to her first was like a blow to the gut.

"I'm sorry, Liv," Rachel said. She reached out, and Olivia hardly felt it when she took her hand. "Maybe... maybe he'll come back. I mean, I'm sure he'll come back."

Maybe he would come back? Maybe he wouldn't. Maybe he was done with the lot of them. He'd been stolen from another universe, after all. She could only imagine what he was going through, what he was feeling at that moment. He had just found out everything he believed to be true was a lie. That the dead mother he revered wasn't his mother at all, and had been an accomplice in the deception that was only the sum of his entire life. What was holding him there? To them? To anyone from her world? A father that wasn't his? Herself? Would he stay for her? For the sex? For love? How could she ask that of him? Something else struck her then, circling on the tertiary of her troubled thoughts: she'd been sleeping with a man born in another universe, and was in love with that same man. How fucked up was that?

"C'mon," Rachel continued, tugging on her hand. "I've got a room set up for you. It's near ours, but not too close. We're in a quiet part of the building, away from most of the others. You can rest."

"So are we staying here then?" she asked.

"Ella likes it here, Liv. Or she did, before you got your head sawed open. She has a real friend here. It's good for her. We have walls, and a roof over our head. Maybe we can even get the power going again, somehow, but without using people for batteries. Do you know of somewhere else to go?"

Did they have another place to go? The lab in Cambridge was gone. And hadn't they left in the first place so they could find another place to call home? What harm could there be in staying, for a little while, at least? Other than her own nightmares, she could think of no reason. And besides, if Peter did return, it would be to the asylum.

So she let Rachel guide her back to the inhabited areas, through halls which grew progressively more populated. By strange men, mostly, most of whom seemed incredibly young to her, and looked at her like she was a circus freak. Was it the bandage? Or did they know what she'd done. That she'd slaughtered their leaders. How could they? No one knew, except for Peter. And he was gone.

_Peter. Come back. Please._

#

But Peter didn't come back. The snow continued to fall, and soon a full day went by, and then another, and before Olivia knew it, a week had passed and there was still no sign of him.

She told herself that he was more than capable of looking after himself, that he had proven that over and over. But it was dangerous out there. Dangerous to be out in the world alone, without anyone at all to watch his back. She worried about his state of mind, about him being distracted, and most of all she worried about him doing something stupid, something self-destructive. But she was also aware that he had to figure out whatever he was going through in his own mind, and she could only hope that, eventually, he would find his way back to her.

 _Do you really believe that?_ Lying on her side with her knees pulled up against her chest, Olivia stared out the window across from her bed at the dawn, at the last few starry remnants of the night slipping behind the veil of daylight, the pinpricks of light dwindling, fading into the azure haze. Was he watching them also? Was he thinking of her? Was he missing her? Sometimes she liked to think so. _Get real_ , the practical part of her spoke up. _Peter is asleep right now and you know it. When did he ever get up early without sex being involved?_

A grin curled her lips for a moment, despite her melancholy, as several memorable early morning encounters came to mind, before she let the smile fade away. He was a night creature. A man who'd been at home navigating the dark undercurrents of the criminal underworld, long before she'd dragged him back out into the light of day by the scruff of his stiff neck. Even knowing Peter was a survivor it was hard not to worry. It was hard not to feel fear when the blackness of night fell, and even harder to pretend she wasn't missing him. Early in the morning while the asylum was still asleep, she allowed the fear loose inside, the fear that he might never return, that she might never see him again with so much left unsaid between them. Fear that she hid — even from herself — during the light of day.

The wound on her forehead pulsed, reminding her that another painkiller sure sounded like a good idea.

It could wait. Most of her time was spent convalescing in her new room that was only marginally larger than the cell she'd inhabited previously. All under her little sisters strict orders, of course. She didn't have the will to argue about it, not yet, at least, and she supposed a little rest might even do her good. Which wasn't to say her time had been spent alone.

A steady stream of visitors passed through her door. Rachel and Ella, most often. And sometimes with Ella's friend, Gina, who seemed in awe of Olivia for some reason, which left her wondering what kind of stories Ella had filled her friend's mind with. Astrid would stop by, frequently with the black-haired woman named Claire who seemed attached to the former junior agent's hip. Broyles made regular visits, and Charlene Watson also, who would bring her food when she couldn't summon the energy to drag herself down to the cafeteria. Those visits were the most difficult of all, as she could barely meet the woman's gaze without being overcome with guilt. Even Walter had crossed her threshold once. He'd looked terrible, as if he'd aged decades in a week's span, but she'd had no sympathy to offer him. She wasn't ready for sympathy, or to ease his suffering in any way. The crimes he'd committed, against herself and against Peter went far beyond the pale. She wasn't sure she could forgive him for either offense, ever.

Her mind drifted back to Charlene Watson. By all accounts, the woman was struggling, trying to hold herself together while at the same time trying to feed the rest of them. Life in the asylum had become much more trying with the death of Jacob Fischer, according to Broyles, at least. Their electricity was gone, and with it the running water, and more importantly, their capability to easily store perishable food, much less cook it. Broyles had been searching for advice without asking for it, she suspected, but hadn't known what to tell him other than to move the food out into the cold for the time being. They had survived for months without refrigerated food or running water back in Cambridge. People would either adapt, or they wouldn't. Was it cynical? Maybe, but her world view seemed to slant in that direction recently. No matter how much she would have liked it to be differently.

A quiet knock on her door interrupted her thoughts. Olivia sat up, holding her covers against her chest. It was early for a visitor, and she wondered who it might be. "Come in," she announced, squinting through the morning haze at the door's outline.

Sonia walked in, pushing the door open in front of her. "Hey, I didn't wake you, did I?" she said in a low voice. She closed the door quietly, then leaned back against it, wearing a thick quilt wrapped about her shoulders. "You were always up so early at the lab, I thought it'd be okay."

Olivia smiled. "I've been awake for a while. Honestly, I haven't been sleeping all that great since... well, everything that happened." It was an understatement. She'd hardly slept a wink. Sleeping was difficult, between the spinning saw blades and evil versions of herself stalking her when she closed her eyes, all alongside the constant pebble of worry lodged in the back of her mind that was Peter.

"Can't blame you for that. How's your head? Feeling any better?"

"That depends on how recently I've taken a painkiller. Right now? Kinda feels like someone tried to saw open my skull." Sonia let out a giggle, a light-hearted snicker that made her think of Charlie, and how this woman had been the rock upon which he'd stood. All of a sudden she missed her old friend, missed his gruff voice, his calm assurances. Charlie had been unflappable, no matter the odds.

After a few moments, Sonia fell silent, her attention focused on something invisible across the room. There was a kind of hesitation about her. A kind of uncertainty that hadn't been present in her demeanor for months, not since she'd first began to actively participate in her own survival. So her visit was more than just passing time. Something was bothering her.

"So what's up, Sonia?" Olivia said, just to fill the void. "How have you been?"

Sonia shrugged, lowering her gaze to the floor. She dropped a hand to her stomach and rubbed absently, eyes remaining downcast when she finally spoke. "Olivia, before the infection came... did you... did you ever think about having kids? About having a family? Charlie and I used to talk about it. We even tried for a while, but... it just never worked out."

It was a question Olivia had struggled with for a while when she was younger, but had long ago made her peace with it. "To be honest, Sonia, it wasn't something I thought consciously about much," she admitted, and wondered why her friend had chosen this particular morning to reminisce. "I never really pictured myself as mother material anyway. I was always too married to my work, too focused on my job." She curled her lips slightly, as old feelings of maternal inadequacy resurfaced. "And it wasn't like I ever had time to meet anyone that wasn't already in the same boat I was." She thought of John, and his utter lack of interest in procreating. He'd been a career man, intent on moving up the ladder toward a directorship. Children had not been in his immediate future, or hers.

"Well, you have Peter, now," Sonia said. "And you do still have him, Olivia. He's going to come back. I know it." She brushed her hair back, tucking her long bangs behind her ears. "He loves you, you know? Did he ever tell you?"

Olivia nodded, and found herself suddenly unable to speak.

"Good. Did you know he told me once?" Sonia continued, and her eyes filled with loneliness. "It was actually the day Charlie died. You guys were out scouting that other compound, and left me and Peter behind. We talked about you. I got him to admit that he loved you. I think I told him that love was hard. I thought I knew how hard it could be back then."

"As far back as that?" she said as a raw tightness moved up her throat. Hadn't they had a fight that day? They had. What had it even been about? Something inane, probably. She hadn't been one hundred percent sure about her feelings for him back then, denying what was right in front of her. "Peter... he never mentioned that."

"Men...," the other woman muttered, as if that explained everything, which it kind of did. She crossed the room, sitting down lightly at the foot of the narrow bed. "What about now, though?" she said. "It's obvious the feelings are mutual. Could you ever see yourself having Peter's baby?"

The question caught Olivia off guard. _But... he's from another universe. Does that even work_ _?_ The thought came out of nowhere, and sent shock waves rippling down to her core. What if it was true? Why did the possibility that it might be bother her so much? It wasn't like she'd ever let herself think about such things, not now, not with the world broken. She met Sonia's gaze. _Why is she so interested in this? And why now?_ "Honestly, I can't imagine bringing a child into the world right now. Can you? It almost seems like an act of cruelty. But if things were right? Sure. Why not? I would have loved to have a family, I just never thought it was in the cards for m—" She cut herself short as tears were suddenly rising in the other woman's eyes. "Sonia, what is it? What's the matter?"

Sonia's face seemed to wilt, crumpling into a mixture of sadness and panic. "Olivia, I... I'm pregnant," she whispered, her voice hoarse. A tear rolled down her cheek, leaving a wet track that glistened in a stray ray of sunlight.

Olivia gaped. She felt her eyes popping, and tried to suck them back in. "Are you... are you sure?" she stuttered. The question sounded idiotic as soon as it left her mouth, but it was all she could think of on short notice. Of course Sonia was sure. Why else would she be sitting in front her, in tears?

The other woman nodded, wiping her cheek on her coat sleeve. "I'm sure, and the dozen or so sticks I peed on made it pretty fucking clear, not to mention my last period was before Charlie died. I don't know how it could have happened... I mean, I know _how_ it happened, but how can this be happening? Years ago we tried and tried. I even got pregnant once, right after he joined the Bureau, but I miscarried in the first trimester. Since then? Nothing. And now? What the am I supposed to do? How can I have a baby?"

What could she tell her? That it was all going to be okay? It wasn't going to be okay. Was she supposed to lie? To say all the right words to put her friend at ease? _Nothing about this is okay._ "I didn't know you and Charlie and had tried before," she said instead. "Have you told anyone else?"

"Only Phillip knows, though I think Astrid might have figured it out. For a while I didn't want to believe it. But it's happening. Part of me thinks you're right. I mean, how can I bring a child into this world? But there's another part of me that's so happy I can't even describe it. This baby will be all I have left of him."

Olivia smiled, squeezing Sonia's forearm. "Then we'll do everything we can," she promised. "You'll have to tell Walter. I know that might be... hard, given what happened with Peter..." _And yourself, Liv. Don't forget about yourself in all this_. "But, he's the closest thing we have to a real doctor." She paused seeing Walter's lined face in her head. He had changed, hadn't he? Surely he was no longer the man he'd been in the days of her youth. "I'm sure he'll do everything he can to take care of you, and the baby."

"Do you think so?" Sonia whispered. Her lips trembled. "Do you think it's going to be okay?"

"I do," she assured her. "I really do."

They talked for a while longer, about names and sexes, about what Charlie might have preferred, and when her due date might be. But in the back of Olivia's mind, the news had awoken something. A kind of tingling dread, malignant and lingering. She told herself that it was only natural to be afraid for her friend, — the world had ended, after all — but the feeling refused to dissipate completely.

#

Later that night, Olivia was sitting in the cafeteria with her sister and Ella, chewing on a stringy piece of smoked meat that was the remainder of her dinner. The room still reeked of smoke residue — courtesy of Peter, she'd learned — and she wondered why they still made use of it. Her head felt better than it had most of the day, but that wasn't saying much. It still hurt like hell, at times like the most pounding and intense migraine she'd ever experienced. The drugs Walter had supplied her with from Jacob Fischer's stash helped a little, but the amount required left her mind in a fog. She'd given up on them during the day, and took only enough to allow her to sleep at night, and even that was unsatisfying.

The cafeteria was mostly empty, and quiet. A smattering of people sat here and there, finishing their dinners by candlelight and flickering oil lamps. None of the survivors were too happy about their current situation, with the lack of power and running water, and more than a few were becoming more vocal about it. She wondered if any of them would leave, and she decided she didn't have the energy to care. They could do what they wanted. For the time being, she was done pretending she was in charge.

"Did she have any names picked out yet?" Rachel asked from her seat across the table and beside Ella.

"A few," she replied, then set her piece of meat down on her paper plate. It was edible, if only barely, and enough was enough. "I'm not sure she's thought that far ahead yet."

"Can you imagine what that was like finding out? God, I don't even want to think about it."

Olivia gave a noncommittal shrug. Her sister was nothing if not a gossip, and she wasn't about to divulge Charlie's widow's hopes and fears, sister or not.

"Aunt Liv?" Ella spoke up in her soft voice. Her plate was sitting in front of her, the macaroni and cheese spread across it mostly untouched. "Do you think Peter will come back tomorrow?"

She glanced down at her niece and watched her stir the noodles around her plate with her fork. "I don't know, baby girl," she said, forcing her lips into something she hoped resembled a smile. "I hope so." It was not the first time Ella had asked the question, nor the first time she'd given much the same answer. Over her niece's head, she met Rachel's gaze and found her sister's eyes troubled.

"But why did he even leave?" Ella's voice lowered into a whine. "I miss him. I want him to come back."

"I miss him, too," she said through the pain blooming in her chest. "Peter just... had to go away for a while. I'm sure he'll be back soon though, honey." _Please don't make me a liar again, Peter_ _._

"That's what you said yesterday," her niece grumbled.

"Ella, don't be snippy with your aunt," Rachel told her with a frown. "Aren't you going to eat? It's your favorite. I'm pretty sure Charlene made it just for you."

Ella shrugged, still picking at her food. "I'm just not hungry, Mom. Can I be done now?"

"Two more bites. And then you can go play with Gina until bedtime."

Olivia expected such an easy out to excite her young niece, but Ella merely nodded, and then forked up two more bites, chewing and swallowing without emotion. When she'd met her mother's requirements, she took a sip of water before slinking away from the table, shoulders slumped as she strode over to where Gina was playing a game of checkers by candlelight against Astrid, with Claire looking on and offering advice.

"I'm worried about her, Liv," Rachel admitted, eyes following her daughter across the room. "She's been acting strange for the last week. Ever since the day that prick Overbeek knocked on our door. She hardly sleeps anymore, and I think she's been having nightmares. When she does sleep, she wakes up in tears, or screaming, which I could understand given everything that's happened, but she's never done it before. Not even after Greg got infected, not even after we escaped the lab, and even I still have nightmares about that."

"Have you tried talking to her about it?" she asked, turning to look at her niece. She had taken the open seat next to Astrid and was staring out into space, chin resting on her palms. Her face was glum, her eyes far away. "Has she said what the nightmares are about?"

"She just tells me she can't remember. The one time I tried to force the issue, she just burst into tears. I don't know what to do."

"That doesn't sound like her."

"No, it doesn't." Rachel massaged her temples with two fingers, rubbing in small circles. "Can kids get depressed? That's all I can think of, is that she's depressed or something. Do you think it's because of Peter? Because he left like that? She asks about him enough."

"That might be it," Olivia said slowly.

Unbidden, memories of her childhood flooded in. There was no doubt; children could definitely become depressed. She remembered the days following her stepfather's abrupt departure from their lives, and how she'd fallen into a near-catatonic despondency, how she'd relived those terrible moments in her kitchen over and over, her stepfather's furious gaze, his blood leaking onto the floor, and her mother's shrieks of dismay at what she'd done. For a long time she had blamed herself for all the bad things that happened in their lives afterward, as if she were being forced to pay for her evil deed. And when her mother's cancer had shown its ugly face years later, she had descended into a tail spin of self-blame and hatred. It had been the ultimate payback, or so she'd thought. Until her mother had finally thanked her for what she'd done, until her mom had finally apologized for that night, and everything that had come before it. _But that was me. What does that have to do with Ella?_ She didn't know. But if Peter's departure was the source of her niece's sudden change of temperament, it was just another reason for him to come back.

"Hey, there's Lincoln," Rachel said suddenly, peering across the cafeteria.

The man from a different universe had come in through the rear entrance with several other men, laughing at some quip one of them had made. At some point during the last week, he had found a pair of scissors, along with a razor, and the man hiding beneath the wild beard he'd been cultivating was something of a surprise. He was cute in a bad-boyish kind of way, with a sharp chin and wide dimples when he smiled, which, as it turned out, was a lot. Olivia had barely recognized him. Only his gray eyes had remained the same.

Lincoln Lee said something to one of the men, and then spotting them alone at their table, sauntered over. "Ladies," he said, sporting a sparkling grin. "This seat taken?" He put his hand on the chair back across from them both.

Olivia noticed her sister's shoulder straightening noticeably under his gaze and rolled her eyes. Of course the man was her type. He was male, and new. If there were other prerequisites, she didn't know them. She motioned for him to sit down.

"Be my guest," she shrugged, giving him a tight smile. He took her up on her offer, pulling back the chair with a disagreeable screech and plopping down unceremoniously. He didn't speak right away, and she didn't miss how he avoided looking her in the eye for more than a second or two, his unease with herself obvious. It was getting old. "So... what have you been up to, Lincoln?" she asked, forcing the issue.

He blew out a long sigh. "I've been look at what's left of the Doctor's power grid," he started, looking mostly at Rachel. "Besides the... human component, he had what looks to me like some kind of battery array connected into the system, out in that other building. I can't say for sure, but it looks to me like it was part of an early version of the grid, maybe before he had it up and running at full capacity." He hesitated, meeting Olivia's gaze for an instant, before leaning forward in his seat, getting into it. "Anyway, we have all this cable strung all over, and I'm thinking there's gotta be a way to modify it, so that we can hook it up to a generator. You guys have generators, right?"

Olivia arched an eyebrow. "Um... yeah. We do," she said in as dry a voice as she could manage. The man acted like they were living in the Stone Age. She wondered what his world was like, what kind of technology they had there.

"Good. Now I guess you guys aren't using fuel cells here yet, so it would need gas constantly, which is a fairly large problem to overcome, but there'd be power again. It'd be limited, but better than nothing."

"So, what's the problem then?" she asked.

"The problem is I'm not an engineer, not with the way things are done here. You know any old-school electricians? The guy that did all the wiring is apparently dead. Now ask me about particle degradation or molecular dissolution, or how to go about sealing up a Class One vortex, and I can talk all day, I can give you a dissertation if you want. But ask me how to hardware a high amperage generator set into a jury-rigged system like this? Not so much."

"Well, if you're looking for help with that, Lincoln," Rachel said, "I'm pretty sure Liv and I are _not_ who you should be talking to."

Lincoln flashed her a grin. "A man's gotta try," he quipped, eliciting a stifled giggle from Rachel. "You two are the only ones I haven't asked already."

"Peter will know how," Olivia said automatically. There was not a shred of doubt in her mind. He was good at that kind of stuff, using his hands, getting down and dirty in the guts of things. For a second, she'd forgotten that he was gone, that he'd left her without even saying goodbye, and the reality that he wasn't there was like a slap in the face. "Or... he would have," she added, keeping her face plain by force of will. "Have you tried asking Walter?"

"The Secretary... I mean, Doctor Bishop," Lincoln said, stretching out his arms, "he won't talk to me. Acted like I wasn't even there, even when I was standing right in front of him. As for Peter Bishop, if he ever comes back, maybe you can have him give me a hand, Liv. Hey, you want that?" He reached out and took the last bit of her meat off her plate, shoving the whole thing in his mouth in one bite before she could reply.

Olivia blinked at his use of her shortened name — sometimes she forgot that he knew another her, and was close enough with that her to use it without thinking, or to take food off her plate.

Peter would help him if she asked, or even if she didn't. But first he had to come back. She had half a mind to go after him, but Rachel would throw a fit, and if she was honest with herself, she wasn't in any shape to go. Nor did she have the slightest idea where he might have gone. There was an entire world out there. He could be anywhere, even hundreds of miles away by now. It had been a week, after all. What if he didn't come back? What if she never saw him again? The thought left her heart bereft, filled with endless emptiness.

She bowed her head, and the wound beneath the bandage above her right eye began to pulse, thorny lances of pounding through the hole in her skull. The pain's sudden intensity blurred her vision, made her stomach heave. With a silent gasp, she pressed in on her temple, screwing eyes shut.

"You all right, Liv?" Rachel's concerned voice intruded.

"It's... nothing," Olivia said, forcing her eyes open as the pain began to dissipate. She gestured vaguely toward her head. "It just hurts sometimes. I think I'm gonna hit the sack."

She had begged off the painkillers long enough. But there was someone she needed to see, first. _Walter isn't having visitors, is he? Well, he's going to talk to me_. Pushing her chair back, she grabbed a candle, then bid her sister and Lincoln good night.

#

Olivia wandered the unlit halls of the asylum, taking a roundabout path back to the area where she had taken up residence with the others. Temporary residence, in her opinion, but it would do for the time being. In an effort to distract herself from dwelling on Peter's absence, she let her mind return to Sonia, and her pregnancy. She could only imagine the fear and trepidation that her friend was dealing with. What kind of world would a child grow up in? How would it live? How would it survive? It would only know the world as it was now — in ashes. In ruin. As a gigantic tomb, as the corpse of humanity. Charlie's child. He had never mentioned Sonia having a miscarriage. It must have happened before they'd met in that darkened parking garage, when he'd pulled aside a young and terrified agent and told that she was going to be okay. She would protect it, and Sonia. She owed him that much, and more.

She turned down a corridor that would connect with their wing and saw the glow of another candle moving toward her down the hall. The halo of light resolved into a man. He was older, perhaps only a little younger than Walter, with a graying beard and eyes that seemed kind as he stepped to one side of the hall to give her room to pass by. She gave him a smile and a nod as she did so.

"Um... Miss?"

At the man's voice behind her, Olivia stopped and turned back. Flickering shadows moved across his face. "Yes?" she said, eyeing him.

His face was a blank in her mind. She didn't know his name, didn't know him, or most of the others. Not that she had made any attempt to learn them, yet. They weren't her people, and despite Jacob Fischer's thugs having been rooted out, she'd found it difficult to trust any of them.

The man spoke with a hint of an accent she couldn't quite place. Southern? Texan? "You are the one that... that the Doctor was holding down there in the workshop, aren't you?" he asked.

"I was... one of them," she replied cautiously. There had been one other prisoner that she knew of — the man she'd heard whining continually from her cell — aside from Peter and Lincoln Lee. When they'd finally freed him, the fellow had been more than half mad from the tortures he'd endured, and was currently bombed out of his mind on a cocktail Walter had created from the supply of drugs Jacob Fischer had left behind. "There were a few others."

"But you were the one that... killed him."

Olivia tensed, lifting up on the balls of her feet. Was this a prelude to an attack? One of Fischer's men, hidden among the others and waiting to find her alone so he could exact his revenge? Her hands curled into fists. The man wasn't large, but she was hardly at her best. She envisioned how it would play out; he would reach for her, and she would lock his wrist, then kick his left knee out, finishing the sequence with an elbow to his jaw. "I was there when he died," she admitted, expecting, and waiting for him to lunge at her.

But instead he merely nodded. "I thought it was you," he said. "I... must thank you for whatever it was you did."

He wanted to thank her? That was a first. "Um... your welcome?" she said, relaxing slightly.

"You must think me very rude," he continued. "My name is Reuben. I was a... a pastor, before the sickness. I was leading a group of survivors — members of my former congregation, and a few others we picked up along the way — but it was I that led them here months ago. I saw the Doctor's signs and was certain it was God showing us His hand. After we arrived here, it was I who suggested we use the searchlight, to spread the message even further. How I rue that day. How many lives have been lost? The Doctor was an evil man, yet I saw nothing, noticed nothing, felt nothing. So I must thank you for putting an end to him, and his men. They received nothing less than what they deserved."

He was some kind of pastor? A priest? "Isn't that sort of against your religion?" she asked. "Wishing death upon someone? Even if they are sinners?"

The man named Reuben smiled sadly. "Given everything that's occurred over the last year, I'm afraid my... faith, in the Lord Almighty is... somewhat lacking. What sort of God could look down upon the ills of this world and remain passive? What greater purpose could it serve? It is not for us to judge Him, but I've... I've discovered I can no longer abide it."

What kind of God could ignore billions of dead people walking around? _The sort of God that doesn't exist_ , she thought inside her head. _Either that, or one that's gone insane_. "I'm sorry for your loss," she told him. "It must be a difficult thing to lose your faith."

"Actually, it was surprisingly easy," Reuben said with a small shrug. "Once I opened my eyes, at least. Good night."

"My name is Olivia," she said as he turned away. "Olivia Dunham. And you can't blame yourself for anything the Doctor did. Like you said, he was an evil man."

"Yes. That's what I tell myself. Good night, Olivia Dunham."

The former pastor moved away from her, shoulders swaying with each stride. Olivia watched him for a moment, bemused by the odd encounter. Her own faith in a higher being had been driven from her long ago, by each blow of her stepfather's fist. She could only imagine how the fellow was feeling, given the life he'd led before. Or was it uplifting? To be free of such a heavy yoke? Or perhaps not. Without his faith, he would be facing oblivion alone, and the knowledge that the hereafter was dirt and worms and decay. And silence.

When the man was out of sight, she continued on her way, climbing the steps up to her floor. After stopping by her room for one of her pain pills, she continued down the hall. Walter's room was at the far end. His door was closed, but a yellow light fluttered beneath the crack.

For the last week, he'd spent most of his time alone, either in his room or down in the Jacob Fischer's chambers, poring over his research. Or that was what she'd been told. If he had learned anything useful, he refused to say what. Privately, she thought the more likely scenario was that he was simply hiding. From herself, of course, and from everyone else who'd been there when Lincoln had inadvertently revealed his secret, but also from the reality that the son he had stolen knew the truth of his origins and had left him.

Was he ashamed of what he had done? But also hadn't he said that her Peter would have died without his intervention? There was more to the story, and more than likely the truth lay somewhere in the gray space between black and white. But either way, he was going to talk to her.

Olivia rapped on his door. "Walter? It's me. I'm coming in." She went to shove into the room, but then hesitated. He was a strange man even on his best days, with peculiar tendencies. "You're... wearing clothes, aren't you?" she said to the door.

"Come in, Olivia. I'm fully clothed."

She opened the door and found Walter standing beside his window. Beside him, a single candle flickered on a table. She'd never been in his room before, and was unsurprised to find it little different than her own. He was fully dressed, thankfully, in a pair of tan slacks and a heavy winter coat with a fur-lined hood. The coat looked warm, and she found herself wondering where he'd gotten it, and if they had any more in stock. He turned to face her as she shut the door.

Silence filled the space between them. She leaned back against the door frame.

"Hello, Walter."

Swallowing, he gave her a tepid smile. "Olivia, dear. What brings you here? I was... just about ready to call it a night. You're not having any dizziness, are you? Nausea? Either could be a sign something is amiss with your injury."

"You've been avoiding me," she said, crossing her arms tightly across her chest. "You've been avoiding everyone."

Walter's gaze wandered around the room, then down to a stack of books in one corner. "I don't know to what you're referring," he said, continuing to avoid her eyes. "I've been busy."

Olivia sighed. There was no use arguing the point with him. He was in one of his moods. "Fine. You've been busy," she said. "Well, you're not busy right now. I want the full story, Walter. Tell me so I can understand the things that you've done, the choices that you've made." _Tell me so I can stop seeing a monster when I look at you._

"What difference will it make, Agent Dunham? Will it make Peter come back?"

"I don't know what difference it will make, Walter. If Peter comes back..." He had to come back. It was as simple as that. She decided in that moment that one way or another, she was going to find him. In a few more days, her head would be better, or better enough. Rachel wouldn't like it, not one bit, but her little sister wouldn't be able to stop her. "...when Peter comes back, he has to know why you did it," she continued. "That's the only way we can ever hope to move forward." She mashed her lips together into a thin line. "And I want to know for myself. I want to know what happened back then, why you and William Bell did what you did to me, and why I can't remember any of it." Walter's face paled as she pressed on, pushing off the wall and crossing the room, bearing down on him. "I'm not leaving here until you tell me. All of it, starting with how you crossed over to the other universe."

Walter's jaw trembled, sending his lips aflutter. He rubbed his thumb into his palm and stared up at the ceiling before finally settling his gaze upon her. "I've always known that someday I would have to pay for what I've done," he said, his voice and eyes filled with misery. "The universe demands balance, always. I'll tell you what I can, Olivia, what I can remember. You must understand, I've come to realize that there are parts of my… of me... parts of my memory, that are... simply gone. Whether from some condition I developed during my time locked away, or simply as a result of my advancing years, I can't say. But I _know_ that I built a device that tore a hole through the membrane separating our reality from theirs. And yet, I can't tell you _how_ I made it. I can't remember. That knowledge is simply gone."

"I'm not interested in the technical specifications, Walter," Olivia growled. "I just need to know what happened, with him, and with me. From the beginning."

#

The asylum was long asleep by the time Walter finished his account of the past. Outside his window, the stars were out in full force, bedazzling the night sky with their jeweled radiance. A single wisp of clouds streamed across the horizon, a lone wanderer that made Olivia think of Peter.

Of both of them. One dead. One alive.

The story was a simple one. A race to find a cure for his dying son had ended too soon. In another world, another version of himself had also missed his chance to save his son. And so Walter had intervened, bringing the boy back and curing him, but instead of returning him afterward, he'd made him his own. But there was so much more to it. The nebulous gray space in between black and white. And her own story, also intertwined. It was all unbelievable, and yet she believed every word of it.

She turned away from the window. "Why don't I remember any of this?" she questioned. It was incredible. They _had_ met as children, one time only. Had there been a field of white tulips? Some part of her was sure of it, and she wished she could remember the details. "Why don't I remember this day care center? Why don't I remember Peter?"

"A form of deep hypnotherapy Belly developed, and time. You were given a powerful suggestion to forget about your meeting with Peter, to forget the day care center and everything that happened there. A suggestion that was never lifted. You moved away. Time passed, and your brain forgot what it didn't remember, the neural pathways to access those memories lost."

"The memories may have been hidden from me," she told him in a quiet voice, "but their effects remained. I felt different because I was different. I just didn't know why. All this time, I'd thought it was because of my stepfather, and what I did to him. But it started before that. Did you know my parents? Did you know my real father? Which one of them volunteered me for your experiments? It had to be one of them."

"I... I don't recall," Walter said, eyeing her askance. "It was so long ago."

Olivia shot him a hard glance. He knew. It was written all across his face, but he wasn't going to tell her. That was written there too. Did he think he was protecting her? She thought that maybe he did. And after a moment's further thought, it occurred to her that he could be right. What good would knowing do her? None. It wasn't closure. Not real closure.

"What about my stepfather? Did you know him?"

Walter's face grew taut. "I did."

"He used to hit me. Me and my mom. Did you know that too?"

"Eventually, it became apparent that that was the case. I... I did what I could to stop it. Threatened him, told him I knew people in high places who would do him harm if it continued."

"I shot him when I was nine," she murmured after a moment, and then shook her head. Something didn't quite add up. "My abilities. You said your plan was to have me take Peter home, rather than damaging the fabric of the universes further with your device." How could a universe even be damaged? And what did that damage even look like? She thought of the phenomenon Lincoln had described in his world. Was that it? Was that happening to the universe he'd been taken from? The thought was chilling.

Walter nodded, and then leaned back, resting his head against the wall behind his pillow. "That is correct. My plan was for you to take Peter back with you."

"Then why didn't I? Why is Peter still here?"

He hesitated, fingers moving restlessly across his thigh, traversing the seam of his slacks. "I had believed that in time, you would learn how to move between universes at will, with enough practice, with enough exposure to the trigger that activated your abilities. But then, I... I came to understand just what it was that triggered them."

"It was fear, wasn't it?" she asked. "Almost every time they've worked I've been either terrified, or surprised.

Walter nodded sadly. "Fear was one aspect of it, certainly, but not fear alone. Love was another aspect. A unique combination of terror and love — specifically, for your stepfather, I determined. But when Elizabeth learned of it... she insisted I put a stop to it. How could I tell her no? You were just a child."

Olivia frowned. Love? Fear and terror she could understand. But love? Had she ever loved her stepfather? Could she have? It didn't seem possible. The only emotion she could remember feeling toward him was ever hatred. But she'd been a young child when he first came around, and wasn't it a child's natural inclination to love their parents? The possibility that she might have made her feel ill, and in that moment she was almost grateful that she couldn't remember.

She met Walter's gaze. "And when you threatened him...," she said, then drew in a breath as it all came together. "I never learned. Your threats worked, for a while, at least. Until we moved away. But I never learned."

 _I'm the reason Peter is still here. I was supposed to take him home, but because of my stepfather, I never learned how to do it on my own._ Walter and his wife had been faced with an impossible decision — not that it made what they'd done any better — but she could sort of understand why things had fallen out the way they had. She had a better picture of him now, of the man he had been. Hubris had led to the discovery of the other universe, to the experiments conducted on her and the other children at the day care center. But he was not an evil man at heart, as she had once feared. Arrogant, to be sure, but not evil. He had tried to help her, even if it meant Peter would never go home. There might have been a certain selfishness to his act — how could there not be — but he had seen a child in need and done what he could.

"You see now," Walter said brokenly, his eyes pleading. "Why I... I did what I did. You see that now, surely."

Olivia exhaled, closing her eyes briefly. "I see, Walter, better than before, at least. It doesn't make what you did right, though. But... I understand. Sort of. Enough, maybe." She moved away from the window, crossing over to the door. The time was late. It felt like he'd been talking for hours, which he very well could have. Morning couldn't be far off, hours at most. The painkiller she'd taken so she could fall asleep was beginning to wear off, her head starting to ache again. Soon, the familiar pounding would return, driving nails between her eyes. As she stepped out into the hall she stopped and glanced back. "If... when, Peter returns, I'll talk to him. He has to hear what you told me. It probably won't change much, not right away, at least. But you never know."

#

Days later, she woke to dreary clouds hanging in the sky outside her window. A gray slate stretched from horizon to horizon, with not even a smidgen of the rising sun showing its face. The layer of clouds was so impenetrable she couldn't even be sure that it was morning, other than that there was a certain kind of feel to it that she'd come to recognize. A kind of serene stillness, of hovering on the brink, not unlike a roller-coaster that had entered the brief span of serenity after the chain lift was released, but before it plunged down the initial vertical drop. Soon, men and women would rise from their beds. Voices and footsteps and laughter and talking and doors opening and closing would fill the silence. It was another day.

Olivia yawned, then sat up in her bed, throwing back the thick layer of quilts and blankets. Her head was already aching as she pulled on her boots — her own boots, comfortable and practical, recovered by Astrid from the depths of Jacob Fischer's house of horrors. Her room was chilly but not frigid, as it had been the day before. Could it be warming up? Spring should be arriving any day. Rising to her feet, she stepped over to the window and peered outside, down at the asylum grounds below.

Blanketing the landscape as far as her eyes could see was a dense layer of fog. Her window faced southward, or the front of the complex. The outline of the fence was barely visible, as if it had been drawn by hand. Off to her right, only the top of the front gate poked out of the spectral haze, the rest submerged beneath surreal waves of mist that lapped up against the building below. There were no guards in sight, but there hardly ever were at this time of morning. It wasn't necessarily the safest course of action, but then she wasn't in charge. Even further to her right, the now-defunct searchlight rested on its trailer, looking like nothing so much as a gigantic bowl of glass resting on top of a crumpled table cloth.

Out further, beyond the fence, lay the parking lot. Beyond were dense copses of trees on either side of the long driveway that led down to the main street below. Off in the distance, block-shaped structures of apartment and office buildings rose from the fog. Cars and trucks in the parking lot emerged, as if she were looking at them through a gray filter. She recognized the brown four-by-four she'd first seen in Marlborough. Parked beside it was the white Mercedes SUV that Astrid and Sonia had mentioned in their retelling of their escape from the lab. The cars and trucks were parked in a neat row from left to right, just as they were every morning when she'd looked down upon them.

She started to turn away from the window, but her eyes jerked back to the parking lot, back to the row of shrouded vehicles as if attached to a string. Something tickled the back of her mind. Something was wrong. Not wrong, but different. It came to her an instant later when her conscious mind finally caught up with the subconscious directive.

Every morning since she had taken up residence in her new room, there had been seven vehicles parked in the front row nearest the fence. She knew it for a fact because she had counted them, more than once, more than twice. Only now her eyes counted eight vehicles draped in fog.

With a frown, she pressed her face to the cool glass, trying for a better look. The new addition was on the end away from her, parked almost in front of the gate. Only the roof was plainly visible, but it seemed larger than the others, longer, maybe. A truck then, with a red roof and black tinted windows, of which only the top edges were visible above the fog. As she continued to study it, her fingernails slowly gouged into the wooden window sill.

The truck wasn't red at all. It was maroon.

Olivia's breath stuck in her throat, eyes stretching all the way open. Her skin began to prickle, pulse accelerating to an instant, hammering gallop. It was a Suburban. It was _the_ Suburban.

A shadow moved in the front seat.

"Peter!" she said in a choked gasp, then rushed out of the room.

She pounded down the corridor outside her room, blocking out the sharp pains emanating from her forehead, blocking out everything but the truck parked outside the gate. She couldn't think, she could only feel. And what she felt was pressure building in her chest, pressure that felt like laughter, like tears, and was she crying? Her eyes stung, the doorways flashing past on either side blurry and orbicular. She plunged down the darkened stairwell to the bottom floor, where she spun, skidding out into the long corridor that would ultimately lead to the lobby below the tall clock tower.

A woman with blonde hair cut short stepped out of an adjoining hall ahead. She raced past the startled woman, who she distinctly remembered Astrid introducing as Juliet.

"What is it?" the woman called out after her. "Hey, Olivia! What's the matter!"

She didn't reply. The woman was already out of her mind. What if he'd been getting ready to leave? What if he had left already in the span of time it would take her to reach the gate from her room? Her heart was in her throat, ready to come spilling out of her eyes. Once, long ago, she had sworn she would never become one of _those_ women, those women who were walking clichés , straight out of every sappy romance novel that had ever existed. Women rushing out to meet their man as if he were some kind of lifeline, women with their heads filled with... what? With love? But that was exactly what she found herself doing.

Was it love? What else could it be? Surely nothing less could drive her to act so abnormal, could make her feel like she was either going to die or possibly float away, both at the same time.

She raced into the lobby. On a small table beside the entrance was a key ring, with a long, yellow cord. She snatched it up on her way past and threw open the door. From how heavy it seemed, it must have been solid oak, but she heaved it out of her way and plunged outside.

From above the fog had seemed thick enough, but from ground level, it was like being inside a cloud, or a ball of cotton. She leapt down from the covered porch onto the sidewalk, angling for where the gate should be, hidden by the whitish haze. The fence emerged from the fog first, and then the gate, slightly off to her right. There was no sign of the truck in the whiteness ahead, and a steady stream of panicked thoughts flew through her mind. _Where's the truck? Oh fuck, where's the truck? Where's Peter?_ But then, as she neared the gate, the maroon Suburban finally reared out of the fog.

So great was her relief that she nearly crashed into the gate, throwing her arms up at the last second to protect her face and head. As she skidded to a stop, a car door opened and she heard the scratch of boots on gravel. She reached for the padlock. Her hands shook as she went to insert the key. The lock held a chain in place that looked stout enough to pull a train car. And then Peter was there, just a few feet away on the other side of the fence. His cobalt eyes were tired and red-rimmed, and glassy, like Walter's had been when he'd told her about another boy named Peter dying in his arms.

"Peter," she whispered, hooking her fingers through the links. "You came back." Of course he'd come back. Why was she stating the obvious. Why wasn't he replying?

"I've been sitting out here for hours," Peter said finally, and her heart broke all over again at the sadness in his voice, at how alone he sounded. "Trying to decide if I should go in. I still haven't made up my mind." He paused, looking her up and down. "Are you okay? I'm sorry I just... left like that. I should have talked to you first, but, I just had to get out of there. Away from him."

"I'm fine, Peter," she said, shaking her head. "And there's no reason to apologize. Where did you go?"

He looked away, staring eastward. "Nowhere. Anywhere, at first. Just away from here. But then I found myself back in Cambridge. My... my mother, she's buried there. I haven't been to her grave in a long time."

Of course he would go back to Cambridge. Back to the other half of the equation. Where else could he have gone, except to the only other person that knew the truth, even if she was dead. But what had he found there? Enlightenment? Closure? Either seemed unlikely. He appeared brittle on the outside, as if he might crack apart at the slightest pressure.

She eyed him carefully. "How are you feeling?"

"How am I feeling?" he said with half-hearted smirk. "Pretty goddamn shitty, to be honest with you. There's nothing like finding out your entire life has been one big lie to punctuate just how worthless you really are."

"Stop that," she chided softly. "Self-pity doesn't suit you, Peter. You're still the same man you were before." _You're still the man I fell in love with._

Peter's eyes glittered. "What would you have me do, Olivia? Act like this is all okay?"

Suddenly the chain-linked gate seemed like a wall of solid steel. She wanted it gone. She wanted to touch him, to feel the warmth of his skin against hers. And she suspected he needed it as much as she. Or else why would he have come back? "Will you come in?" she asked, glancing down at the padlock.

"Will you come out?" he countered.

The question was simple enough on the surface, but it had a deeper meaning which she picked up on at once. _Please don't make me choose, Peter. Please_. "You want me to leave my family behind? Rachel and Ella? Is that what you're asking me?"

"Are you asking me to play house with the man that kidnapped me? The man who stole me from another universe and then brainwashed me into thinking I was his son?"

"I understand how angry you must be, Peter. Believe me, I do. You weren't the only one Walter abused, remember? I talked to him after you left. He told me everything. From the beginning. You. Me. Cortexiphan, and the other universe. I know it all. It doesn't make right what he did, not even close, but you need to hear him out. Please."

"Hear him out..." Peter muttered, shaking his head. He paced in a circle like a fractious horse, staring up at the sky. "Hear him out. That's what I'm afraid of, Olivia. Suppose I hear him out, and he actually convinces me to be okay with what happened? What about my real family? They're out there somewhere. They probably think I'm dead, or that I've been... I don't know, horribly abused or something. Am I just supposed to ignore that? To forget about them?"

"Of course not," she said gently, "but how will going off on your own change anything? I know you don't want to hear this, Peter, but, you can't go back. The device Walter used to make the gateway is gone, sunk to the bottom of a lake somewhere, decades ago. There's only one way back now, and that's if I take you." His eyes widened, then narrowed into slits. "That's right. After you were... brought here, that's what Walter was trying to do at the day care center. His plan was for me to take you home, eventually." Her throat began to close up, aching pain rising in her chest, but she plunged onward anyway. "I don't know how to do it yet, but... if you ask me to, I'll figure it out. I'll take you home — if that's what you really want. But please, just come in for now. Hear Walter out. Hear what happened."

Olivia waited for him to speak. His face was bleak, his eyes lost and broken. But then after an interval of tense silence in which she listened to her thudding heart threatening to crack apart, he finally nodded.

"I don't know what I want to do," he said, his voice low and soft as he stepped closer to the fence. He reached up, putting his fingers over hers where they hooked through the metal links. "But, I know I'm not going anywhere if you're not with me, Olivia Dunham."

"Good. Cause I don't want you to go anywhere," she said through a hard lump moving up her throat, willing her eyes to remain dry. "I could probably think of a hundred reasons why you have to come in, but, the only one that matters is that you belong with me, here, or anywhere. Because I don't want to do this without you, either, and because... and because I love you."

For a moment, Peter froze. Then his eyes popped open, and his lips stretched into the most crooked, Cheshire grin she'd ever seen, lighting up his face. She found herself matching his smile, and struggling to hold back tears. "I should have told you before, that night in the forest," she continued. She sensed that she was going to start rambling, but found she couldn't stop. "But I was scared, mostly of something terrible happening — which of course it did anyway." She laughed a little then, and the damn burst open, spilling a huge and wet tear down her cheek. "But also because I've never been good at this, at relationships. I don't know what's going to happen, Peter, whatever it is, I know that I want you with me. I want you with me, not out there, wandering alone. Now will you please come in?

"Will you shut up and open the damn gate?" he hissed, rattling the fence. His nostrils were flaring, below eyes that were blue like the ocean, and filled with love and hunger that made her heart swell to the point of bursting.

Olivia fumbled open the lock, then ripped away the chain. And then Peter was helping her with the gate, shoving it aside. As soon as he fit through the gap, he slipped inside. Their lips found each other, and she was in his arms, tasting him, breathing in his air. She tasted his tears, and her own, co-mingling, felt their hearts thudding in time. Finally they pulled apart, and she dragged her fingernails down his cheek, through the stubble of his beard, holding him against her. He'd shaved recently. A warm blast of relief went through her as she listened to him breathe, at the rise and fall of his chest against hers. He had come back, and he was staying, for now. And for the time being, that was all that mattered.

#

#

#

"You ready for this, Liv?"

Olivia stared straight ahead at the blank wall in front of her. It had been painted, once. Had it been lime green? It was nearly impossible to tell from the peeling remnants still clinging to the decades-old plaster. She turned her head slightly, catching sight of her sister in her peripheral vision. "Why are you saying it like that?" she said, feeling jittery all of a sudden. "Is it really that bad?"

"Saying it like what?" Rachel snorted. "It was just a simple question. Stop being so paranoid. Sheesh."

"Fine. Just get on with it," she said, and then sighed, turning forward once more. She let her gaze settle on the window to her left, where outside the sun was beaming down, casting dull reflections off several distant high-rises of Worcester proper rising above the tree tops.

Just over three weeks had passed since Peter's return. A little over a full month since her encounter with Jacob Fischer. During that time she'd avoided mirrors, avoided reflection of herself as best as she could. The wound on her forehead had been bandaged for the entire duration, bandages that grew progressively smaller as the days went by. Until today, when Walter had finally judged that it had healed enough, was ready for the light of day.

She found herself oddly nervous at the prospect, though why that would be she couldn't quite put her finger on. Her appearance had never been all that important to her before — which wasn't to say she hadn't enjoyed looking nice when the occasion warranted it — but in general, she had always preferred and taken the minimalist approach. But that was before someone had tried to saw open her skull and scoop out her brain like a fruit cocktail. What kind scar did that leave behind? Her stitches had been improvised at best, and Walter was no plastic surgeon.

Rachel stepped in front of her, blocking her view of the window. She wore a cream colored halter top with her hair pulled over her shoulder in a thick braid. "You know, it's not that bad, Liv," she muttered, picking at the taped bandage with her fingernail. She had been there several times when the bandage had been changed, but Olivia had refused to let her or anyone else describe what it looked like. "It's not like you have a giant knot sticking out of your wrist like I do."

Olivia snorted, eyeing the quarter-sized bump on her sister's wrist. "Giant...?" she scoffed, then winced from the sting as Rachel began peeling the tape away. "Your wrist isn't the first thing people see when they look at you, Rach."

"Whatever. You think Peter will care what it looks like? The man worships the ground you walk on."

"No, of course he won't," she replied, trying not to sound too defensive. "And he does not." Peter had already given her the line that it added character, even going so far as to tell her she could look like the elephant woman for all he cared, which she had in turn called out as a bald-faced lie. "It's just... I dunno. It's my face, I guess. It's the only one I've got."

"You have a point. If I were you, I'd be shitting bricks right about now."

"So it is bad!" Olivia said, swallowing as a sick stain spread through her gut, heavy and hot like molten lead. "Fuck, I knew it."

Rachel stopped what she was doing and stared down with a bemused look in her eyes. "I'm just kidding, Liv. Relax. This really bothering you, isn't it? The great and unflappable Olivia Dunham. I never thought I'd see the day." Olivia glared daggers at her little sister, who merely laughed out loud in response. "It's not bad. I'm being serious now." Reaching up, she quickly tore the rest of the bandage away and tossed it in the bucket that served as a trashcan for her and Ella's room. "There. You're all set. It's the new Olivia. Here."

Olivia gulped as a small mirror was pressed into her hands. She held it limply for a moment, then slowly raised it up before her eyes. She focused on her lips first, refusing to let her gaze climb any higher. She had always liked her lips, not too wide or too full, but just about perfect, in her opinion. She thought of Peter then, and felt a blush creeping up her neck and onto her cheeks; he certainly seemed to like them also. She thought her nose was about average, perhaps a smidge too wide, but overall not bad. Her cheekbones were more pronounced than they had been before the outbreak, but then she had lost weight. Weight she would have sworn she didn't have to lose. Her eyes seemed too sunken in, but that might have been an illusion, or perhaps she was merely tired. The tiny specs of gold that swam around her pupils stood out against the greenish shade of her irises. She could see something now, out of focus above her right eye.

"Well?" Rachel said. "What do you think?"

Olivia held her breath, and then finally let herself look at the scar. She gasped silently, relief rushing in like the springtime breeze blowing outside.

The scar was pink and tender against her skin, and distinctly L-shaped, with each segment near as long as her index finger. It went straight across horizontally above her right eye, then turned straight upward, stopping just short of her hairline. There was a faint ridge or bumpiness to it when she touched it, but she thought it might only be visible from certain angles. Overall, it was not nearly so bad as she'd been picturing in her head, but certainly far from invisible.

"See? It's not so bad. Walter said you might not even be able to see it, eventually."

"It looks weird," she decided, wrinkling her forehead to see what effect that had, turning her head from side to side. "Like I'm looking at someone else. A different me." _A different version of me. Like the Olivia Dunham from Lincoln's world. Or the other._

"Well, of course it looks weird," Rachel said, peering into the mirror over her shoulder. "You just have to get used to it. You probably won't even notice it inside a month."

Olivia considered. Her sister was probably right. It was like getting a new hairstyle, or even better, like when she'd gotten braces in middle school. She had avoided showing her teeth for weeks after, but eventually, like everything else in life, the strangeness had faded away.

Setting the mirror aside, she rose from the edge of the bed and crossed over to the window. In the open space below was a flurry of activity. A wide patch of grass in the center of the yard was gone, several men with tillers appropriated from a nearby outdoor retail center were busy tearing up the ground in preparation for the garden Charlene Watson and some of the others had planned out. The bellow of gas-powered engines carried in through the open window and she automatically scanned the fence, searching for the infected such a racket was sure to lure in, but there were none in sight. Without the searchlight to draw them in, the number of undead in the vicinity of the asylum had dwindled over the last month, with only one or two sightings a day.

On the far side of the would-be garden, a squat trailer was parked in front of Jacob Fischer's former lab. The generator it held was smaller than the she'd imagined in her head, but what it didn't have in size, it more than made up for in pure noise. Parked nearby was a massive tanker truck that Peter and Lincoln Lee had returned with several days ago, filled to the brim with gasoline. Under Broyles's and Lincoln's watchful eyes, men were busy near the tanker, running a length of thick and heavy-looking hose between the tanker and generator. The power was working again, though it was limited in scope. Peter and Lincoln had both worked for days on the battery array Jacob Fischer had left behind, and between the two of them they finally had the system up and running. At least until the fuel ran out. And it would run out, eventually. In a year, perhaps, if they used it sparingly, conserving energy whenever possible.

Off in the distance, she saw Claire and Astrid walking along the fence, hand in hand. Closer in, Peter and Ella were sitting on one of the many concrete benches scattered along the curving sidewalks that led nowhere. They were facing away from her, but she knew they were having one of their discussions. The two of them had been spending a lot of time together since his return, most of that talking somewhere, alone.

"What do you think they're always talking about?" Rachel asked, stepping up beside her.

There was no need to specify who. "Peter won't tell me," Olivia said, gazing down at her niece and the man in her life. "When I asked, all he would say was that he was helping her with the nightmares she's been having." She shot a glance at her sister's profile. "Are they getting better?"

Rachel shrugged. "Maybe a little. But she's smiling more, at least. And eating. It's progress."

She thought of Walter, working down in the kitchen alongside Charlene, and how little progress had been made on that front. Peter had heard him out as she'd asked him to, but had said little about any of it since then, and not a single word to his father so far as she knew. It was killing Walter, slowly, she was sure, but what else had he expected? The wound in Peter was still raw, still bleeding. Would it close in time? Maybe, but then again, maybe not. Peter was stubborn, with Walter especially, and he did have reason. Much like she had reason, and she still hadn't made up her mind how to feel about it.

"What's going to happen now, do you think?" Rachel asked, leaning up against the window frame. "Where do we go from here?"

Olivia shook her head slowly. "I don't know."

They were surviving, and that was all they could do. She didn't know what would happen next, what tomorrow would bring, or the day after, or even a year out. Maybe inside a year they would all be gone, or maybe they would still be struggling on. Maybe will have figured out the infection, or maybe they won't. Maybe they never would. Or maybe they would be the last generation of human beings on their version of Earth, and time would march ever onward, with or without them. But until then, they would be together, at least. They would walk forward, struggling, side by side, until they could go no farther.

It was enough.


	34. Impetus

**Part III**

**-** **Late** **July, 2009**

The blessed coolness of the morning had departed swiftly as the sun rose above the horizon. Turning from a sultry pink to a fiery orange, and then a blinding sphere of whitish-yellow, it continued its ascension into a cloudless sky, beaming down with implacable malevolence, its sweltering rays scorching the earth below.

A stifling wind rose up, gusting in from the west, flowing over the landscape with the gale forces of a blast furnace. Dust devils scattered in its wake, twirling with maddening frequencies, spinning out of control across the arid hardpan of the former Green Hill Golf Links. At the bottom of a gently rolling hill that had once been a long and narrow fairway, the barren ground was cracking apart, pulling apart at the seams and shrinking in on itself from the lack of moisture. Across a narrow, paved cart track running parallel to the sparse rough, the water hole the maps called out as Green Hill Pond receded daily. The ever-widening shoreline was a blackened strip of rotting vegetation — if the decaying seaweed and algae of which it was mostly comprised could even be called that. In every direction plant life was wilting, leaves streaked with browns and yellows, curling up around the edges as if they had been burned in truth.

Peter mopped a hand across his brow, then left it there, shielding his eyes. He gazed out across the ripples of chocolate-colored water. Defiant waves of heat blurred the air, the rising clouds of dust. Surely it was some kind of record, if they had still kept records. New England had a temperate climate. In no way should the Massachusetts countryside resemble an African savanna. Ever.

"Is it ever going to rain again, Peter?" Ella asked softly, as if she'd been perusing his mind.

She was stretched out on her belly beside him, peering toward the distant pond through a pair of binoculars. She wore a simple sleeveless t-shirt of light beige that blended in perfectly with the tans and browns of the desiccated weeds and grasses in which they were secreted. Tawny hair peeked out from beneath her baseball cap, her ponytail pulled through the hole above the adjustment snap and fanning down over one shoulder.

"Of course, it will," he replied with more confidence than he felt. "It has to, doesn't it?"

But did it? Whatever was happening, it was clearly unnatural, in his opinion, at least. How long had it been? A month? He'd lost track of the time. Maybe it would never rain again. Maybe the world was just going to grow hotter and hotter. Maybe it would just keep drying up, and all the green places would shrink down into tiny oases before descending into a never-ending wasteland. Where the hell was Max Rockatansky when you needed him?

The blistering wind died off and a stillness settled over the landscape. Off in the distance birds were calling, their shrill voices carrying through the trees. As if the caws were a signal, the forest behind them came alive with waves of chirps and chatters and screeches broadcast by any number of species from the insect world. The birds seemed unaffected by the heat, indeed it sometimes seemed like there were more around than ever. The same could be said for the bugs, the insects. Spiders were everywhere. Mosquitoes roamed in ravenous swarms, hunting down their pray, be it man or animal. Such creatures had never bothered him much before, but enough was enough.

"Hey, I see something," Ella said suddenly. "Not a deer, though. Looks like a pig. Or is that a boar?" She passed him the binoculars. "There, on the right side by the shore. I think it wants a drink of water."

Peter looked and found the creature where she'd indicated. And it was a pig, all right. He wondered how it came to be in the middle of Worcester, but could only conclude that it must have escaped from some farmer's paddock early on during the infection, and had been roaming ever since. The animal was lucky it had survived the winter. It was lucky it hadn't been eaten already. Though he'd never seen one, there were certainly bobcats around, and even black bears in some parts. In any case, the pig's run of luck had just come to an end.

"You're right, it's a pig," he reported, lowering the binoculars. "Boars have dark hair and tusks. And I don't think they live around here. Or they didn't, at least." But who knew what all had changed? Almost an entire year had passed since the world had ended, and there was nothing to stop the wildlife from roaming wherever it pleased. Still, it was hard to imagine how a pig could have ended up in their sights. He glanced down at Ella. "You want to give it a try?" he asked. Over the last few weeks she had been practicing, mostly with a pellet rifle he'd found in the sporting goods section of the Wal-Mart several blocks away. Ella looked down at the deer rifle with its long scope lying on the ground between them, and then shook her head. "You sure?"

Ella's heart-shaped face was determined. "It's too cute, Peter. I don't think I can shoot it. And I might miss."

"Maybe it is cute," he said, grinning as he lifted the rifle. "But I bet it'll taste even better." Bacon? Check. Smoked pork shoulder? Double check. Saliva flooded his mouth at the thought of the wonders Charlene could work with such fodder.

Pressing the gun to his shoulder, he cocked his head and peered through the scope with one eye. The muddy brown ripples of the lake leapt into his vision, and then the pig itself as he swung the barrel toward the shore. She was right. The animal was kind of cute as it went about waddling toward the waterline. But cute or not, there was no way he was passing up fresh pork. He pressed the rifle's safety off, then curled his finger around the trigger. He centered the crosshairs on the pig's flank, just behind its foreleg, then held his breath and began to apply pressure.

_Boom!_

A gunshot cracked the air.

Peter jerked at the sudden noise, the view through the scope slewing upward and then to the side for a moment. He found the pig again, just in time to see it take a few steps, and then topple onto its side at the water's edge.

'Was that Aunt Liv?" Ella asked in an excited voice, rising up to a kneeling position. She peered through the brush toward the copse of tree where Olivia had stationed herself. "Did she get it? Did she shoot it?"

"She got it...," he grumbled with a sigh, and pushed the rifle's safety back into place. _Damn it_. Now he was at her mercy. _Should have kept my mouth shut_ , he thought, climbing to his feet. _Should have never made that stupid bet_. Of course, Olivia had seen the pig also. When had she missed anything, ever? Not that being at her mercy was necessarily a bad thing, he reconsidered. _Might even be a good thing, depending on her mood_.

Ella jumped up beside him, but he held her back as she went to rush out of their concealment. "Hold up. First rule, Ella. Remember?"

She nodded, relaxing under his touch. "Always check for infected first," she intoned.

"That's right. Always. The gunfire draws them out. Look, and then go."

When he was sure the point was engraved into her brain, he slung the hunting rifle up onto his shoulder and followed her out of the brush onto the rough lining either side of the fourteenth hole.

Off to their right, Olivia stepped out of the small copse of closely-knit trees surrounded by smaller sapling and the husks of tall weeds that she'd chosen for her blind. Her sun-bleached hair glinted as she tossed them a wave, and he couldn't help but notice how dark she'd become, her once pale skin now bronzed by the summer sun. The L-shaped scar on her forehead stood out against her tanned skin. She wore a pair of tan shorts that ended midway down her shapely thighs and a light green sleeveless top against the sun's heat that left her arms and most of her shoulders bare to the sun's intimidating rays. Her exposed skin was smeared with the remnants of sunscreen, and her loose bangs hung low, damp with sweat. More sweat dribbled down the side of her face, down into the neck of her shirt. It _was_ fucking hot out. And as always, he found it difficult to look away from her.

"Nice shot," he said as they joined her in the middle of the fairway. "I suppose I'll be hearing about this for a while."

Olivia smiled faintly under his praise. "Seems likely," she confirmed, pursing her lips. She looked down at her niece. "How are you doing, Ella? What do you think of hunting? It's kind of boring sometimes, isn't it?"

"I don't know," Ella replied after a moment. "I kind of like being outside the fence. Seeing something new. Sometimes."

Peter waited for her to say more, but it seemed that was all she had to say on the subject. Olivia met his gaze over the top her head with a frown. She was still worried about her niece. Worried about her long silences, her inward gazes, the dark things that sometimes moved inside her eyes. Worried about the subtle shift in her personality, and all the other things that added up to something more than her simply growing older. And then there were the recurring nightmares. Ella no longer had them every night, but when they did come upon her, she was nearly inconsolable. He knew Rachel was at her wit's end and he hated keeping things from her, but how could he tell her the truth? _Hi, Rachel, your daughter slit a man's throat a few months back, and sometimes she does it over and over in her dreams. And how are you today?_ Not gonna happen. He had finally enlisted Olivia, after coming to the conclusion that he alone wasn't up to the task of helping Ella; a child psychiatrist, he was not. Olivia had been rightly horrified, of course, but to his surprise, she had agreed with his decision to keep the knowledge from her little sister. For the time being, at least. While they were helping Ella process what she'd done. There were good days and bad days. Today was more or less a good day.

The burning wind kicked up again, rushing at them up the hill. The tall grasses and tree limbs lining the fairway whipped and bowed under its pressure. He angled his face away from the dust and grit pulled along for the ride. For several moments, it was like walking into the spray of a sandblaster before the gale died off as quickly as it had arisen, leaving them once again in a harsh and desolate silence. _This can't be natural_ , he thought for the umpteenth time.

"So, I spoke to Walter this morning," Olivia began in a suspiciously casual tone as they made their way down the incline of the fairway. Ella scampered ahead, and was busy thwacking the heads off weed stalks with a stick. "He doesn't think this weather is natural," she continued, "and he's worried it's going to get worse before it gets better. If it gets better. He and Lincoln have been spending a lot of time together."

Peter grimaced, almost out of instinct at hearing his father's name. _He's not your father_ , a voice admonished him. But it was hard not to think of him that way. Nearly impossible, even. Walter was all he knew. If he had another father out there somewhere, no memory of him remained. Either that, or they were alike enough that he could no longer tell the difference. But he was certain that he had been able to tell a difference, at some point. His old dreams, his nightmares, that weren't either, were proof enough. The same applied to his mother. Both of them were gone. He felt the old and familiar pain then. And the guilt. It moved through his chest, squeezing with sharp pincers around his heart.

"Have they come up with a theory yet?" he managed to ask, doing his best to keep his voice even.

"Nothing that I could make two cents of," she admitted, eyeing him sideways. There was pity in her gaze, and with that pity the knowledge that she was aware of his pain, and that she was the one causing it at that moment. He could forgive her that though, as there was no way she would ever bring it up if she didn't think it was important. Which it was. "Lincoln mentioned some of the strange atmospheric conditions they experienced on his world," she went on, sounding mystified. "Depleted oxygen pockets, some kind of blight that's killed hundreds of square miles of vegetation in New England alone. But none of it sounds like what we're dealing with. Honestly, I don't think they have a clue." She reached out, taking hold of his hand. "They could use your help, Peter." Her voice was gentle, her thumb rubbed softly across the ridges of his knuckles. "I know you're still angry, and that you have every right to be furious. I'm not saying you should or you shouldn't, but... it's something to think about."

He shook his head, closing his eyes for a moment. "Lately, I've been trying to remember my parents. My real parents. But I keep forgetting, they were the _same_ people. Even if I do still have memories of them, how could I possibly tell one Walter from another? Lincoln knows another Peter Bishop. Another Olivia Dunham who thinks gingers have more fun. He works for the Secretary of Defense — some other version of my father — but still not _my_ father. And there are the ones from the world Lincoln's is at war with. It seems like _our_ world, but it clearly isn't. Half the time I feel like I'm staring into a kaleidoscope or something."

A smile flickered across Olivia's lips for an instant. "It is kind of hard to wrap your head around, isn't it?" she mused, staring ahead at Ella.

"I guess what I'm saying is, that I will," he said shortly, and found that he meant it, too. "Think about it, I mean," he added when Olivia lifted an eyebrow in question.

"That's all I'm asking," she said, and then let the subject drop.

At the bottom of the hill they crossed over a narrow golf cart track, and onto another hole. Was it the twelfth? Or the tenth? He'd only seen the course map on one occasion, and couldn't quite recall. It wasn't exactly important information, anyway — no one would be playing eighteen holes again for the foreseeable future. Down another short incline from the cart track was the lake with its widening shoreline. The air stank of dead fish and the earthy fumes of rotting vegetation, a sickly-sweet smell that turned his stomach. Where the water had already pulled back, the mud was brittle and cracked apart into curling layers, and walking on it was like traversing a bed of eggshells.

The pig was lying on its side amid the canvas of seaweed. Its eyes were sightless black pebbles. Olivia's shot had been a clean one, taking it in the flank behind its left front leg. The blood trail it had left behind as it struggled up the shore in its final death throes had already soaked into the dirt, with only several dark spots of discoloration left behind as evidence that they had ever existed at all.

Ella poked at the dead pig with her stick. "What now, Aunt Liv?" she asked, peering up at them both.

"What now?" Olivia said, staring down at the pig. "Well, now we have to cut open its belly and cut out all its insides. Its stomach, its intestines. All that fun stuff."

"Fun stuff? Ugh... that sounds awful." Ella's face wrinkled with exaggerated disgust. "Do we have to do it?"

"Pretty much, honey. That's so the meat won't spoil and get contaminated. Then we'd have to throw it out."

Peter waited for her to get started on the gruesome task, but she merely crossed an arm across her chest, gripping her rifle's strap where it passed between her breasts. Field dressings were easily the worst part of hunting, and reminded him daily of why his stint at the meatpacking plant down in Tennessee had been so brief. After a few moments of silence, he lifted his gaze from the dead pig to Olivia and found her watching, her face as sweet and innocent as a newborn babe's. Her gaze dropped to her kill for an instant, before drifting back up to him. He didn't trust that look. Not one bit. What, was she expecting him to do it?

"You know," he said, scratching the side of his neck, "I'm pretty sure it's customary for the one who made the kill to do their own field dressing." The words hung in the air between them, and he winced at the slight widening of Olivia's green eyes. She _was_ expecting him to.

"Is it now?" she replied in a mild voice that confirmed his suspicions, and then her generous lips curled into a devious smile. "So... about that bet."

#

* * *

 #

Moisture pooled between Olivia's shoulder blades, becoming beads of sweat that rolled down her sides in continuous streams, as if she'd just finished a marathon instead of walking up a hill. The dampness gathered around the waist of her shorts, which soaked it up like a sponge. Her blouse was wet also, sagging, heavy around the neck. It clung to her like a second layer of skin. The heat and humidity were overbearing, overpowering, like being trapped inside the hottest sauna, only for days instead of minutes or hours. And there was no possibility for parole in any of their futures, not at present, at least.

It wore on her. It wore on everyone.

She wondered if it would ever end. It would have to, wouldn't it? The temperature couldn't be buried in the red zone forever. She'd overheard someone say that it had reached one-hundred-five degrees Fahrenheit a few days ago. One-hundred-five. In Massachusetts. That was just over forty degrees Celsius. Her mind had made the conversion automatically, and she still couldn't decide if the lower number sounded better, or worse.

Walking beside her, Peter peered out through the links in the fence. Their shift on duty was coming to an end. She made sure their shifts were almost always aligned, and either during the sunrise or sundown time slots, if at all possible. Today, it wasn't possible, unfortunately for them both, and the blistering afternoon sun beat down without pity.

Outside the fence, the surrounding landscape was barren. It had been scoured clean of vegetation for better sight lines. Nothing moved, be it human, animal, or infected. It had been so for days.

"Do you like it here, Liv?" Peter asked suddenly, turning away from the fence. "Do you like living here?"

Did she like it? What did liking the asylum have to do with anything? Olivia shrugged. "Umm... I guess so? I mean, you're here. Ella and Rachel are here. We have walls and roofs over our heads." Peter grunted, as if he were unsatisfied with her answer, but what was he expecting? She had him. She had her family. What more did she need to say? What more could she want, other than the world to stop ending? She felt a stab of fear, and glanced up at him. "Why? Do you want to leave?"

"No." He shook his head and shot another look her way behind his sunglasses. "Not unless you do, of course. But sometimes I worry."

"About what?"

"I don't know. The future, I guess. It can be nice here, you know?"

Olivia tried to follow his line of thinking. It could be nice there. Over the months since her abduction and subsequent escape, she sometimes found herself almost enjoying life at the asylum — despite the horrible things that had happened there. Almost. As much as could be, at any rate. She'd discovered that there was something to be said for being around people again, to be living in a society, even a micro version such as theirs. It brought a kind of everyday normalcy to life that could be alluring, even addicting. It was a reflection of the past, a step backward through time to the days of before. The infected population was down — she hadn't even seen one in over a week — sometimes she found herself forgetting that they were even out there. It was easy. As easy as falling into a routine. Into a rut.

"Are you worried about us becoming soft, or complacent?" she said. "That we'll forget about the outside? I don't think you need to worry about that."

"It's not that, not exactly," he said, rubbing the line of his jaw. "I guess it's the feeling that we're just treading water here. We're surviving. But that's about all we're doing. And don't get me wrong, if this is how we have to spend our days together, I'll take them... but, you ever feel like there's a clock somewhere that's ticking down?"

So that was it. She'd been wondering if any of the others had felt it also. "I know what you mean, Peter," she told him with a slow nod of her head. "I feel it too, sometimes. Like we're heading toward something." A part of her knew that they should be doing something more to combat, to fix the infection. Something. Anything. But it seemed so much larger than them, than any one person, or even two or three. Or ten. Or ten thousand. And there was always some reason to wait another day. Another week. Another month. And what could they do anyway? With the new information Lincoln Lee had provided, the current working theory was that the source of the infection was outside of their universe, in one next door, or perhaps in another that lay beyond. It might as well have been at the end of infinity. Just thinking about all the convolutions made her brain hurt. "I just don't know what we can do about it."

"Yeah. There's that, too. Sometimes I feel like there's something we should be doing." His lips quirked into a crooked smile. "Or maybe it's just indigestion."

Olivia chuckled, and adjusted the wide brim of her straw hat. Their shoulders bumped together as they walked, and for a while there was no more talking between them. She didn't mind the silence, however, nor did he. That was the way of their relationship. Eventually, their fingers found each other, curling together almost naturally, the physical contact that spoke when their voices didn't.

A surge of guilt hung in the back of her mind. She hadn't been completely honest with him. She was doing something. Or trying to. Despite her offer to take him back to his world, Peter had never broached the subject again. Which wasn't to say she hadn't tried to learn anyway. She had tried. On no less than four separate occasions she crossed over to the other universe, to the other, more modern hospital that occupied the same space as the asylum. But she couldn't make herself stay there for longer than a handful of seconds. Inevitably, no matter what she did or how hard she tried to focus, she was always yanked back, as if her own reality refused to relinquish its grip on her. It was all a secret, of course. No one knew what she was doing in her free time, not even Peter. The other abilities — moving things with her mind, creating fire or lightning — she avoided attempting or even thinking about if at all possible. Down that path lay a version of herself she never wanted to meet.

As they rounded the corner of the compound, the open space behind came into view. There were a few people milling about under the blazing afternoon sun, over where several tilled areas of soil lay. Among some of the survivors were a few who knew something of agriculture, and had tried their hands at growing food. The vegetables they had planted in the spring had all produced, and now a second wave was being attempted, though how they expected to grow anything in such heat was not quite clear to her. Broccoli and squash, turnips and cucumbers would all grow in the summer, supposedly, but at what cost? How much water would they consume? Water was precious.

Though, as it turned out, there was nothing special about how the Doctor had managed to bring water to the asylum. It was only a matter of restoring power to a few select pumps at the local water utility station, which would in turn fill a nearby water tower. The pipes connecting the asylum to the city water system were already in place, and once the proper valves had been reopened, the water had flowed. And the generators to run the pumps were already on hand at the station. They just had to be turned on, only for long enough to fill the tower, which only took an hour or two, and only needed doing every couple of weeks. Of course, they would run out of fuel eventually, but that hadn't happened yet. No one talked about what would happen when it did. There were a lot of things no one talked about.

Turning her mind to a different subject, she thought of Ella, and how she'd beaten at the weeds in their path, swiping the fragile stalks in two with her stick — like any kid her age might do. "How do you think Ella's doing?" she asked, finally breaking the silence.

Peter's hand squeezed hers briefly. "I think she's a troubled little girl," he replied after a moment. "But I also think that's gotta be normal, considering what she's gone through. Have you thought any more about telling Rachel?"

Olivia grunted. How many times had she pictured that conversation in her head? "I don't see that going over so well," she said, shaking her head. "My sister... she's... well, you know how she is. I don't know if she could handle it. I know I was angry that you kept it from me at first, but after talking to her... I don't know if Rachel would look at Ella differently or not, and Ella doesn't need that right now."

"She's gonna have to find out sometime, Liv," Peter said quietly. "It's her daughter, she has a right to know the truth."

"You think I don't know that? It kills me to keep this from her. I just need some way to connect with Ella, some way to... shit, I don't know. There has to be something we can do for her."

"Well... who did you talk to?"

"Who did I talk to?" she said, frowning over at him. "Who did I talk to when?"

"With your stepfather, back when you were nine. Did you have to talk to someone afterward? A counselor? Psychiatrist? I mean, the cops made you talk with somebody, didn't they? Social Services? Anyone?"

Olivia drew in a breath, lifting her gaze skyward. Her stepfather. Who had she talked to? She had a vague memory of a woman, of dark hair pulled back in a thick braid. A woman who had kind eyes, and had just listened without placing blame, without passing judgment. She had just listened. "There was a woman," she said slowly. "I had to see her a few times. I think they just wanted to make sure I wasn't a threat to...to..." Trailing off, she let out a silent gasp and came to a stop beside the fence. Suddenly she knew what she had to do. Her stepfather. It seemed so incredibly obvious, now, in hindsight.

"What's the matter?" Peter said over the rim of his sunglasses. "You okay?"

Nodding, she spotted Sonia and the woman Juliet along with the man she recognized as the former pastor, Reuben, moving toward them from the other direction. Was their shift over already? Time had flown by. Sonia's belly rode out in front of her, and her stride was beginning to take on a distinct waddle. A stray thought that the heat couldn't be good for her or the baby flashed through her mind. "I'm fine, Peter," she said, eyeing the trio's approach. "But I want to talk to Ella alone tonight. I think I might know a way to get through to her."

#

It was well past dark before she finally found her way back to the room she shared with Peter. When she had dropped Ella off at Rachel's room, her niece had rushed in, throwing her arms about her mother's waist. Rachel's surprise had been palpable in the flicker of her candlelight. And so had been her relief. She had caught up with Olivia on her way down the hall.

_"What did you do?"_ Rachel had whispered in the darkness of the corridor. _"She hasn't done that in... I dunno, months. Since the morning that bastard Overbeek showed up at our door."_

_"I told her a story,"_ she had replied. _"A true story. I think it might have opened her eyes."_

Rachel had nodded slowly, her eyes shrewd and full of questions. _"You're going to tell me what this is all about, someday, aren't you? I may not be a superstar investigator, but I'm not an idiot, Olivia. I know that she went to Peter for help with something — instead of me, her mother — and I know that Peter went to you. And I know she won't tell me. Don't I have a right to know what's going on with_ my _daughter?"_

She hadn't missed the stressed _my_. _"Rach, of course you do,"_ she'd replied, taking her little sister's hand. _"And I promise I will tell you, or Ella will, as soon as she's ready. You're just gonna have to trust me on this. Can you do that?"_

To her relief, Rachel had smiled. _"You know I can. I know you're just looking out for me, and for Ella. That's what big sisters do, isn't it?"_

_"This one, at least,"_ she had said, smiling also.

Peter looked up from a book he was reading as she pushed open the door. He was stretched out on their mattresses, legs crossed, and wearing nothing but a pair of boxer shorts dotted with red and white candy-canes. The oil lamp glowed beside him, resting on the upside-down bucket that served as their nightstand. Leaning against the wall in the corner were their swords. The window was open above him, letting in a subdued breeze that did little to mitigate the heat. The scent of smoke was carried in on the wind, and of cooking meat.

"How'd it go?" he asked, laying the open book flat across his chest.

She swung the door shut behind her, then leaned back against it, exhaling a deep breath. "I think it helped. She seemed happy when I left her with Rachel. Almost like her old self."

"Happy?" he said, sitting up and putting his book aside. "Well, that's new. What'd you tell her?"

Olivia pushed away from the door, stripping off her shirt as she did so. "I told her about my stepfather," she explained, tossing the shirt into a clothes basket in the corner as she sat down on the edge of the bed. "I told her what happened when I was nine. All of it. You were the one that gave me the idea, actually," she said, glancing back at him over her shoulder. "So, thank you." Ella had flooded her with questions afterward, her voice and face animated like they hadn't been for months. _How did you feel, Aunt Liv? Did you feel bad? Did you have nightmares? Why didn't you shoot him again? Did you think you were bad_ _? Did your mom think you were bad?_ She had answered truthfully, every single one of them, including the one about her mother's reaction. Would it make a lasting difference? Only time could determine that.

When she bent down to untie her boots, Peter's hand fell across her back, his fingertips rubbing idly up and down the ridges of her spine. "See? And here you thought I wasn't good for anything," he said, and she could hear the smirk in his voice.

Glancing back, her pulse began to accelerate as she took in his state of undress, even with his ridiculous boxers. "Oh, you're good for something," she told him, eyeing him through her lashes.

Peter's intake of breath was audible. "Is that right," he said in a low whisper.

"Uh huh," she grunted, turning away and pulling off her boots, then her socks.

She stood up, shimmying out of her shorts and tossing them on top of her shirt in the clothes basket. She could sense Peter's eyes on her skin as she went about readying for bed, letting her hair out of its confinement and running a brush through it until it crackled with static electricity. After inspecting her toothbrush, she rummaged through her backpack for a newer model, searching through what amounted to all of her remaining earthly possessions, other than the sword standing in the corner. Down at the bottom, beneath a tangled wad of underwear and bras, she found what she was looking for and pulled it free, inspecting it briefly before setting it down beside her birth control pill wheel on top of an old file cabinet Peter had found somewhere on the asylum grounds. She glanced at the pill wheel, briefly checking to make sure she was still on track. She'd been taking them faithfully for weeks, and her current batch wasn't even expired yet. When she finished her teeth, she turned back to the bad and found Peter still staring at her openly. He seemed slightly dazed, lips parted slightly.

Their eyes met, and Olivia found herself feeling a tad impish. "Now the way I see it, Peter," she said, "it's not tomorrow yet. Not until we've slept. Which means that you still owe me."

Peter's eyebrows shot upward. "Really. _I_ still owe _you_? After that pig?"

She knelt down on the foot of the bed and crawled toward him, loving the way his eyes widened, the flare of hunger burning in his gaze. He was quite obviously excited, but she had something else in mind, first. A bet _was_ a bet, after all, and she had decided he wasn't quite finished paying her off. Instead of climbing on top of him as he no doubt expected, she dropped down on her belly on the mattress beside him. Reaching back, she unhooked her bra, then pulled her hair forward over her shoulder, exposing her bare back. With that final task accomplished, she laid her head down tucking her arms beneath the pillow. And then waited silently for him to figure it out.

It took Peter nearly a minute before she felt him shift on the mattress beside her. "I... take it that's a hint?"

Olivia turned her head to face him, peering up at him with one eye. For a genius, he could be awfully thick-headed. She pursed her lips. "Now, what do you think, Mister Bishop?"

#

An urgent, but quiet knock on their door summoned Olivia from the edge of a deep slumber. She and Peter had been up quite late, and for once she had rolled over and tried to go back to sleep after being awoken by the rising sun. But it was not to be. She extricated herself from Peter, who was snoring softly against the back of her neck, and slipped out of bed.

Their room was cool and pleasant feeling in the morning, and it was about the only time of day that it was so. The floor tile was even chilly against her bare feet as she crossed the room. She cracked open the door and found her sister standing there, still dressed in the tank top and boy shorts that served as her pajamas. Rachel's hair was in wild disarray, flopped over to one side like a wet mop.

"Liv! Thank god you're awake!" Rachel began in a whisper. "Peter's not up too, is he?"

"No, he isn't, and neither was I..." Olivia replied through a wide yawn. "What do you want?"

Despite her statement about Peter, Rachel tried to peer over her shoulder into the room before giving up. "Good. I'm having a bit of an emergency here."

It took a moment, but her sister's words finally percolated through the layers of sleepy confusion. There was an emergency. An emergency? "What's wrong?" she said, her heart beginning to ratchet up like a windup toy. "Is it Ella? Is she okay?"

"What? No. Ella's fine, Liv. It's me," Rachel said, tapping her own chest. "I'm the one having the emergency. My cycle started really early this month and I just discovered I'm all out of tampons and pads. I'm gushing like a fucking fountain here. Do you have any left? I don't want to have to wake Astrid."

Olivia blinked, and rubbed the sleep from her eyes. "It's your period?"

"Yes!" Rachel said in an exasperated voice. "Do you have any tampons left or not? "

"Um... let me check," Olivia said, yawning again. "You want to come in?"

Rachel gaped as if she thought her big sister had lost her mind, lips curling in disgust. "Um... ew? How about no? If you're anything to go by, I'm pretty sure I know what you two were up to last night, and I can't imagine Peter's wearing anything more than you are. Will you just hurry up? Can't you see I'm dripping here?"

Olivia could in fact not see anything, but she turned away from the door anyway, shutting it to a crack. She glanced down at herself, at her utter lack of clothes, and at Peter's cloth-less form over on the bed. She had no memory of falling asleep, only of being utterly sated, and listening to the rhythm of Peter's heartbeat, as had become her habit, of his fingers twining in her hair. They both must have passed out, which was unusual. With the threat of a six-year-old showing up in their bed on any given night, clothing was more or less a requirement.

She crossed over to the old file cabinet and pulled open the bottom drawer as quietly as she could manage. She kept their supply of toiletries there, soap and shampoo, toilet paper and extra toothpaste. And tampons. They were in a box at the far back of the drawer. She grabbed a handful, then pushed the drawer shut with a squeak before heading back to the door.

"What's this? You been holding out on us, Liv?" Rachel whispered as she passed the tampons over.

"What do you mean?" she said, yawning for the third time.

"My cycle comes about a week after yours, doesn't it? If I'm out, how come you have so many left?"

Olivia glanced down at the array of slender white packages and froze, taking note of how many she'd actually grabbed for the first time. There was at least a dozen. A dozen. Suddenly her mouth was dry. An icy cold feeling sank down into the pit of her stomach, freezing the inside of her ribcage solid. _A dozen._ And there had been more in the box. Her mind raced, making a series of terrifying connections and drawing their equally terrifying conclusions.

Tampons were becoming hard to come by, but were still evenly distributed among all the women — except for Sonia, for obvious reasons — and generally, everyone usually ended up with enough to last out their cycle, but not much more than that, and they all usually ran out around the same time, or near enough. Sometimes a woman would use a few more or a few less, but to have _so_ many extra? So goddamn many? How long had it been? How long? She tried desperately to remember, and realized she didn't know. Too long. How could she have missed it? Her stomach heaved, and for an instant she thought she might vomit on her sister's bare feet.

She stammered out a lie. "I... uh... my... my flows have been pretty light, lately. I guess."

Rachel frowned, but then shrugged, shaking her head. "Whatever. You're still a lifesaver!" she hissed, and then was gone, bounding silently back down the hall toward her room.

When her sister was gone, Olivia shut the door quietly, then covered her mouth, staring at the slight crack between door and frame. She fought to take in a breath, fought to keep from choking, from suffocating under a wave of despair that descended like a black cloud of noxious doom.

"Who was that?" Peter's groggy voice spoke behind her.

_Oh god... oh my god... This isn't happening._ She screwed her eyes shut, quivering under the strain to remain calm. _This can't be happening. I have to be dreaming. I have to be asleep._ But she wasn't asleep. When she opened her eyes, the aged door still stared back at her. It was no dream. And she had to answer him, or he would wake up all the way.

"It was... it was just Rachel. She wanted to borrow something." Olivia exhaled ever so slowly, then turned around. Peter was squinting at her in the morning light, rubbing at his eyes with thumb and forefinger. "Go back to sleep, baby," she said softly, crossing over to him. He grumbled something about it being way too early, before rolling over onto his side, digging his feet into the mound of covers at the foot of the bed. "Go back to sleep, Peter," she whispered, putting her hand on his bare hip. _Please._

She waited until his breathing evened out, until he resumed his light snoring, and then flew into her clothes as quietly as possible. Her fingers fumbled over the laces of her boots, until she finally managed the simple task on her third try. She stood up, trembling, darting her eyes around their tiny room. What did she need? It was difficult to think, to focus on anything but the nightmare she suddenly found herself in. Her gun. The pills. She grabbed the circular package, shoving it deep into her pocket, then slid her pistol holster onto her belt. Her eyes fell on the dangerous silhouette of her sword leaning in the corner beside Peter's. She snatched it up, flinging it up onto her shoulder, followed by her spare backpack on her way out the door.

The corridors of the asylum were silent and empty, the air chilly and damp. Other than the pair on fence duty, it was far too early for anyone to be awake. She stopped at the kitchen and grabbed several bottles of water on her way out, then rushed to the front exit. Shoving through the heavy front door, she found a pair of men conversing by the gate into the parking lot, armed with assault rifles.

What were their names again? Nick? Ardie? She thought both of them were near her age, late twenties or early thirties. They seemed surprised to see her, and watched her approach the gate with guarded looks. Other than their names, she barely knew them, and was fairly certain that she'd never talked to either of them before, despite having lived in a confined space with them for months. They knew of her, however. They all knew of her. It was obvious in their eyes, in their stares. She was the one who had killed the Doctor, and the bald man she'd come to know of as Overbeek. She was the one with the scar on her forehead. She was the former FBI agent — no matter that Broyles and Astrid were also, for some reason. The one who always wore a sword when she went outside, who always went about in the company of the other outsider, Peter, who wore a matching sword. She had not missed the envious looks sent Peter's way — for his sword, but mostly, she suspected, for herself. But the latter didn't bother her much. If it ever became something more than that, whoever it was would be in for a surprise. The men tossed nods her way as she drew near, dipping their heads in shows of politeness.

Which one had the keys to the gate? Olivia narrowed her gaze on the man who seemed the older of the two. "Hey, can you let me out, Ardie?" she said. He was slightly shorter than herself, and slender, with closely cropped dark hair and a thick scruff.

She had guessed right, apparently, and Ardie exchanged surprised glances with the other man, but then shrugged, eyes drifting to the sword hilt poking up over her shoulder. "Sure thing," he said, digging into his pocket. "Olivia, is it?" At her affirmative nod, he grinned, producing sparse key ring. "Where you headed this early, Olivia?"

"I have a... little problem," she replied, giving him a tight smile. _It's not little!_ A voice shouted inside her head. _It's fucking gigantic!_ "It's a... woman thing."

Ardie seemed taken aback, drawing in a breath between lips that formed a perfect circle. "Oh..."

"Yeah...," she said with a nod, sensing a predictably uncomfortable aura suddenly emanating off of both men. As she waited for him to unlock the gate and pull it open for her, a sudden thought stuck. "Hey Ardie, if Peter Bishop comes looking for me, can you tell him I'll be back in a little while?" she asked before stepping through. "I shouldn't be gone more than a few hours, hopefully. I just need to... find something."

"Of course," he replied, then hesitated, before pulling the gate shut behind her. "You sure you don't want to wait for him? It's not safe out there alone. One of us can go with you, if you can't wait."

"I'll be fine on my own," she said, already backpedaling away from the gate. "Thanks for the offer, though." Before he could get another word in, she turned and loped off, heading down the long driveway back to the main road.

Upon reaching the intersection, she stopped, uncertain where to go. The Walgreens? The CVS? There was another family owned pharmacy to the west, wasn't there? And a Rite-Aid? The main avenue — Belmont Street, she noticed, glancing up at the road sign — had long since been cleared of abandoned vehicles and road blocks. She had been this way countless times before, with Peter, usually, out on scavenging runs. She couldn't decide. She couldn't think. The possibility that she might be pregnant herself — after having told Sonia that she would never consider it — was too horrifying for comprehension.

How the fuck could it have even happened?

Unable to wait any longer, Olivia jammed her hand into her pocket for the birth control pill wheel. Nearly all of her cycle was gone, the pill slots empty. She pulled the pill packaging free of the wheel contraption, and inspected the expiration date. They were good for another three months, just as she'd thought. But then she read the fine print, where it talked about where and how the pills should be stored and under what conditions, and her heart plummeted. _...temperatures above 30_ _° C or 68 - 77° F may reduce effectiveness_ _..._ The temperature had far exceeded seventy-seven for weeks, possibly months. Sometimes their tiny room felt like an oven.

"May reduce effectiveness," she muttered, crushing the pill packaging into a ball. It was something she'd never thought about before until that moment. She'd been on the pill since the tender age of sixteen, and had always kept them in her bathroom cabinet out of default. Temperature had never even crossed her mind. "Fuck. Fuck!"

Her thoughts became desperate, like a cornered animal seeking a way out _. Maybe it's just a fluke. Maybe my period just didn't come last month._ Except that had never happened before. Ever. She wasn't even sure it _could_ happen. Her cycle had been as steady as clockwork for years. For decades. _But I don't feel any different. I feel the same_. She found her hand down on her womb without even realizing she'd put it there. Would she even feel any different? Apparently, Sonia hadn't even figured it out until she'd been struck by bouts of morning sickness.

Glancing to her left and then her right, she started toward the Walgreens to the south, as it was the closest by a fair margin. The pharmacy was sure to have been picked over, but it seemed unlikely that pregnancy test kits would have been high on anyone's list of needed medical supplies after the advent of the apocalypse.

#

The sun was rising off to her left, its rapidly warming rays already dissipating the morning's humidity. In another hour or two, she estimated the unbearable heat would return full force, baking the asphalt beneath her feet.

Olivia passed by the now-familiar sights of Worcester on her way south. The U-Haul center, full of trailers and moving trucks for renters that would never come. The string of storage units with orange garage doors, all of which stood open, long since relieved of anything worth having. She passed by the charred remains of a tiny restaurant that hugged the sidewalk, then an auto repair shop that looked as if it might be ready to open for business at any moment. Like in Boston, the destruction was both indiscriminate and random. A block to the east, homes were buried among clumps of trees. Empty homes with yards begging for children. She moved faster, increasing her pace to a trot as a rising panic began to take hold.

Glancing back, she saw the clock tower rising above distant treetops. Was Peter awake yet? She doubted it — he would likely sleep for hours yet if no one was there to wake him. What would he do when he found her gone?

She went faster, until she was running, a flat-out sprint. She had to know. The need was irresistible, imperative. The looted convenience mart flashed by on her right. Then a pristine office building full of mirrored glass windows. She saw what looked like hysteria painted across her own face and looked away. A gas station. The burned husk of an apartment building. Her breath chugged in her ears. Her boots pounded out dirges on the sidewalk, the only sound for miles around, it seemed.

An infected suddenly appeared in front of her, having rounded the corner of a building on the next block. She angled straight toward it, reaching back for the sword hilt riding over her right shoulder. The creature either saw or heard her approach, and jerked into motion, arms reaching out to embrace her like they were lovers coming together, after years apart. She whisked her sword free of its sheathe and charged. Gritting her teeth, she waited until the last moment, and then whipped the sword down in a diagonal slice, cutting through bone and flesh with equal indifference. A quarter of the dead man's head went flying in a hazy spray of blood, then skittered down the street ahead with a disturbing mix of bony knocks and wet squishy sounds. She kept going, not even glancing back as the body collapsed behind her.

She crested a hill and raced down the other side, sword waving, thighs and calves beginning to burn. Fire was building in her chest, pressure that felt like terror. She found herself in a neighborhood of tall and narrow homes, of wooden picket fences and overgrown hedgerows. Swing sets and monkey-bars peeked over the fence tops. They were everywhere, everywhere she looked. The houses turned back into businesses and a moment later the street ended at a tee. She skidded to a halt, chest heaving, and searched around for the sign, the familiar red script.

Where was it? She had never actually been inside this particular pharmacy before, but she was certain she had seen it around on her way to somewhere else. She turned in a circle, scanning near and far.

It was there. A red sign with cursive writing on a pole, far down the block to the west.

Olivia gathered herself, then started forward once more. She walked instead of running. Now that she had found it, a pool of sickly dread was forming in her gut. Digging through her pack, she wiped the sword blade clean with an old rag, and then swapped it out for a bottle of water, chugging it down until her lungs were on the verge of bursting. She took a breath, then swallowed the rest down, before tossing the plastic bottle through the open driver's door window of a dusty Toyota sedan.

The Walgreens was similar in size and shape to several other such stores she'd scavenged over the last year, right down to the entrance, wedged open by mounds of garbage and refuse. She listened, and then picked up a glass bottle and tossed it inside, where it shattered with a resounding crash. After a count of sixty, she stepped through the debris blocking the entrance.

The pharmacy was hot on the inside, and filled with gloom, though a row of narrow windows running down two walls of the sales floor provided just enough light to see by. And what she saw was chaos. The store had indeed been picked over. Its shelves were empty, their contents spilled on the floor or missing altogether. Except for food, that was, of which there was nothing, on any shelf or bin, in any refrigerator or freezer. Not even a piece of candy. The store's stock of batteries was gone as well, every shape and size. Some fool had even emptied the cash registers, as much good as it had done them.

Olivia glanced up at the signs hanging between each row of shelving. Where would a test kit be? Behind the counted in the pharmacy? Or out on the shelves? She'd never purchased one before, never had a reason to. She'd been careful — her job had demanded it. She'd always been careful, nor had she ever been particularly promiscuous. The majority of her past relationships had never even progressed far enough for sex, much less pregnancy, to become any sort of issue. What was her number? Four? Including Peter? A low total, in her opinion, at least compared to other women she had known. Rachel's number was certainly higher than hers, and by a fair amount, she was all but certain, though that was mostly speculation on her part.

It came to her then that she was stalling the inevitable, just standing in the middle of the checkout aisle. _Quit stalling, Liv,_ she told herself, _and just get it over with. Maybe this all has been for nothing. Maybe Peter and I will be able to laugh about this later._ Except it didn't feel like nothing, if felt like a definite something. Nor did she feel like laughing. Crying, maybe, but definitely not laughing. Mostly, if felt like the world was ending, all over again.

She moved further inside, her footsteps sounding like tolls of doom. The feminine hygiene aisle seemed the mostly likely place to start, and she wasn't disappointed. Pulling a small flashlight from her pack, she swept it up and down the row. The tampons were all gone, their space on the shelves utterly barren, along with the pads and the liners, and all of the deodorants. Anything and everything a woman might need after the end of civilization was gone. But, there were plenty condoms, the sight of which drew forth the recurring question of why they were located in the feminine aisle, instead of where they should be, with the men's. Beside the condoms was a dizzying area of lubes and gels. And there were pregnancy test kits, four different brands. She snatched up one of each, then searched about for the restrooms.

They were at the back of the store, down a short hallway. She passed by the men's room, out of habit more than anything else, and pushed into the women's. It was pitch black inside, and though she'd expected its condition to be dreadful, for the restroom to have been used and abused, it was actually fairly clean, all things considered. Letting the door shut behind her, she wondered if anyone or anything had even been in it since the first day of the infection.

Olivia headed straight for the handicapped stall and closed the door behind her, despite knowing it was ludicrous to do so. She stood her flashlight up on the floor, painting a glowing white circle on the ceiling. Her backpack she let slide from her shoulders, along with her sword, which she hung from a peg on the inside of the stall door. At the back of the narrow space, the toilet bowl was gaping and ominous. Studying it, her heart began to jackhammer, slamming against the inside of her ribcage.

Her hands shook as she carefully read the instructions on the back of each kit — instructions that were more or less the same, and couldn't be any simpler — and as she tore open each box in turn. The test strips were all different, yet all the same. They would tell her future, one way or another. Her bladder ached with insistent pressure. She eyed the toilet again, and suddenly wanted nothing more than to rush out of the bathroom, out of the store, and never return, to start the day over, for her sister to never show up at her door, to be back in her bed, sleeping inside beside Peter, for them to be in love and happy and content with each other as they were.

Like they had been.

But such wishes were the coward's way out, and she knew it. Instead she took in a determined breath, then yanked down her shorts and underwear and sat down. The toilet seat was neither hot nor cold against her skin, only hard, yet still felt like a luxury compared to what she had become used to. She readied the test strips, all four at once, and then relaxed, letting the future, her future, their futures, come rushing out. Pee splashed across her fingertips, but she barely noticed. When the stream was finished, she waddled out of the stall and over to the lavatory, where she laid the test strips out flat in a row across the countertop as the directions indicated.

Now all there was to do was wait.

She wiped her hands and fingers clean with toilet paper, then pulled up her shorts. She paced in a circle, swiveling her head to keep the test strips in constant view. Time passed slowly, the seconds stretching out into microseconds, each ticking past in aching precision. After a few moments, she snatched up the flashlight, directing its beam anywhere but on the countertop, or anywhere near where her fate lay, all lined up in a neat row.

What would Peter say? Would he happy? Sad? Terrified, like she was? She pushed her hair back, digging her fingernails painfully into her scalp. And he had never specifically stated that he never wanted to return to his world. What if he did, someday? Would he leave her? Would he leave his child? On the heels of that thought, another occurred, horrifying in its scope. Paralyzing fear clamped around her spine, halting her circular path around the restroom. _What if he thinks I did it on purpose? To keep him here? To keep him with me? Like some kind of tether? Oh god..._ He would come to resent her, and the baby. If there was a baby. _There can't be a baby. I can't be a mother, not now, not like this. I just can't_.

How long had it been? Long enough? It felt like hours had passed, but that was merely her own skewed perception. Surely it had only been a few minutes. The instructions had all said one to five minutes. She waited what she thought was at least five, before crossing over to the sink.

The test kits were there, down on the edge of the flashlight's glow. Filling her lungs with a harsh breath, she looked them over all at once, and then one by one, picking up each strip and studying the indicator under the bright light. The results were unanimous, and all, unequivocally, conclusive.

Olivia let the test strips slip from her fingers, clattering into the sink bowl. She turned away, staring out into the dimness of the restroom, where silhouettes of the stalls and a baby-changing station made shapes in the darkness. She saw none of it. There was nothing, only a strange tonal ringing sound filling the space between her ears. Her head was empty, devoid of thought. But then the blast wave began to recede, and an array of possible futures sprang into being, all rapidly compiling on top of one another. Now that she had her answer, she didn't know how to feel. Processing it seemed beyond her, framing it in a way that made it seem real, impossible. After a moment, she gasped, and covered her mouth. Suddenly her eyes were burning, stinging with pain. She pinched her nose, trying to hold the pain back as it traveled downward, constricting her airway, like a steel rod being rammed down her throat. Tears spilling over her fingertips, she shrank down against the wall beside the sink, hugging her knees to her chest.

_I'm having a baby. I'm having Peter's baby._

#

* * *

#

It was a room of learning. Of listening. Of questions, and of answers. Of reading, and of writing. Of planting the seeds of knowledge in hopes of finding fertile soil. And the soil was fertile indeed, so far as Walter could tell. Seated in the back of the classroom in a high-backed wooden chair beside the window, he observed the proceedings, yet remained apart.

Like the weather outside, the heat in the room was oppressive, like being baked in a pressure cooker. If there was any breeze at all coming in through the windows, all of which were open to the outside air, it was undetectable. All things considered, it was going rather well in his opinion. Back in his day, they would have been leaping about like little monkeys high on cocaine. But in their defense, the two students in question were behaving admirably, despite the unfavorable weather.

The lesson of the day was multiplication, and they listened attentively as Sonia Francis began explaining the basics, utilizing a chalkboard on wheels — the same chalkboard whose former home had been the so-called Doctor's office. The man's formula for turning men and women into batteries was gone, erased, though not before Walter had secretly copied it in its entirety. He wasn't sure why he'd done so, as he certainly never intended to make use of it, but some habits were hard to break. It was knowledge, and posterity was an unfeeling master.

"So, we have four of three cookies each," Sonia was saying as she drew the required number of circles on the board in yellow chalk. She turned to face the girls. "How would you go about counting them, Gina?"

"Um... what kind of cookies are they?" Gina asked, glancing Ella who was seated beside her.

"Doesn't matter, sweetie. What kind of cookie do you want them to be?"

"Uh, peanut butter?"

Sonia grinned, running her fingers through her auburn hair, which hung loosely over her ears. Her red blouse stretched tight around her distended mid-section, over a pair of white pants that were oddly short, ending just below her knees. Her impending pregnancy had been obvious for weeks now, and seemed to become more so every day. There was a glow about her, the glow of motherhood, which could light up a room. Elizabeth had had that same glow, and had worn it like a badge. He liked watching her, enjoyed being near such light.

"All right, then. Four rows of three peanut butter cookies," she said, adding some parallel, squiggly lines across each circle. "There. Now how would you count them, Gina. What way do you think is fastest?"

Walter watched as Gina tilted her head to one side, pondering the question. "Um... I'd just count them, I guess," she replied after a moment. "There's twelve of them."

"That's right," Sonia nodded, smiling, and then wincing slightly as she rubbed at a spot below her ribs. "There are twelve. Now we could count them one by one, or we could count them by threes; three, six, nine, twelve, or we could do the same with fours; four, eight, twelve, or..." She paused, holding a piece of chalk. "Or, we could use what we call multiplication." She turned back to the board and drew out a simple equation, three times four. "It's kind of like taking a shortcut. Now when we're multiplying numbers, instead of adding one number at a time, we're adding whole groups of numbers at once." She circled a row and a column, then went along, illustrating her points. "So, saying _three_ rows of peanut butter cookies, times _four_ columns of peanut butter cookies is the same as adding three plus three plus three plus three, and it's also the same as four plus four plus four. Now, there's a lot more to it than that, including a lot memorization on your parts, but do you see how this could be useful when we're dealing with numbers much larger than three or four?"

Walter smiled as the girls nodded their heads, before turning to peer out through the window at the grounds outside. Children were a wonder and joy, their minds absorbing new experiences and data like little animated sponges. Peter had been much the same at that age. Filled with a thirst for learning, consumed with great curiosity — even as he lay dying. He swallowed as a sudden sadness swept over him. They were much alike, both of his Peters.

His thoughts lingered on Peter, and a tremulous smile finally formed on his lips. After months of silence and hard looks, his son had actually sought him out. Or perhaps it was the man from the other universe he had come to see, but it made no difference. They had been in the same room, a room even smaller than the one he was in currently, and they had spoken, exchanged words and ideas. Peter had acknowledged his presence, if only briefly. He was all but certain it was Olivia's doing, but that was neither here nor there.

Considering the disastrous day when his secret had finally come out, it was more than he had ever dared hope.

When he had returned from his walkabout, Peter had allowed him to explain what had happened, how he'd crossed over to the other universe with good intentions. His son had listened to him, but that was all he had done. Peter had avoided him since that day, at least until a few hours ago, when he had interrupted a discussion between himself and the man from the other universe. They'd been brainstorming on possible connections between what was happening in the stranger's universe, and the infection. And Peter had contributed, even going so far as to speak to him.

Walter thought of the stranger, the man Lincoln. The fellow was quite intelligent and had been a joy to collaborate with in his son's absence. Though everything he knew about him was troubling. It was all troubling. He was from another universe, but clearly, not the same one from which he'd inadvertently stolen Peter. Another duality of universes, much like their own, but one in which his plan to cure Peter on the other side had succeeded, but in doing so, had inadvertently started an inter-universal war by murdering his counterpart's Elizabeth in the process. He wished he could look back and see what had happened differently on that fateful night for such a thing to have occurred. He couldn't fathom hurting, much less killing Elizabeth, any Elizabeth, not on purpose, at least.

_And yet your Elizabeth killed herself_ , a grim voice spoke inside his head. _Because of you, and what you forced on her. Would you care to revise that statement, Walter_ _?_

His mood turned glum. Outside the window, a number of men were working the soil with rakes and hoes. A few others were moving between the furrows of tilled earth with watering cans, trying to coax life from the parched soil. It was a task they performed daily, without fail. He held private doubts that anything would grow in such conditions, but if it kept them distracted, their minds occupied, what did it matter? Further out, a trio of women were walking the path along the fence. They were laughing at something, and he imagined he could hear the voices, in spite of the distance between them. He recognized Agent Farnsworth and the woman she'd taken as a lover — the one whom he'd discovered shared his love for _Violet Sedan Chair_ — along with Agent Dunham's sister, from her long hair bleached nearly white from the sun. And there was Agent Broyles and Gina's grandmother, seated on a bench in the building's long shadow, wisely staying out of the sun. Over near the Doctor's former research building, a pair of men were standing near the generator. Peter and the man Lincoln were motioning between it and the massive tanker truck parked alongside. An involuntary tremor went through him at the sight of his son.

Suddenly he wished he was there with them, taking part in whatever discussion they were having. But his presence would only foul his son's mood, despite their earlier interaction. For the foreseeable future, whatever form their relationship took, it would be on Peter's terms, or not at all. That much was certain. And again, it was more than he could have hoped for. More than he deserved, probably.

Walter searched the yard below for Agent Dunham, frowning when she was nowhere to be seen. Where had she run off to, alone? Peter had mentioned that also, that she'd left early, that she'd gone outside in search of... something. He had tried to hide it, but he'd been confused by her disappearance, confused and worried, both. Peter's obvious devotion to Olive made him feel proud, as proud as any father could be watching his son growing into a good man before his eyes. Perhaps he'd done something right, after all. Or, more likely, Elizabeth had.

A heated gust of wind rushed through the room, disheveling the stacks of papers on a narrow table that served as Sonia's desk. He glanced back as the children giggled, papers fluttering about, whipping and curling across the floor. He grinned as Sonia let out a gasp of mock outrage, hands on her hips as she regarded the chaos. She pressed a hand to her lower back, then squatted to retrieve the mess of papers, reaching out to gather them into an untidy pile.

It was at that moment, that a strange look flashed across Sonia's exquisite features, a face he had always thought retained a kind of elfin quality, a kind of otherworldly exoticness. She was a very attractive woman, he'd thought so from the moment he first laid eyes on her, when she'd first walked into his lab at her husband's side. The look on her face was one of puzzlement. Puzzlement that rapidly transformed into pain. Into panic. And then into agony. Their eyes met, and for an instant, a singular heartbeat, it was as if her fear and terror were transferred directly into his nervous system, delivering a convulsive shock that turned his insides into quivering jelly. She let out a terrible moan, and toppled slowly onto her side, clutching at her womb.

"Sonia!" Ella cried at the same time, and the other girl also. "Miss Francis!"

With a gasp, Walter lurched up from his chair. He rushed across the room, dropping down on the floor beside Sonia as she continued to wail. Her hands were low on her waist, twisting her red shirt into knots. He placed his hands over hers, squeezing gently. "Where does it hurt, my dear?" he said in a voice that belied the fear oozing through his veins. "What kind of pain is it?"

"Walter! Oh god..." Sonia gasped, her voice coming in clipped spurts between breaths. "Ugh... it hurts, Walter. It hurts!"

He laid a hand across her cheek and nearly screamed himself at what he felt. Her skin was feverish, burning up as if a fire raged beneath her epidermis. How could she be so hot, and so quickly? "Sonia, dear," he said, leaning over her face, forcing her to look him in the eye. "What kind of pain is it? Where does it hurt? Are you experiencing cramping? Contractions?" He prayed she was not. It was far, far too soon for that. "You have to tell me what's going on or I won't know how to help you!"

"It's... it's my right... ugh..." She groaned horribly, the tendons on her neck stretching out. "Ugh... my baby! My baby!" She began to hyperventilate then, breaths coming quick and shallow. Beads of sweat were forming on her forehead, running down into her eyes. "It hurts! My head... Ugh... I can't... something's... wrong..." She began to shriek then, her voice rising in wailing agony.

"What's wrong, Walter?" Ella sobbed, her brown eyes bulging with fright. The other girl was at her side, so stiff she seemed made of wood. "You have to help her, Walter! You have to do something!"

Walter looked up, grabbing her hand. "Ella! Go get help! Both of you find help! I need medical supplies... I need... Just find Peter! Go!"

Ella nodded, wiping at her eyes, and then fled the room, with Gina racing behind her. Their voices echoed out before them, screams and shouts for help. Walter heard his son's name, and others. They would come. Turning back to Sonia, he took one of her hands, and she squeezed until he thought his bones would shatter under the pressure. He felt along her abdomen with his free hand, along her womb, pressing here and there, and it was like touching stone. A stone that twisted and shouted, that moved. It wasn't necessarily a bad sign in and of itself, but it hadn't been that way the last time she'd come to him for a checkup. Was it round ligament pain? Gas pain? No. Her pain level seemed far too acute for either, or for Braxton-Hicks contractions, though he was no obstetrician. What did that leave? Nothing that was good.

He became aware that Sonia's wails had died off, and she was whimpering his name, her eyes distant and unfocused. "I'm here, my dear," he said, swallowing, trying to work moisture back into his mouth. "You're going to be all right. You're going to be just fine. I'm going to remove your pants now. I have to take a look and see what's going on down there."

If she heard him, she gave no sign of it. Her eyes were locked on the ceiling, the muscles in her neck straining. Micro-veins were exploding around her irises, striating her sclera with streaks of red. He pulled off her shoes and then yanked down her pants, tossing them aside. He spread her legs and then bit off a gasp, covering his mouth. She wore white cotton panties that were soaked, saturated with blood. A fresh gush leaked around the seams as she struggled weakly, spilling onto the floor in a growing pool.

Walter bit down on his lip to keep from crying out. Some bleeding was normal during any pregnancy, but this? Something was wrong. Something was very wrong. As if he didn't already know. _Oh, my dear, I'm so sorry, I'm so terribly sorry._ His mind raced for an explanation. Could the pregnancy be ectopic? Such a condition was normally caught by blood tests and ultrasounds during the first trimester. He had no real way conducting a blood test, but surely, he could have insisted someone find an ultrasound machine and bring it to the asylum, couldn't he have? Why hadn't he insisted? But even if that was the case, surely her fallopian tube would have burst long before now, wouldn't it?

He was about to remover her underwear, when a stampede of footsteps and voices in the hall outside announced the arrival of the others. People began rushing into the room, men, faces he didn't recognize or couldn't comprehend at that moment. They crowded the space around Sonia and him, filling the air with questions he couldn't answer.

"Give them some room, people!" Agent Broyles's stern voice could be heard over the fray. "Get back! They need space!" Walter looked up and found the bald man shoving his way through the crowd of strange faces. "What's the situation, Doctor Bishop?" he asked, crouching down beside him. As he took in Sonia's condition, his eyes spread open all the way, a measure of his shock.

Walter shook his head, meeting the former FBI agent's gaze. "I... I'm not sure. She just collapsed. I... I believe the baby may be in distress." Over Broyles's shoulder, he saw his son entering the room with Astrid at his side, followed by Agent Dunham's sister, the black-haired woman, and Charlene.

"What the hell is going on, Walter?" Peter called, shoving his way to the front of the crowd.

"Peter! It's Sonia! The baby!" Walter cried. His mind flitted to all things he might do, to all the tests he might run — if only he had access to modern medical equipment, which he did not. He had nothing, not even a scalpel in hand. "I... I'm afraid she's going to lose it."

"A miscarriage?" Peter said, kneeling down at his side.

"I've got the medical kit!" the man from the other universe shouted, moving people out of his way as he shoved into the room.

"Peter...?" Sonia's sudden whisper quieted the crowd, despite being little more than a croak. Her voice was terrified, her eyes open wide. "I... I... can't see you... Where's... where's Charlie? Where's Charlie?" she repeated, growing faint.

Peter hissed as if he'd been stung. "Walter... I don't think-"

"I know, son!" he said, nodding his head. He pointed at the man Lincoln, whose face was ghostly white. "You! With the medical kit. Here, now."

"I can... I can feel it...," Sonia continued in a daze. "It's... turning, ugh... it's inside... me..." Her voice turning into a choke, into gargled struggle for breath. Then her body began to convulse, back arching, eyes rolling back in their sockets. Her heels began to kick, thrumming off the tiled floor.

"She's starting to seize!" Walter cried. He leaned over, trying to turn Sonia's rigid body on her side. "It can only be eclampsia! We must get the baby out now! There's no time for anything else."

"No... it's not that," Peter said, and to Walter's surprise, grabbed him by the shoulders, yanking him back.

"What are doing, son! We can still save her!" he said, struggling in Peter's grip.

"I've seen this before, Walter. She's... she's going to turn."

"What...?" Walter shook his head, denying the possibility. He stared up into his son's face and saw that he was crying, that there were tears dripping off his chin onto the chest of his shirt. "But... it can't be... she wasn't... she didn't..." he trailed off, suddenly uncertain how he found himself in the middle of such a nightmare, unfolding before his eyes.

"She already lost the baby," Peter said quietly, putting a hand on his shoulder and squeezing. "And she's bleeding. The baby, Walter. It's the baby. You were right about how the infection spreads. I've... I've tested it myself."

"What's happening, Peter?" Astrid said. Her face was twisted with anguish, while behind her, Agent Dunham's sister was openly weeping, along with the black-haired woman and Charlene. In the corner of his eyes, Walter dimly noticed Lincoln Lee herding Ella and Gina toward the door, despite their protests that they wanted to stay. "What's happening?" she continued. "Isn't there something you can do, Walter?" She stepped forward, taking his hand, eyes demanding. "You have to do something!"

The room had gone quiet, as if all the air had been sucked out in a vacuum. He stared down at Sonia's stricken form. It had all happened so fast. It seemed like only a few minutes since her collapse. The convulsions had stopped, and her complexion was paler than pale, bordering on translucent, as if all her blood had drained out. Her lips moved silently. The pool on the floor between her legs was widening, creeping out in all directions.

"Astrid... I'm afraid I... I...," he started, but found he was unable to finish. All of a sudden he couldn't breathe. His throat felt as if there was a cord around it, or a noose being slowly tightened. His son was correct. He could see that now, and how the scene before him was the end result of his hypothesis. It should have occurred to him before, months ago.

She was doomed.

They were all doomed.

"Everyone needs to get out of here, now!" Peter was hissing urgently to Agent Broyles behind him. "Right now. She's going to turn if we don't stop it."

"How can you be sure of that?" Agent Broyles questioned shaking his head flatly. "She's still alive, Peter. She wasn't even bitten. You're asking me to just kill her? I can't do that."

They were out of time. Walter was looking straight into Sonia's eyes when the change occurred. There was no transitional period, no moment when her death appeared obvious. He wasn't even sure that she did die. She simply turned. One moment she was human, and the next not, her formerly chestnut eyes melting into an infected's burnished gold.

"It's too late...," he said in a whisper, slowly backing away.

The body that moments ago had belonged to Sonia Francis drew in a harsh, bubbling rasp. What came next, happened in an instant, as if time were being fast forwarded like on his old Betamax player. Walter opened his mouth to cry out a warning but the fresh wearing Sonia's face was no longer prostrate.

She sat up and lunged forward in the same motion. Like a compressed spring uncoiling, she dove onto a gray-haired man that had been standing directly in front of her, burying her teeth in his throat and ripping open his jugular in an arcing spray of blood before anyone could stop her. As she did so, the man standing beside them, cried out, his voice echoed around the room. He tried to shove Sonia off his fellow, only for her to turn on him with a horrendous speed that belied her pregnant body and tackle him to the ground. Then she was on him, tearing off chunks of his face with her teeth as he screamed, horribly, beneath her, arms and legs kicking. Even as the second man's shrieks filled the air, a low hiss rose up from the first. Barely a moment after being bitten, a second fresh sat up.

Pandemonium erupted.

A flurry of chaotic motion happened all at once. Walter found himself being pushed and shoved, in the middle of a stampede. Bodies pressed together, slick with sweat. Voices shouted from every direction at once. A gunshot shook the room, deafening his ears. Then someone took hold of him, yanking him roughly toward the door. He was crying by then, reliving the moment when Sonia's sweet face became ugly over and over in his mind. Through the blur of his tears, he found his is arm gripped tightly in Peter's hand.

#

* * *

#

Olivia made her way slowly through the empty streets of Worcester, heading in the general direction of the asylum. The morning was gone, and the sizzling afternoon well underway. Despite the staggering heat, the air was crystal clear, the city vivid and bright all around her. She had eaten lunch, comprised of several sticks of deer jerky and a package of peanut butter crackers. But it was all tasteless, all unsatisfying.

And was it enough? It might have been before, but she was eating for two now, wasn't she?

_I'm having a baby. I'm going to be a mother._

She couldn't jar the thoughts from her mind. She kept circling back to them, no matter what direction her train of thought took. They were at the end of all roads, and all roads lead back to them.

Twirling the end of her ponytail as she walked, she pictured how she might go about telling Peter and the others. She would have to tell them, wouldn't she? Wouldn't she? Rachel would kill her if she kept it a secret. But how could she tell them. How could she tell Peter? He was good with Ella, great even, and she suspected the former conman would make a wonderful father, for a child of his own. Yet it wasn't something they had ever talked about. Not even once. And he'd been born in another universe, for fuck's sake! She couldn't tell him. Not yet, at least. Maybe she could feel him out first, and try to gauge his thoughts on fatherhood in the middle of the apocalypse before dropping the bomb on him. The idea sounded ludicrous in her head, but it wasn't like she had to tell him right away. How far along could she be? No more than five weeks, she judged, going by her last period. There was time. Time before things would begin happening to her body. A few months, at least, before it became apparent, like Sonia, who seemed to grow larger every day.

_I'm having a baby. I'm going to be a mother_ _._

Ahead, the street began to slope upward. Tall trees poked up from behind vacant buildings and in the spaces between houses. She crossed the street, angling toward a gap that led between two narrow backyards. The grass had grown tall during the months of spring, only for it to wilt over and dry out beneath the abnormal heat building over the last month. It crunched beneath her boots, and a glance back revealed a clear trail marking her passage.

Her eyes fell on a rusting red tricycle parked beside a back door, with faded yellow tassels hanging from its grips. Olivia paused, taken by a sudden image that sprang into being in her mind. An image of a little girl, cruising around the neighborhood on it, any neighborhood, a little girl with blue eyes like her father's, with long blonde hair that trailed out behind her as she laughed and giggled and smiled. She imagined how the little girl would ride the trike up the driveway, how she would leap off and come scrambling up the steps to the front porch, where her parents waited. Maybe she would fall on a step and scrape her knee, and maybe her mother or her father would comfort her, maybe they would go get ice cream as a treat, maybe they would read her a story at bed time, a story about curious rabbits, or about talking bears, or a story about wockets in pockets, or about red fish and blue fish. Maybe she would crawl into their bed late at night, maybe she would slither between them, wrapping her little arms about their necks and nuzzling in close. Maybe the little girl's breath would sigh across her cheek, maybe it would whisper in her ear.

Olivia stopped at the corner of the house, bracing herself with her forearm. She gasped, covering her mouth as a sob tore up her throat, followed by tears, hot against her cheeks. _I'm having a baby...,_ she thought, letting the tears come without resistance. _I'm going to be a mother._ But it was different than before. For a wonder, the despair was receding, only to be replaced by something else, something that resembled hope, something that glowed inside her, pushing back against the darkness.

Then, out of nowhere, a distant _snap!_ pulled her back to the real world.

She went still, holding her breath. _What was that? Was that a gun?_ Where had it come from? She started forward again, moving at a slow jog. She stepped out into the front yard, then out into a street jammed full of cars. As she slipped through the gaps between the bumpers, the noise came again.

It _was_ a gunshot. And it was coming from the north. From the asylum, or near enough as to make no difference. There was another report, and then the sustained flurry of an automatic weapon.

Panic seized her by the scruff of her neck, yanking her forward. Taking the most direct route, Olivia crashed through the underbrush hugging the far side of the street, clearing a path through tall weeds and shrubbery with her forearm. She hopped a chain-linked fence, then rushed through another yard, crossed another street. The ground sloped sharply upward as she plunged into wooded area. Low-hanging branches slapped at her face. The dehydrated undergrowth crackled underfoot like packing bubbles. Then the trees ended abruptly and she found herself on a sidewalk, on the street that ran in front of the asylum. She took a glance at her surroundings, then sped across as another burst of gunfire erupted, accompanied by distant shouts and screams. She raced into the trees surrounding the hospital grounds, scrambling up yet another hill, her breathing sawing back and forth as she did so. The terrain continued to rise, and soon patches of brick facade and white-framed windows appeared in the distance. Gunshots continued to ring out, blast after blast. She forced herself to go faster, ignoring the burn in her legs, the fire building in her lungs.

The parking lot appeared through the trees ahead, and the fence. The gate. A body raced past, on the inside. Were they fleeing? What was happening? Who was attacking them? Were they even under attack?

The gunfire continued. She burst out of the trees and sprinted across the parking lot. The gate rose up before her, locked, the chain and padlock still in place. A woman's scream echoed from somewhere inside, filled with agony before cutting off ominously. She yanked her pistol and blasted the padlock until it was nothing but a twisted lump of metal, then tore open the gate and rushed inside.

Where was Peter? And Rachel and Ella? Where was everyone?

She angled for the covered entrance, which stood wide open beneath the clock tower, only to be met by someone racing at her out of the dimness. "What's going on?" she shouted. "What's happening?"

There was no reply, only a savage snarl as the figure charged out into the sunlight. She recognized the man's face, but it was no man. A pair of gold-colored eyes locked on her face, flaring with savage lust.

Olivia started with a gasp, then took aim and fired without thought, squeezing off three rounds inside a heartbeat. The dead man's name came to her as the fresh tumbled down the steps and landed at her feet. _His name is Tom_ , she thought dimly, ejecting the magazine from her pistol and loading another. _Tom from Wellesley_. Staring down at the dark rivulets of blood draining from the holes she'd drilled into his forehead, a moment of brief, but pure panic came over her, accompanied by chills that felt like being dunked in ice water despite the raging heat.

A lump of sickly unease manifested in her gut. Infected were loose in the building. Freshes were loose inside the building! What the hell had happened?

She leapt over the body and hurried inside. At some point between her blasting her way through the gate and killing the fresh whose name had been Tom, the gunfire had ominously stopped. The main lobby was silent, but further in distant voices could be heard, cries of pain. Leaving the lobby behind, she ghosted down the corridor that served as the main artery for this part of the complex. Sunlight streamed in from open doorways, casting glowing parallelograms across the white floor tile. Turning a corner, she found a body lying in the middle of the hall, arms and legs askew in a pool of blood. Another man. His throat was ripped to shreds, in addition to a gaping bullet hole below his left eye that left no doubt as to the sequence of events.

The sick feeling in her gut intensified. Was anyone left? Had she come back to find everyone she loved dead? Rachel? Ella? Peter? Where were Astrid and Sonia? Where was everyone?

Resisting the urge to call out, she moved deeper into the asylum. A sudden shriek echoed out from somewhere, raising the hair on the back of her neck. She paused for a moment, glancing around. Had it come from outside the building? Or inside? When she reached the room where Sonia had been holding class for the girls, she froze in the doorway, unable to move or even breathe.

The room was a mess, as if it had been struck by a tornado. Chairs and tables were overturned, papers scattered about. The room reeked of chaos. It reeked of death. Overlapping red smears of footprints were tracked all across the floor, seeming to originate from the two frighteningly large pools of blood near the chalkboard, which was lying tilted on its back. In the midst of her shock, she dimly noticed a grid of twelve circles had been drawn on the board, each with three wavy lines through the centers.

"Oh my god...," she whispered into her palm. "Ella. No. No! Ella... oh my god." A scream was building in her throat, full of spiky agony. Before it could explode out of her, she forced it down and turned away. They had been there. Sonia, the girls. They had been there, but were now gone.

She fled the room, running again, sprinting. Another scream rang out, distant shouts. They were louder than before. She was getting close, near the back side of the building. More bodies appeared, all dead, all fresh, riddled with bullets. She recognized the cropped blonde hair of Juliet among them. They were in a line, as if they'd all been gunned down one at time. Body after a body, nearly a dozen. How could it have happened? How could so many have turned at once? In her head, she saw how the scene must have unfolded. Survivors fleeing in a panic, chased by a mob of freshes. She leapt over each of them without slowing, as if she were running hurdles at a track meet. None of them were her people.

Just ahead was the cafeteria, around a bend in the corridor. She flew around the corner, intending to crash through the double doors without stopping, only to find four infected blocking her path. With a gasp, she skidded to halt, catching herself at the last moment before slipping in a puddle of congealing blood.

The freshes' inhuman snarls sent chills down her spine as they clawed and pushed at the doors, leaving bloody smears behind. The doors were blocked somehow, and pale light shone through the wood, through innumerable splintered bullet holes.

Raising her pistol, Olivia drew bead on the nearest and fired, splattering its brain across the door. Before she could move on to the next, the three remaining turned and charged as a single unit, their white faces twisted with rage. The one on the far left was Nick, whom she had seen early that morning on her way outside. She shot him through the throat, then blew a hole in his left cheek. Shifting her aim to the right, she continued to fire. Her gun spat out bullets, checkering the fresh in the middle across its chest, its shoulder, before blasting out its gaping teeth. The fresh stumbled against the third as it fell, and the two of them went down, tumbling head over heels, arms and legs entwined.

The two infected were a squirming mass on the floor. She kept firing, searching for the third's head until the Glock began to click. In a panic, she tossed her gun aside and charged, sweeping her sword clear of its sheath. The remaining fresh had disentangled itself from the other, and was staggering to its feet. She aimed a vicious cut at where its head should have been, only for it to rear up at the last moment, and her blow struck beneath its chin, slicing deep into the side of its neck. The stricken fresh made a horrific gurgling sound and then its head was toppling to one side in a font of blood. Deranged eyes locked on her face as it pitched onto its side, and she realized they belonged to the former pastor, Reuben, who had once stopped her in the hall to thank her for ending the Doctor's evil. The pastor's body tried to rise and she put her foot on the flopping head, holding it down as it snapped at the bottom edge of her boot. She placed the razor-sharp sword point against its temple and pushed until the light faded from the gilded eyes.

Her breath rasped in the following silence. _I'm sorry_ , she thought, sliding the blade free. _You deserved better, friend, but don't we all?_

After retrieving her pistol, she checked the cafeteria doors and found something she couldn't quite make out shoved through the handles, securing them as well as any lock. But, there was another way in, another door down a side corridor that led straight into the kitchen. She hurried to it and found the door unlocked, secured by a simple knob that would have confounded any infected. She passed inside, and found the kitchen dark and empty, as was the cafeteria beyond. Spent shell casings littered the floor. A folding chair lay twisted and broken nearby, one of its legs now bent at ninety degrees through the handles of the doors leading out into the cafeteria, evidence of someone's desperation.

She glanced around, then saw something move outside through a window. Heart pounding, she rushed forward to look and a huge gasp of relief forced its way up her lungs. People were moving outside, crossing over the rows of tilled earth. Peter was there, carrying an assault rifle. He was okay. Rachel and Ella were okay. They were at his side, moving warily toward the cafeteria, their faces pale and shell-shocked. Others had made it also, she noticed then. Lincoln Lee, armed with a rifle that was a twin to Peter's. Walter and Astrid. Broyles, whose limp seemed especially pronounced as he strode along with a black automatic gripped in his fist. The girl Gina, Claire, and a few others, who seemed in a daze as they stumbled closer.

Crashing through the rear door, she rushed across the field to meet them. But before she'd gone far, however, she became aware of all the bodies lying in the grass. Coming to a stop, she turned in a circle, sword tip dragging across the ground, her arms limp, heavy like lead. They were everywhere. Bodies. Infected. Freshes. People she knew, had known. Charlene. The man who had opened the gate for her, Ardie. Others. Too many to count.

Then she saw another woman's body, that drew her like a magnet. She was on her side, face turned away. A woman wearing no pants, her skin pale, her underwear sopped in blood and dirt. She had ginger hair, cut short, and held back in pins. A red shirt stretched tight across a waist that bulged with an obvious pregnancy.

Olivia's stomach heaved. _It's Sonia. Sonia!_ She tasted bile, and a scream tore through her lips. "No!" She threw herself down beside her friend's body, rolling her over in the grass. "Sonia! Sonia... no, no, NO!" But she was dead. Charlie's wife was dead. His baby, dead. Sonia's eyes were gold and sightless below a ragged hole off center in her forehead. Oddly, the bullet wound was her only obvious sign of injury. Flesh was caught in her teeth, ragged strips of muscle and sinew. She tried to look away but found that she could not, as if Sonia's face possessed its own kind of gravity, drawing her in, yellow eyes or no. It was Sonia. It was Charlie's wife, whom she had sworn to protect. Staring down in stupid disbelief at her friend, she pulled at her hair, pulled until her scalp singed with pain. _I failed her, Charlie. I've failed you both, now_.

Footsteps approached. She looked up and saw Peter. His eyes were red and wet, his face ashen. "She's gone," Olivia whispered when he reached her side. "Peter, she's gone."

Peter's lips trembled. "I know... I... I had to. She... was..." His lips pinched together, eyes screwing shut. "I'm sorry, Liv. There was nothing we could do."

He stepped in front of her and she went to him, rising to her feet, seeking the comfort of his arms, of another live person. His arms tightened around her, like he never wanted to let her go. Olivia cried against him. Sonia was dead, like Charlene Watson was dead, like Juliet from New Jersey was dead, and the pastor, Reuben, and Ardie, and his friend Nick, and countless others were dead. Billions of others. She heard voices crying all around, whimpers and gasps of pain. Over Peter's shoulder, Gina was kneeling by Charlene's corpse. Rachel was with her, and Ella, holding the distraught girl in their arms. First a mother, then a brother, and now a grandmother; she was alone in the world. She saw Astrid and Claire, limping toward them, faced streaked with tears and remnants of terror. Broyles appeared openly stunned, his lips open, his eyes bulging and white, hands gripping the back of his head. Lincoln was there, seated on a bench, holding his head in his hands. Her eyes sought out Walter. He stood apart from everyone, head bowed, and weeping. What few other survivors there were wandering brokenly, moving from body to body, tallying the losses, and the losses were staggering.

Through the haze of sorrow and tortured sadness, the secret Olivia harbored pulsed and beckoned. _I'm having a baby. I'm going to be a mother._ There was no joy, but neither was there despair. She could tell Peter, if she wanted, if she had the courage. She could whisper it in his ear, right now. But she couldn't, so she didn't. It wasn't the time. It could wait. It had to wait. The life growing inside her was secondary.

Right now, they had to bury their dead.

#

The next evening, the bodies of the lost were interred behind the cafeteria, in the space between the asphalt parking lot and the tilled field where the summer crops were stills struggling to push through the unfertile soil.

Dug in two long rows, the graves were each marked by a stone pulled from the circular ruins of a nearby demolition. Peter and Lincoln had worked most of the day on them, starting early in the morning before the sun grew hot and continuing until late in the afternoon when they were finally finished, on the verge of sunstroke from the murderous heat. Yellow and white wild flowers where laid across each earthy mound, each flower picked by either Ella or Gina, who had been taken outside for just that purpose by Rachel, along with Claire and Astrid.

Olivia had stayed behind. She watched as the men dug each grave, filled with a cold emptiness, a vast wasteland of sorrow that seemed to have no end. When they had reached the last grave, she insisted on digging it herself. She'd let her tears salt the earth as she worked, and then again as Sonia's cold corpse was laid out inside it. No speeches were made when the final body was covered, no words of atonement, or offerings of comfort. There was nothing to say. Words would only ring hollow. Instead they stood in silence, until, one by one, those who had survived turned and walked away.

Of the thirty or so survivors living at the asylum after the demise of Jacob Fischer and his men, only twelve remained. And that number was reduced even further, down to ten, the morning after the impromptu internment, when it was discovered that two of the four survivors not of her group had slipped away in the night, taking a cache of weapons and food with them.

They had yet to talk about what happened. The horror was still too raw, too close to the source. Olivia had barely slept, and neither, she suspected, had Peter. He had tossed and turned beside her all through the night, his breath never evening out any more than hers had. After her tears had finally subsided, she had lain awake in the heat, staring through hazy moonlight at the wall beside her pillow. Her mind refused to stop thinking. About their future. About her future. About the baby growing inside her's future. If any of them even had a future.

She'd thought about the cortexiphan and the abilities that Walter and William Bell had forced upon her. She'd thought about how they were a part of her, whether she liked it or not, and how she may have been doing them all a disservice by refusing to embrace them, or at least one of them. The most useful one. She'd pondered Lincoln Lee, and his universe, where another Peter Bishop lived, one whose attempted kidnapping by another Walter had been foiled. They were at war, wielding weapons with far-reaching hands. Was her Peter's father high up in the governmental hierarchy as he was in Lincoln's world? It seemed likely. Their worlds seemed to mirror one another in many ways, except that Walter had succeeded in her version. Was her universe at war with another? With Peter's? Was that why the shapeshifters were there? How could they be at war and not know it?

Yet something about the entire premise bothered her. There was a note of disorder in her ordered mind. The shapeshifters and the infection. Both had been stuck in her head all day. If they were at war, and Peter's real father was waging it — as he seemed to be in Lincoln's world — what was the point of sending the shapeshifters _and_ the infection? What purpose would it serve if everyone on the planet was turned — including Peter? It made no sense, to her, at least. Which left her with the possibility that they were unrelated. Perhaps the infection had spoiled whatever the shapeshifters' mission was, and they too were now lost, like everyone else, set adrift in the apocalypse without orders. The single one she had spoken to had certainly been strange, almost to the point of madness, if not downright creepy.

In her mind, there was only one way to find out the truth. Only one way to stop it, if stopping it was even possible. And of all of them, she was the only one uniquely equipped to do both. Or she would be, if she could convince Walter to help her. Which meant convincing Peter to let him help her.

Which was how Olivia found herself the center of attention, two days after Sonia's death. Decisions had to be made. To stay or to go. To merely survive, as they had been, or to be proactive. To become truly active participants in their own futures. She had already made her choice. But the others? That was up to them. She was done telling people what to do.

They were in the front lobby, lounging on the various chairs and sofas, on the wide area rug. They were all there, all ten of them who still remained. Two days ago, they would have been hard pressed to fit all of the residents of the asylum into the space. But such was no longer a problem. The room was filled with the soft glow of candles. Shadows flickered across the walls, across the wide and ancient crystal chandelier hanging overhead.

Olivia was seated on the small sofa beside Peter, one hand resting atop her womb, which she found herself doing more and more, as if she might feel something there, despite her brain telling her repeatedly that it would be weeks, if not months, before she felt anything. The others were arranged in random order around her. Broyles was leaning against the wall beside the front entrance, opposite Lincoln Lee. Walter was sandwiched between Astrid and Claire on the big sofa, with Rachel and Gina on another while Ella was splayed out on the carpet in the center of the room.

Before she got to the point of why she'd called them together, there was something else she wanted to know first. She wanted, no, she _needed_ an explanation of what had happened, how any of the horrors from two days ago could have happened. They all seemed reluctant to relive it, but she had to know.

"I don't understand," she said, glancing around the room. "How could Sonia have just turned without being bitten? How could so many have turned in such a short amount of time?"

No one spoke for a moment, until Walter shifted on the couch, clearing his throat. "The change is happening faster than it was," he said finally. "Whatever _it_ is, it seems to be accelerating. The interval between being bitten and the transformation is down to seconds, at best. Perhaps less. Perhaps even instantaneous."

"What does that mean for us?"

"I don't know," Walter shrugged. "But it can't be good. I can't even say with any degree of certainty that Miss Francis even died before she turned. Or that her baby did, either. It might have been a miscarriage, it might not. Perhaps its biochemistry, the electrical impulses that made up its lifeforce were simply too weak to prevent the change from occurring, as I suspect it does in us."

The room fell silent as they all processed the bomb he'd just nonchalantly dropped.

"What are you saying, Walter?" Astrid spoke up with a horrified expression. "That the baby turned inside her because it was... too little?"

"Perhaps. There's no way to know, not for certain. Not unless it happens again." He wet his lips nervously. "If that is the case, then I don't believe I need to tell you what that means."

Olivia lowered her head at the sudden and intense pool of dread that formed her gut. She covered her face, trying to hide it. Was that going to happen to her? Was that her fate? Her baby's fate? Peter shifted beside her, his hand tightening on her leg. She felt his gaze on her back. "Sonia had miscarried before," she said, looking up. "Could that have made a difference?"

"Again, there's simply no way to be certain, Agent Dunham. A prior miscarriage would certainly increase the chance of another, but that isn't even the underlying problem we now face. It's the infection itself. We had assumed it was static, yes? That it was unchanged. But this is obviously untrue. It is still unfolding, still evolving. What if it begins to affect animal life? If the force causing it is growing stronger, then what are we heading for? Will we begin to turn spontaneously also? It would mean the end of us, of humanity, indeed of all life on this planet."

"You're going to scare the children, Walter," Rachel said in the ensuing silence, glancing down at Gina. The girl was still in shock from her grandmother's death, that much was obvious.

"They should be scared, Rach," Olivia said. "We should all be scared." She leaned forward on her knees, steepling her fingers beneath her chin as she turned back to Walter. Peter's hand fell across her back, rubbing softly. "There has to be something we can do. What about Lincoln's world?"

"My world?" Lincoln said with a frown. "You want us all to go there? It's not as bad as it is here, but it ain't good. And that was almost a year ago. Who knows what it's like now? And how would we even get there?"

"Nor is its future any more certain than our own," Walter interjected. "These vortexes Mister Lee spoke of, the soft spots in his reality. They certainly do not bode well, especially coupled with the external manipulation of the physical laws that govern random events. For all we know, his world no longer exists."

Olivia swallowed. It was time. It would all come out now, the secrets she'd been keeping from those she loved most. But it was the only way. "It exists," she said softly. "Or one like it does. I've been there." She turned to Peter beside her on the couch, capturing his gaze. "I was there last week. Peter, I've been... practicing."

Peter stiffened. "You've been... what?" he gasped. "Why?"

"In case you wanted to go back," she explained, pleading with her eyes for him to understand. "I told you I would take you back if you asked. I intend to keep that promise."

"I'm not going anywhere without you," he said, furrowing his brow. "I already told you that."

Olivia shrugged, lowering her gaze to the floor. "Things change all the time, Peter. I don't want you to go, but I had to be ready in case you changed your mind."

"I won't," he said, perhaps with more force than he intended, or, judging from the fierceness of his blue eyes, perhaps not.

Rachel stared at her from across the room. "What do you mean you've been there, Liv?" she asked, eyeing her with a frown. "How can you have been there?"

Before she could reply, Ella spoke up from her place on the floor. "Aunt Liv can do things, Mom," she said in a matter of fact voice, as if her aunt's abilities were common knowledge. "Can't you, Aunt Liv? Is it magic? I heard Uncle Peter and Walker talking about it once, back at the lab."

Silence followed. Olivia wet her lips as all eyes shifted toward her, eyebrows lifting in surprise. All except for Walter, of course, who lowered his head, and Peter, who she felt flinch against her thigh. She noticed Lincoln's face paling, and suspected he knew what was coming. It was time. She felt a tiny bit sorry for Walter, but it was all going to have to come out at some point anyway if the plan she'd imagined in her head was to ever come to fruition, and it might as well be now.

Glancing down at Ella, she smiled, meeting her niece's curious gaze. "You're right, sweetie, I can do things that are... special," she said, and in her head she saw lightning bolts and burning flesh, and Charlene Watson's dead son, but plunged onward anyway. "But it isn't magic. I guess you could call it science, if anything. When I was a girl, maybe your age, or just a little younger, I was given something, a kind of...," she trailed off, forcing Walter to look at her. "What would you call it, Walter? A medicine? A designer drug? How did you and William Bell classify cortexiphan? I would tell them, but I don't really remember when you experimented on me." The words slipped out before she could stop them. She thought she had mostly moved past what had been done to her, but clearly, some part of her had not.

Walter's lips worked silently for a moment, before he spoke in a broken voice. "I... we, that is we never, other than... I suppose we-"

"What the hell is going on here?" Rachel cut in, sitting up straight on the couch. She had eyes only for Walter, and they were hard eyes indeed. "You knew Olivia from before? From back when we were kids?" she said, her voicing rising, a clear danger sign that she was on the verge of going ballistic. Walter seemed to shrink under the barrage, almost as if he were folding in on himself. "You drugged her?" she spat. "You experimented on my sister...?"

Peter spoke then, shifting Rachel's heated gaze to himself, and consequently away from Walter, though Olivia was certain that was ancillary effect. "When Olivia was a girl, she went to a day care center in Jacksonville that was run by William Bell and my... and Walter. She and the other children there were dosed with a drug called Cortexiphan, and long story short, now she has certain... abilities. One of which is to move between universes. If it sounds crazy, that's because it is. But that's Walter for you. Par for the course."

Rachel's face darkened with every word Peter said, seeds of anger blooming in her eyes. She was going let him have it any moment, and violence was not out of the question. She was still angry with Walter for what he'd done and she doubted she would forgive him, but that wasn't why she'd brought it up. And like it or not, he was a different man that he'd been. That much was clear.

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you, Rach," she said, "but I only found out about it after we left Cambridge. And it's something I've already put behind me, for the most part. We can talk about it later, and you can yell at me all you want for keeping it from you, but right now if I can find a way to use these abilities to help us, then I'm going to." From the furious look her sister directed her way, it was not a talk she would find enjoyable.

"Just what exactly are you proposing, Dunham?" Broyles said with narrowed eyes, speaking for the first time.

Olivia studied his face before replying. Did he know something? About her? He appeared less than surprised by the revelation of her past. She thought back to her promotion to the head of the newly formed Fringe Division, what seemed like a lifetime ago. Had there been more to it than her performance during the Flight 627 investigation? Could it have been purposeful? Could he have known about her, even back then? It seemed impossible, but then he had always held his cards close to his chest. She pushed the thoughts aside. They were pointless, in any case. If he had known, whatever purpose her promotion might have served was now moot.

"Lincoln says his world was under attack," she explained, gesticulating her train of thought with her right hand. "Walter, I know you and he have been discussing the possibility that what was happening here might be similar. Do you still think it's possible?"

Walter nodded eagerly, clearly relieved for the change of subject. "It is clear to me that some outside force is acting upon our reality. I've suspected so for months, and Mister Lee's story only confirms my suspicion. I can't say whether or not it is the same agency in both cases, but think of it. A device that could somehow alter chance? Who can say what kind of ripples, what kind of unintended, far-reaching consequences employing such a device might bring about? He held his fingers, pointing at the ceiling. "Think of it. Chance. Randomness. They're the one thing all realities have in common, yet at the same time, it is their very randomness that makes them different from one another."

"We understand all that, Walter," Peter said. "But what can we do about it?"

Olivia turned to him, taking one of his hands. Of all of them, his objection would be the strongest. "I need to go there, Peter," she said, holding him tightly. "I have to go there, and see if I can stop it. I'm sorry, but if there's a chance, then I have to go." Before he could argue, she turned to Walter. "But I can't do it yet. I can't make myself stay over there, on the other side. I always get pulled back, no matter what I do, no matter how hard I try."

"Yes, that would make sense," he said, through slitted eyes. "We never intended for you to stay over there, only for you to bring Peter home. For you to break free of the bonds your native reality holds upon you and truly move between worlds, I suspect you will need a far greater dose of cortexiphan."

"Great. Where can we get it? Can you make it?"

"I'm afraid we can't. Nor can I make it. Cortexiphan was Belly's creation. He made it. I wouldn't know where to begin, not without the complete chemical formula, nor do I have the equipment to make it or any of the compounds required, even if I did know the exact formula."

"Walter, there has to be a way to get more."

"I'm afraid there isn't, my dear. The formula is lost, and even the slightest variation from it would more than likely kill you. I'm sorry."

Olivia pushed her hair back, running her hands over her scalp to the back of her neck. There had to be a way. She refused to accept that they were doomed to extinction, that the baby growing inside her had no future. She reached out, grasping at straws. "What about Massive Dynamic then? Wouldn't William Bell have kept records of it there? You said it was his greatest creation. He would have kept records, and maybe even samples, wouldn't he?"

Walter nodded slowly. "It is possible, he said, massaging the side of his chin. "Belly was never one to throw anything away. He very well might have kept samples, and certainly would have kept the formula somewhere."

"You want to go to New York?" Broyles asked skeptically. " For this... drug? How can you even be sure it's there, Dunham? Or that you can go to this other... universe, if you do manage to find it?"

"I'm not sure of anything, but I have to try, Phillip," she told him, and the others also. "If what happened to Sonia is just a sign of things to come, then what choice do we have?"

No one spoke. Uncertainty was pouring off of Peter in waves. He didn't like her plan, didn't want her to go. Of course he didn't. She didn't particularly want to go, either. But what either of them wanted no longer mattered. From the desolate look in his eyes, she could tell he knew that, too. _I'm sorry, baby,_ she thought, meeting his bleak gaze. _But this is what must be. I at least have to try, for our sake, for our future, and for our baby's future. If I don't, then none of us will have a future at all_ _._

"Then it's settled," she said, pushing off of Peter's knee as she rose to her feet. "I'm heading south to New York. Walter, will you come with me? Anyone else who wants to come is welcome, too."

Walter's jaw trembled. He glanced at Peter — who looked as he'd just been handed a death sentence — before nodding. "I'll do it," he said finally, looking away from his son. "I'll go with you, and help you as best I can. You must understand, Olive, that when Belly and I... when we... we made you, after we discovered the other side, it was precisely for an occasion such as this. You and the others, you were to be protectors of our world."

Olivia stared down at him, disbelieving. Protectors of the world? He made her sound like some kind of comic book hero. _What a fucking joke. If that was the case, Walter, then you shouldn't have made me forget_ _._ She glanced around the room. Astrid and Claire were looking at her like they'd never seen her before, while Rachel seemed about as happy as Peter with the whole situation, in sharp contrast to Ella's worshipful gaze. There was a ray of hope spawning in Lincoln's eyes, and even Broyles's usual stoic skepticism seemed tempered. What where they expecting her to do?

_I never wanted any of this_ , she wanted to scream at them all. _Don't you get it? I don't want to do this!_

But they were past that now. She was past it. Past personal wants and needs. All that was left, was duty.

#

Much later, in the quiet of their room, she fell across Peter's chest, panting, utterly exhausted. His heart pounded, just inches away from her ear, its rhythm returning ever so slowly to its normal, steady gait. His fingers ghosted across her back, his touch soft and careful. Their lovemaking had been slow and pensive, almost therapeutic, until the very end when a frenetic need had taken over, their climaxes occurring nearly simultaneously.

Outside the open window, the night creatures made their choruses, sang their interwoven and overlapping songs. A cool breeze sighed through the room, feathering across their exposed flesh, chilling their combined sweat deliciously. The wind felt good, great even. Almost perfect, if such perfection was possible.

"Olivia, where'd you go that morning?" Peter asked suddenly, his fingers never stopping their motion across the contours of her back. "The day Sonia died. Why'd you leave so early? In all the commotion afterward, you never mentioned what you were doing, and Rachel didn't know, either."

Olivia stiffened involuntarily at the question, then tried to relax as if she hadn't. Which, of course, only made it all the more obvious, what with her laying on top of him, their bare chests pressed together. Of course, he'd felt it, and no doubt was wondering why she'd flinched.

And he was right. They'd yet to speak of it, and truthfully, with everything that happened, the fact that she'd snuck out of their room that morning had slipped her mind completely. The story she'd concocted in her head about needing more tampons was obviously not going to work, not now. And she didn't want to lie to him anyway. All she could do was hope that he would trust her.

She took the plunge. "Ask me again, sometime, Peter," she said, lifting her head and meeting his gaze through the dimness. "But now. I promise you that it was nothing untoward, though. I just had to... check something out. And now I have."

Peter was silent for a moment, his face unreadable in the dark. "You sure?"

The question could have had multiple meanings, and she was sure he'd phrased it so on purpose, for that very reason. _Are you sure you don't want to tell me? Are you sure you found what you were looking for? Are you sure about going to New York? Are you sure you're okay?_

_Are you sure_ we're _okay?_

She slithered forward atop him, until their faces where inches apart. She curled her fingers into the damp hair at the nape of his neck. His eyes glistened in a ray of moonlight. She lowered her head then, pressing a soft kiss to his lips, breathing him in, tasting his taste. He'd had a drink earlier. Whiskey. She had not, as much as she'd wanted to, but he hadn't seemed to notice. Or had he? He's said nothing either way. His arms tightened about her waist, holding her tight against him, kneading their way up the muscles of her back. She pulled away, reluctantly, taking in much needed air.

"I'm sure, Peter," she whispered, then lay her head down on his chest once more. "I've never been more sure of anything."


	35. An Exodus, Part 1

**-August 2009**

Lightning streaked across sky, centered above the hills rising in the distance.

The bolt had appeared out of nowhere, forking upward above a copse of trees. Glowing branches of fine filigree spread outward, seeming to appear and blink out of existence in the same instant. The concussion that followed was immediate and loud enough to ring Peter's ears through the windshield and over the hum of the engine and the rumble of the Suburban's wide tires. Out of pure reflex, he jerked the steering wheel, and the big truck swerved left and right across the center line of Massachusetts Route 109 before he managed to straighten it out once more.

"Holy crap, that was close," Rachel said from behind. "I could feel it through the seat."

Peter glanced up at Olivia's sister in the mirror. She was seated between Ella and Gina in the middle row of seats, and had an arm draped over each of the girls' shoulders. Behind her in the far back row, Walter sat alone, leaning up against a pillow propped up against the window. Despite it seeming impossible given the conditions outside, the man appeared fast asleep. He shook his head. The man he'd assumed was his father for his entire life had a strange ability to shut off and shut out the outside world whenever it suited him.

Beside him in the passenger seat, Olivia sat silently, eyes forward. Her thick braid was pulled over her left shoulder, and she moved her fingertips absently up and down its knobby length. She had said little since they'd left the asylum earlier that morning. Something was different about her. And it wasn't just her way of dealing with Sonia's death just over three weeks ago. It was more than that. She was a woman of singular determination and focus, and that was still there, but there was something else in her demeanor now, something present in the depths of her green eyes. He couldn't quite put his finger on it. A kind of light, maybe? Was it hope? Was she eager? Or was it merely that she finally had a target in her sights, a goal, a possible endpoint? He didn't know, but whatever was going on with her, she didn't seem ready or eager to talk about it with him or anyone.

He darted another look at her profile, and as if Olivia could somehow sense his regard, the corner of her mouth turned up and she eyed him askance for a moment before resuming her forward gaze.

Rain pounded across the windshield. The wipers thwacked back and forth, and despite their frenetic energy, could barely keep up with the downpour. Another flash of lightning followed by an immediate blast of thunder crashed overhead. Trees on either side of the road whipped about in winds that seemed gale-force in their intensity as the truck yearned to follow suit.

The weather had changed abruptly two days ago, with the unending heat simply evaporating in the face of a low-pressure system appearing out of nowhere from the west. Since then, mother nature had been making up for the months-long drought with thunderstorm after thunderstorm, the bombardment. The garden behind the asylum was gone, flooded out. The ancient building itself had been leaking at the seams when they'd finally left it behind, the north stairwell — which had become an interior waterfall feature — being the worst of the lot.

_Good riddance_ , he thought, glancing into the mirror. If he never laid eyes on the asylum — or any Kirkbride-type building again, for that matter — it would be too soon. Too much tragedy resided there. The place was haunted, now, if it hadn't been already.

"Peter?"

He looked up at Ella's voice and found her staring at him through the mirror. She had eyes older than her years, and having her auburn hair pulled back in a long ponytail like her mother's or aunt's only enhanced the effect. "What's up, kiddo?"

"Are we going all the way back to where the lab was?" she asked. "All the way back to the city?"

Peter shook his head. "No, we're heading a bit south of there, to a place called Marina Bay."

"And they have lots of boats there?"

"They do," he affirmed with a nod. "Or at least they did. Six or seven hundred slips if I remember right. Hopefully, there's something seaworthy left." He glanced at the pair of headlights several hundred feet behind them in the side mirror. "And big enough for us all to fit," he added.

"Peter, what's a slip?" Gina wanted to know.

"It's kind of like a parking spot for a boat, honey," Rachel said. "Only it's down in the water."

Gina nodded slowly in the mirror. The girl was starting to speak again, which could only be a good sign after witnessing her grandmother's death up close and personal just a few short weeks ago. And she had only just recovered from losing her brother when disaster had struck. They had all recovered quickly, and he wondered if they'd passed some threshold, that all the death and killing had become something almost commonplace, as terrible as it seemed. How many of her own family had she seen die, including her own mother? He still found it hard to fathom how quickly the infection had torn through them.  _Poor Sonia. You got a raw deal_. Perhaps the sudden renewal of Olivia's focus and drive wasn't so hard to understand, after all.

Outside the truck, the thunderstorm raged on, though there seemed less lightning than before. Torrential rain now smacked across the windshield in gusting waves. It had been storming for the last two hours, and there seemed no end in sight. A dark shade of gray spread across the horizon, along with a tint of green that brought to mind a harrowing night he'd once spent hiding out on the outskirts of St. Louis as a tornado had ripped through a nearby neighborhood. The wind howled, screaming through the imperfect door seals, all the while attempting to shove the truck into a ditch overflowing with runoff that ran alongside the shoulder.

"How are you doing?" Olivia said suddenly, breaking her long silence.

He turned and found her watching him, a hint of concern crossing over her features. "Oh, I'm just peachy," he said with taut grin, then renewed his grip on the steering wheel, counter-steering as the truck began veering toward the shoulder once more. "You ever seen a tornado before?"

She shook her head, eyeing the road ahead. "Never. But I rode out a hurricane once. We were staying with some relatives in Georgia when Hugo made landfall. Remember that, Rach?"

Rachel snorted from the back seat. "You mean do I remember being terrified that their house was going to blow down and we were all going to die? Yeah. I remember that."

Peter grinned as Olivia rolled her eyes. "Hurricanes are scary," he agreed, "but you can see them coming from miles away and days off. There's something about a tornado. They come out of nowhere, and you can feel them, like down in your gut. It's the element of surprise. They're unpredictable, agents of pure chaos. They're pretty uncommon in Massachusetts, but I was in a motel outside of St. Louis once when one touched down in a neighborhood a few blocks away. They sky turned green almost, kind of like that up there." He leaned forward, peering up through the windshield. "And I could feel it, like something had changed in the air. The pressure drop, I guess. Either way, I've never seen or heard anything like it since. There's something about seeing a car lodged in a tree that makes you question your place in the world."

"What were you doing in St. Louis?" Olivia said, perking up with interest as she so often did when he mentioned something from his past.

"A little of this, a little of that," he said, glancing up in the mirror again. Rachel was busy with the girls, doing something beneath his line of sight. Behind her, Walter continued to nap, with streams of what could only be drool dripping from the corner of his parted lips. "This was right after I left Boston the first time. I may or may not have been avoiding undue interest from a certain organization right around that time."

Olivia pursed her lips and smiled, leaning back against the headrest. "Now that sounds like the Peter Bishop I know and love," she said just loud enough for him to hear, turning her face toward him. "Why am I not surprised? Gambling? Big Eddie?"

Grinning, he reached across the center console and took her hand. "Gambling? Yes. Big Eddie? No. Way out of his territory. This was Big Al — nickname, not legal. He ran security at a riverboat casino on the Illinois side of the Mississippi." Glancing between Olivia and the road, he found her eyes glittering with amusement as they often did when he regaled her with tales of his past. He loved how he could tell her anything, how she could cordon off his illegal activities, viewing them through her law enforcement lens without ever casting judgment. "I was young, and still fairly new to the whole racket. I guess they noticed I'd won a few too many hands of blackjack, at a few too many dealers."

"Card counting?"

Peter nodded. "The usual scam. I figured I was in flyover country, and their security couldn't be as tight as Atlantic City or Vegas."

"Now that  _was_  silly of you, Peter," she said, shaking her head. "Casinos take card counting seriously. They tend to like their money — even in flyover country."

"Yeah, well, I learned that the hard way," he said, guiding the truck around a sharp curve in the road. "After I cashed out I had feeling something was up, so I-"

He cut himself short, heart leaping in his chest. Directly ahead, the road was blocked by a pair of vehicles locked together in a tangle of interlocked metal and shattered glass. Braking hard, he swerved onto the opposite shoulder, keeping one eye on the scene as they rolled past. The vehicles had struck head on, a white Toyota truck and a green sedan. The sedan's windshield sagged under its own weight, and had a hole large enough for a person in front of the steering wheel. After they'd cleared the wreckage, he let the truck coast along, waiting for the white Mercedes to appear behind them in the mirror. Several thudding heartbeats later a pair of bright headlights came into view, swerving sharply to avoid the wreckage before resuming their pursuit of the Suburban. Peter let out his breath, pressing the accelerator again.

"That was rather close," Olivia murmured, squinting through the mirror outside her window. "I'm surprised we haven't run into more of those."

Peter grunted his agreement, peering ahead through the sheets of slanted rain with renewed interest. The trees hugging the road had spread apart, and houses began to show up in the distance on either side. Then a sign appeared out of haze, announcing that the next turnoff would take them south toward Weymouth, a town on the coast south of Boston. While it wasn't their destination, it was relatively close.

All things considered, the drive had been relatively uneventful, with only a handful of wandering infected crossing their path. Before the accident, the nearest they'd come to a close call was a group of undead near twenty strong migrating down the center of the street outside of a sleepy town name Upton, just over an hour ago.

"Hey, we're almost there," he announced, eyeing Rachel and the girls in the mirror. "Should only be another ten or fifteen minutes."

"Almost where?" Walter's groggy voice sounded from the far back. He was sitting up, eyes blinking hugely. "Where are we? What's happening?"

Meeting Olivia's gaze, Peter blew out a sigh. "Walter...," he started, about to launch into yet another explanation of the day's agenda — to find a working boat or yacht and take it south down the coast to New York — but then he noticed Astrid coming hard behind them in the rear-view mirror, flashing her headlights rapidly.

"What do you suppose she wants?" Olivia said, twisting around in her seat. "Pull over, Peter."

He did so, guiding the truck to a stop in the left-hand lane. The white Mercedes came to a stop beside them a moment later on Olivia's right. She rolled her window down, letting in a blast of humidity and the sounds of the storm outside, which had begun to lessen considerably. Astrid followed suit, wetting her lips nervously as he gave them each a hesitant look.

"What's the emergency, Astrid," Peter said through the open window, looking into the other vehicle. Broyles sat beside her in the passenger seat, with Claire and Lincoln Lee in the back.

"So... I was thinking," she began. "I know this might be kind of short notice, but, I just realized where we are. And well... My father lives in Weymouth, or he did before, at least. I was thinking I might-"

"You want to go check out?" Olivia cut in.

"Yeah. This is my only chance, Olivia. Do you mind?"

"Don't be silly, Astrid. Of course we don't mind. Do you want us all to go?"

Astrid shook her head. "We can handle it. We'll go see what his neighborhood is like. It shouldn't take too long. He's either there... or he's not. Honestly, I don't exactly have high hopes. If the area is infested, then we won't risk it. You guys just worry about finding us a boat."

"Something with separate cabins this time, Bishop!" Lincoln Lee's voice called from the other vehicle. "Waking up to you and Liv going at it is something I need to experience only once in my lifetime."

Peter grimaced and Olivia stiffened beside him, face burning a bright crimson at Rachel's evil snicker from the back seat. He opened his mouth to retort that nothing like that had ever happened — and never would, not if he had anything to say about it — but clearly something like that  _had_  happened, for Lincoln. It was not the first time the man had referenced something the Peter Bishop from his world had said or done, as if the two of them were the same person. It was maddening.

"We'll see you guys soon," he said instead, shaking his head. "Good luck, Astrid."

"Right back at you, Peter," she replied, grinning as she rolled up her window.

The Mercedes pulled away, taillights glowing red through the misting rain. After a few moments, the right blinker flashed in an odd moment of surreality, and then the white SUV turned at the next street and disappeared.

"You ever feel like you're only participating in half the conversation with that guy?" he said, catching Olivia's eye. "It's getting really annoying."

She gave a low snort in reply. "I know what you mean. The other day he was talking about my mom. He called her Marilyn. Like he knew her. Like they were... friends."

"He does know her, Liv," Rachel spoke up. "He told me all about her. But he doesn't know me. Apparently, Mom's alive, but I'm dead wherever it is he's from."

"Really?" Olivia's eyes grew huge. "You didn't tell me that, Rach."

"Mom, what does it mean to go at it?" Ella said, sounding more like the little girl she was than Peter had heard from her in months. He noticed her glancing from adult to adult in the mirror and could only shake his head.

A moment later Olivia's hand snaked onto his leg, stroking softly through his jean. She nodded down the road ahead. "C'mon, Peter," she said with faint amusement as Rachel tried to stop Walter from having the birds and the bees conversation in explicit detail behind them. "Let's find us a boat." Her voice grew soft, and something in it raised the hairs in the back of his neck. "And if we're lucky, maybe we can even find one with separate cabins."

Unable to stop the wide smile cracking his lips, Peter put the truck in gear.

#

Marina Bay sat on the northern edge of the peninsula jutting out into Boston Harbor. The area was once part of an old naval base, but had evolved into an up-and-coming development near the turn of the century. In addition to the massive marina complex, complete with a seaside boardwalk lined with unique restaurants and bars, the area contained office complexes and high-rise apartment buildings, and a plethora of single-family homes and duplexes, most of which had been filled with young professionals, Gen-Xers moving up in the world.

Or so Peter had heard, at least. The area was not one he'd visited frequently, even when he'd lived in Boston.

He drove slowly toward the ocean, down a wide avenue bisected by an island of trees and shrubs. Cars and trucks crowded the southward lanes, but the northerly route was relatively clear of obstructions. The street was dotted with piles of windblown trash and debris. Infected wandered here and there, draped in ragged summer-wear that fit right in with the current state of the climate. The undead watched them roll past with a kind of dull, golden-eyed stupor before engaging in hot pursuit, or as hot as their decrepit bodies would allow. Taking a southerly route from Worcester to avoid the city and the infected in it had paid off, but they could not avoid them now.

"Think they'll be a problem, Liv?" Rachel asked, turning around in her seat to stare after their growing entourage. "They won't follow us all the way, will they?"

"It's possible," Olivia replied, frowning into her mirror. "Let's hope it doesn't take long to find a boat."

Peter rubbed a kink in the back of his neck, eyeing the road ahead where the lanes seemed to fork around a kind of wooded park. They needed a boat, true, but also one with several specific requirements. First of all, it had to be worthy of the open ocean — not just for trawling around Massachusetts Bay unless they wanted to hug the coast the entire way. And it needed to be big enough to sleep eight people, and that was counting Ella and Gina as one person. All of which meant they needed a yacht of some kind, and one that had a full tank of gas. But fuel was also hard to come by, so maybe a sailing yacht of some sort? Only he was no sailor, nor were any of the others so far as he knew, and sailing something so large across the open ocean where a storm was currently raging off shore seemed like a not so good idea. So, he would look for a motor yacht first. If they were lucky and found something with a full tank of fuel on top of meeting all their other requirements, the voyage down to New York City would easily be in range. And it was a one-way trip, wasn't it? There was no reason to come back, was there? If he had his way, they would just keep going, heading south. Maybe to an island somewhere in the Caribbean. But he didn't have his way, so New York it was.

The street ran between the park on one side, and a tall apartment building with layers of balconies on the other. Visible through the gaps between the stores and restaurants, a dull mass of grayness seemed to merge with the horizon, glimmering occasionally with flashes of lightning. The Atlantic Ocean was dead ahead. The rain had tapered off to a steady sprinkle and he slowed the wipers to their lowest setting.

"Is that the ocean?" Gina asked, grabbing the back of Peter's seat as she leaned forward for a better look. "I ain't ever seen the ocean before. Gram was supposed to take me in the summer but..." She trailed off, her voice growing silent.

"Well... you'll get to see it now, sweetie," Rachel said. "Peter what kind of boat are you looking for? Something big, I'm guessing?"

"That's kind of the idea," he said, turning the truck onto a main strip that had seen far better days.

Fire had ravaged much of the area. And what was left had been destroyed by looters armed with heavy equipment, from the mounds of rubble scattered all over. An infected woman with matted hair caked with soot charged out into the street and he drove it down without slowing or a second thought, crunching the body beneath them. The ocean grew closer, resolving into foaming breakers that rolled in toward the shore. Finally, they reached an empty parking lot, and the entire marina spread out before them.

Peter parked the truck in a no-parking zone nearest the wharf. For a few moments, no one spoke. The massive complex of floating docks fanned out to either side, extending far out into the water. He wasn't sure what he'd been expecting, but it wasn't this.

The marina and the docks and the boats bobbing up and down in their slips were frozen in another time. A time when the dead had yet to walk the earth. A time where pregnant women didn't spontaneously die or little girls weren't forced to kill. Somehow, and quite miraculously, in his opinion, the marina had ridden out the apocalypse relatively untouched. More than half of the slips were empty, but even so, boats of all sizes and shapes rested in their slips or were tied up alongside of floating docks. The majority of the craft available were of the small speedboat variety, mainly suited for tooling around the bay or for pulling skiers. But among them numerous white masts with dangling ropes swayed to and from in the wind. Sailboats all, though none of them seemed large enough. Then Peter noticed the sleek lines of several large yachts anchored in their moorings off to one side of the marina, where a long and narrow dock extended out into the water.

The yachts stood high above the waterline, with multiple levels of decks and cabins, and there was no doubt any one of them would have broached the seven-figure mark when they'd been purchased. Why were they still there? Why had no one taken them? Something was wrong with them. There had to be. It was the only thing that made sense. But then he thought about the infection, of the thousands of freshes at the beginning. Perhaps chaos had simply overwhelmed the area too quickly. How many had waited until one of those freshes was busy tearing their throat out to finally believe the end was at hand? Too many, more than likely.

"One of those looks like our best bet," Peter said, pointing out the yachts through the windshield.

"Let's hope one of them has enough fuel." Olivia stated, unbuckling her seat belt. "Peter and I will go check it out, Rach. You stay here with the girls and Walter. Okay?"

Rachel nodded her agreement, and Peter saw the disappointment flare in Ella's eyes. But she said nothing when Olivia and he piled out into the slight drizzle. They grabbed their swords and checked their pistols on their hips. The area seemed clear, but that didn't mean much. Infected had a way of showing up when they were least wanted.

"You ready to go?" Olivia said, adjusting the strap of her lacquered sword sheath where it crossed her chest.

"Just one more thing," he told her, reaching into the back of the truck for a bucket filled with the small assortment of tools he had scrounged up before they'd left the asylum. There were any number of items he might need; from an assortment of screwdrivers and wire cutters, to adjustable wrenches and sockets and ratchets; and also, the trusty multi-tool that he'd been carrying on his person for years, capable of serving as any of them in a pinch.

"Where are you going, son?" Walter said suddenly, peering over the back seat.

"We're gonna go look at boats, Walter?" Peter said, unable to help the scowl that formed on his lips. He'd given up trying to stop Walter from calling him his son. "Where the hell do you think we're going? Haven't you been paying attention at all?"

A hand closed about his wrist, pulling him away. "Peter," Olivia said, inclining her head. "Now's not the time."

Swallowing, he exhaled, and then nodded. "Just stay in the truck, Walter. We'll be back soon. Hopefully." Reaching up, he slammed the rear door shut, then turned and found Olivia studying him, her face sad.

"You okay?" she asked.

"It is what it is," he replied, letting the anger drain out of him. "Sometimes, I just... I can't help but..." He fell silent, shaking his head, uncertain of what exactly he was trying to articulate. "I'm trying, Liv. That's all I can say."

"I get it," she said simply, then smiled. "And I know you are. I am, too. C'mon."

They hurried down to the docks, crossing over a narrow gangplank of wood and metal that flexed beneath their combined weights. Four yachts were moored alongside the dock, all of which seemed much larger up close than they'd appeared from the parking lot. Any one of them would do —  _if_  they had fuel, and _if_  they could get one of them started.

"What about that one?" Olivia said, motioning toward the nearest.

The yacht was a sleek blue and white wedge of a boat that reminded him of a futuristic hotrod made up of triangles and parallelograms. Stenciled across the prow in red calligraphy was her name, the  _Afternoon Delight_.

"Afternoon Delight?" Peter said, eyeing the boat up and down. "Really?"

"Well, I think we can be fairly certain it has a bed, at least," Olivia murmured, and he grinned at the faint blush suffusing her cheeks. "Maybe that one there?" She pointed out another, further down the dock, a sleek hundred-footer with silver streaks running down the hull below the gunwales from the bow stern. She shook her head as they drew closer. "The  _Coy Mistress_? Where do they come up with these names?"

Chuckling, he hauled himself over the gunwale of the white and silver yacht. "Well, Coy Mistress is better than Wet Dream of Sexy Time or something equally prepubescent, isn't it? Or Afternoon Delight."

"Wet Dream...?" she said, her face and voice revolted. "Please don't tell me you knew a guy."

Reaching back to help her on board, he grinned, grabbing her waist as she steadied herself against him on the slowly rocking deck. "What can I say? I knew a guy."

"Of course, you did," Olivia muttered, glancing around the boat's stern. "So, where do we start?"

"We start with the fuel and the battery," he said, starting toward a narrow set of stairs that led eventually up to the bridge. "And then we'll move on from there." He motioned toward a pair of doors, one that led below deck, and the other to some kind of intermediate level. "See of you can get those doors open. Maybe we'll get lucky and they'll have left us the keys."

Olivia nodded, letting her backpack slide from her shoulders and digging inside for what Peter assumed was her set of lockpicks. While she was busy with that, he climbed up to the bridge, beneath a wide canopy that would protect the pilot from the elements.

A thick tarp held down by snaps covered the helm in its entirety. He ripped it away, then bent over the controls searching for the fuel gauge among the dials. When he found it, the needle was buried below the empty marker, though that didn't necessarily mean a thing. He rummaged through what few drawers and cubbyholes there were for a set of keys, but found none. And why would there be? Who in their right mind left the keys to their million-dollar boat out where anyone could grab them? He flicked a toggle switch that should have turned on the forward lights, but nothing happened. He added finding a battery to the list of things to do. Perhaps the truck's would suffice. If not, they might be in for a long afternoon searching for one that still worked.

Ducking down beneath the control console, he examined the wires and cables leading up to the ignition. They were a tangled mess, but fairly straightforward, in theory. He could work with them. Bypassing the ignition would be a relatively simple job, at least compared to the SUV down in the Federal Building's parking garage, so long ago. That had been a convoluted nightmare that had taken the better part of a day to accomplish.

He went in search of Olivia and found her below deck, standing in the middle of a wide and luxurious state room with a massive TV at one end and a fully stocked bar at the other. Filling the space between were leather sofas and love seats, and a coffee table that looked made of crystal and gold. Modern artwork adorned each wall while a black, egg-shaped speaker hung on each corner in front of crown moldings as exquisitely detailed as he'd seen in any upscale apartment. Completing the picture was a cream-colored shag carpet that felt so soft beneath his boots he felt bad for wearing them indoors. The decorations, the bar, made of red mahogany, the fine trim-work — they all spoke of money, and quite a lot of it.

"Oh, wow," Peter said, stopping to take it all in. "Liv, we've been going about this whole apocalypse thing all wrong."

"I know, right?" she murmured, feeling absently along the scar above her right eye. "This damn boat is nicer than my apartment ever was." She shook her head, then met his gaze. "I haven't found any keys, though. Was there fuel?"

"Maybe. But I need to grab the battery from the truck to know for sure."

"Will you be able to get it started without the keys?"

"Shouldn't be a problem, unless there's something catastrophically wrong with the engines. But I doubt that's the case." Peter hesitated, then stepped all the way into the room. "Liv, I know we've talked it before, but... are you sure about this? New York? Cortexiphan? How are you even going to find the one causing the infection? Or Lincoln's?" He scrubbed his fingers through his hair, wincing at a terrible ache squeezing his heart. "What if you just end up in the world Walter took me from? There's an infinite number of worlds out there. What if you get lost? What if... what if you can't find your way back?"

"Peter... I don't know what's going to happen," Olivia said quietly, approaching him. "But I've talked to Walter about this at length. He claims there's some kind of order to the worlds. Lincoln's world should be near our own, just like yours was right next door."

"Why does it have to be you? Why does it always have to be you?"

"What do you want me to tell you? That I don't want to do it? I don't. And it has to be me because there is no one else. And... like it or not, these abilities Walter and William Bell gave me? This is what they're for. And I... I have to do it. I have to try. After Sonia... we can't just ignore it anymore, or pretend that it's going to fix itself. We don't have a choice."

"But why are you in such a hurry? Why right this instant? You said it yourself, you haven't really figured out your abilities. If you have to do this, why not wait until you have?"

Olivia lowered her head, staring through his chest. "I... I have to do it now, Peter. It... it can't wait. I would go this instant if I could."

"But why? At least tell me why it has to be now."

"Do you trust me?"

"You know that I do."

"Then know that there's a reason, Peter. And if I succeed, then I promise I'll tell you. But until then... I can't." Olivia lifted her head and her eyes were huge and wet. She was crying.

A dull shock went through Peter at the sight. He never wanted to hurt her, or be the source of her pain. He reached out, pulling her close. She felt slight against him, her body trembling, her breath a series of sharp hitches. What was going on? What could be so important that she would risk everything for it? So important that she couldn't even tell him what it was? For fear he might try to stop her? The thought only made it clearer he should try harder.

Yet she had asked him to trust her. To trust that she knew what she was doing. That her reasoning was sound, and not as insane as it appeared on the surface. And he did trust her, more than anyone he'd ever known. And that was all he could do, for now.

"Please don't ask me again, Peter," she whispered against his chest. His lips were pressing into her hair, his breath hot against her scalp. "I can't bear it."

"I won't. As long as you promise to come back. You have to come back to me.

She pulled away, bringing her hands up to his face. "I can promise that I'll do everything in my power. There's nothing I want more, and there's more than just my life at stake. That's all I can do. Is that enough?"

He studied her tear-streaked face, her glistening eyes. It was enough. It would have to be enough, as he wasn't likely to get anything more out of her. She was determined to go through with it, and there was nothing he or anyone else could do to convince her otherwise. _Stubborn woman_ , he thought, exhaling his frustration. "All right," he said then, nodding slowly. "But I'm gonna hold you to that promise, Liv."

The smile she gave him was sad, yet still had a certain spark to it. "Of course you will," she said, lifting up on her toes. "I wouldn't expect anything less from you." She pulled his head down, and their lips met in a kiss that started out soft and tender, but ended hard, filled with a desperate kind of need. After a few moments she broke away, meeting his gaze through her eyelashes. "All right then," she said, catching her breath. "Let's get this over with. Impress me, Peter. Can you get this boat started or not?"

It was happening. No matter how much he might wish otherwise. All he could do was help her, in any way he could. And she wanted him to impress her, didn't she? Impressing her was always his goal. It had been so from the moment he'd first laid eyes on her. How could he not have wanted to? It was instinctual, like breathing.

"Impress you?" he said, giving her his best smirk, the one she'd privately admitted had driven her crazy back in the old days, back before the world had come crashing down around them. "Now that I can do, Agent Dunham."

#

* * *

#

Olivia waited in the captain's chair, legs crossed beneath her. Swiveling absently from side to side, she gazed down at the wisps of dark hair on Peter's exposed midriff as he worked below her, his upper half buried beneath the yacht's control console.

"Try it now," he instructed.

She did so silently, pushing the button labeled as the starter. When nothing happened she frowned, shaking her head. She'd been trying to be patient, but if this was Peter trying to impress her, he was doing a fairly poor job of it.

"Anything?"

"Umm... nope."

"Fuck! Goddamn it. Hold on."

Peter continued to grumble under his breath about colors being wrong and cursing whatever asshole had decided to arbitrarily change the fucking rules on him. Whatever that meant.

Suddenly Ella's head popped up over the top rung of the ladder up to the bridge. She glanced at Peter on his back, a small frown forming on her lips. "Are we leaving soon, Aunt Liv?"

"Peter's still working on getting the boat started, Ell," she told her niece. "And we have to wait for Astrid and the others to get here anyway. Are you in a hurry?"

"No...," Ella admitted shaking her head. Her eyes widened, brimming with excitement — a sight all too rare as of late. "But they have that movie about the talking cars on disc, and the one about the pirates and the lady. But Mom says we have to wait until the boat is running before we can watch them."

"Your mom is right, sweetie," she said. "You're just gonna have to wait. It shouldn't be too much longer, should it, Peter?"

An irritated grunt floated up from below. "Sure. I've only got about a hundred more possible combinations or so to go. Should be a piece of cake."

Olivia winced. So he was down to just randomly guessing at the correct wires to splice together? No wonder he sounded annoyed. A single glance at the mess of wires thicker than her wrist jammed beneath the console was enough for her to see that the job was miles above her head, though Peter had seemed confident. At first.

"I'm sure it won't be long," she said to Ella with more confidence that she felt.

Her niece nodded glumly, before disappearing back down the ladder. Yawning into her hands, she gazed out over the bay toward the horizon. There was a break in the clouds, and rays of sunlight shone on distant waters that glistened like a golden mirage.

As she waited for Peter's next attempt, her mind drifted inevitably to the tiny life growing inside her. She had nearly told him during their earlier conversation below decks. Holding it back had hurt, almost physically. His desperate need to understand her own desperation had been a knife stabbing deep into her heart. He deserved to know about his child. But he would have tried to stop her. He might have told Rachel. Or worse, Walter, who then might not agree to help her. And that, she could not allow. Peter would be angry, of course, when she finally told him. But he would understand her reasoning, after the fact. Wouldn't he? After Sonia? He had to. It was all she could hold onto. And if she failed, then the issue would be moot. For both of them.

"All right, Liv," Pete's voice suddenly intruded. "I think I got it this time. Try it again."

"You sure?" Olivia grinned, unable stop herself from needling him. "Cause I'm pretty sure I've heard that before. Several times now, in fact."

Peter scooted out from beneath the console, his face wounded and covered in sweat. "Hey, you want to take a turn down here?" he said with a scowl. He held his hands up, grimacing. "My knuckles look like raw hamburger."

"All right," she said, giggling at his feigned outrage. "Attempt number twenty-seven. Here goes nothing, Captain." She pushed the button again, and the entire boat seemed to lurch in its mooring, and then a deep rumble vibrated her chair. The dials on the control console lit up, their needles bouncing. At the yacht's bow, ocean water churned and boiled. Directly above her head, the radar scanner made a steady humming noise as it began spinning about on its post. "It's working, Peter!" she gasped, filled with sudden exhilaration. "It's working!"

"So I noticed," he said, sitting up with a huge grin. "What did I tell you? Are you impressed yet, Agent Dunham? I just committed grand larceny to the sixth power of ten or so for you."

"The sixth power of ten, huh?" Olivia said in a bland tone. "That sounds like felony, Bishop. I don't consort with criminals."

All of a sudden, she found herself wanting him, hungering for him, and out of the blue she envisioned herself straddling him right then and there, having her way with him, despite the others on board. Such thoughts had been occurring more and more frequently as of late, and could be triggered by the most innocuous of things; a sideways glance or the way the deep groove would appear between Peter's eyes when he was concentrating on something fully; watching his long fingers perform dexterous feats, fine motor skill work — such as hot-wiring a multi-million-dollar yacht. She found herself leaning toward him in her seat, nostrils flaring, panting with desire.

"You uh... you okay, Liv?" Peter said.

His blue eyes were curious, the deep groove appearing as they narrowed, sending an electric thrill southward. Her nipples grew into taut pebbles of iron beneath her t-shirt, stiffening until her breasts ached. Olivia swallowed, breathing in and out. "I... I'm fine," she said, her voice sounding utterly false in her ears. If only he would just stop looking at her like that, then she could regain the upper hand. Blinking repeatedly, she tried to rein in her suddenly raging hormones. "I just... I'm impressed. Nice Job."

His eyes narrowed further. "Okay... well, how does she look?"

"How... how does who look?" she managed to stammer through the cloud of lust.

"The boat? The tach — the RPM gauge? What's she idling at? How much fuel do we have?"

What was he saying? She...? RPM? Idling?  _It's the boat. He's talking about the boat, you fool!_  Olivia gave herself a mental slap.  _Get a hold of yourself. It's just Peter. It's not like you haven't fucked him sideways already. How do you think you ended up in your delicate condition?_

With an effort — and it was an effort — she swiveled away from him, excising his pretty face and eyes off from her field of view. Forcing her eyes open, she ran her gaze over the circular dials and readouts, until she found the right ones. "...She, I mean the boat, is idling at twelve hundred RPMs, and... and the tank is full, Peter!"

Grunting slightly, he climbed to his feet, then leaned over her shoulder studying the dials. "Excellent," he said with an approving nod, rubbing his palms together. He leaned even closer, invading her personal space as he always did, without thought. She could smell him now; the particular scent that her brain had come to associate with Peter Bishop. "I think we're good to go," he went on, oblivious to her torment. "Now all we need is for Astrid and the others to get back. You think they're okay?"

Olivia dug her fingernails into the bare flesh of her thigh. She had to get away from him, now, before he noticed what was wrong with her. "Astrid...?" she said in a voice that sounded like a squawk. "I'm sure they're fine. They know better than to do anything stupid." She popped up from her chair, nearly bashing his head with her own. "Well, I'll leave you to it, Peter. I'm gonna go check on the others."

Before he could reply, she slipped past him, swinging onto the narrow ladder down to the deck below. Her foot slipped in her sudden haste, she came close to falling on her ass before catching the railing at the last moment.

"Liv."

Olivia froze on the ladder, her eyes level with his waist. "Yeah?"

"You sure you're feeling okay?"

"I'm fine, Peter," she told him carefully. "I'm good. I'm... I'm normal."

Before her stupid mouth could utter any more such inanities, she continued down the ladder. When she was out of his view, she paused, taking in slow breaths. _What am I doing? What the hell is wrong with me?_  It was like he'd been unwittingly radiating some kind of fuck aura — one that her body had reacted strongly to.  _You've got sex on the brain, and now is nowhere near the time or place_. On the heels of that thought, a conversation she'd had with her sister years ago came rushing back.

_God, Liv, it's like I can't stop thinking about sex. Almost anything sets me off. I swear I've never been so horny, ever. Not even when I was a teenager. And do you know what the best part is? I don't even need to worry about getting pregnant!_ That had been when Rachel was pregnant with Ella, early in her first trimester. The next time they'd spoken several weeks later, her sister had been complaining of morning sickness, of puking her guts up multiple times a day, every day. Sex had been the furthest thing from her mind.

_Fuck. That's all I need._

Olivia made her way down to the lower deck. Leaving Peter's general proximity seemed to help, and she soon felt almost like herself again. Almost, except that now that she'd become aware of it, her breasts continued to ache. And did they feel heavier? What other joys of motherhood did she have to look forward to? How soon would she be heaving up her breakfast and lunch, her dinner? How was she supposed to eat for two when she frequently skimped on food for one?

Excited voices echoed up through the door to the lower deck, Walter's hearty laugh among them, and the girls' also. And what sounded like a television. With a sigh, she turned to see what the racket was all about, but went still at the sight of a white SUV pulling up beside the maroon Suburban in the parking lot.

"They made it, Peter!" she called up to the bridge.

"I see them," his voice came back a moment later. "I wonder if she found her dad."

Olivia wondered also. She watched as they piled out of the Mercedes, one after another. Four of them, not five. A pang of sorrow burned through her chest. One more death to lay at some monster's feet. "I'm sorry, Astrid," she whispered as they began unloading their gear in the distance. A moment later four figures were hurrying toward them, lugging their backpacks on their shoulders. She glanced up and found Peter watching her from above, the wind blowing his hair to one side.

"You ready?" he asked.

She shook her head slowly. "No, not really. But we're doing it anyway," she said, meeting his gaze. He didn't like her plan, what she'd told him of it, at least. That much was abundantly clear. But he trusted her, and his trust was all that mattered. "I want to go as soon as they're on board."

"Aye, aye, Captain," Peter replied without a trace of humor.

#

The  _Coy Mistress_  surged forward through the water into the teeth of the cresting wave. The wave struck with a booming thud, shaking the deck, rattling everything not tied down. A great splash followed, spraying up and outward, then blowing back over the rails in a fine mist that tasted like salt as the yacht plowed ahead, engines screaming in a guttural rumble. The wind roared in cool defiance of their passage.

Abruptly, the deck tilted forward beneath Olivia's feet. Her stomach seemed to simultaneously contract and expand, and then they were racing downward again, gaining speed, sliding down a hill of water into the valley between waves. The ocean rose up around them, blotting out the horizon, swelling until it towered over the gunwales as if it were some alive thing, as if there was some gargantuan sea creature rising up from the depths, trying to pierce the surface so it could swallow them hole. Another thudding crash shook the boat, followed by another massive splash, no mist this time, but a solid wall that covered the yacht from bow to stern. The deck leapt beneath her feet, tilting suddenly upward again, nearly knocking Olivia off her feet. As it did so, a composed but distant thought informed her that if not for her death-grip on the nearest handrail, she more than likely would have been tossed overboard.

_We are all going to die_ , Olivia thought, hooking her entire arm around the rail, and mopping the salt water from her eyes.  _What the fuck possessed me to think this was a good idea? I must have been out of my mind. I'd rather walk to New York. I'd rather crawl_ _!_

Beside her, gripping the handrail with one hand, Peter rode each wave like he was riding a surfboard, knees bent, hair whipping about in the gusting wind. Below the aviator sunglasses he'd found up on the bridge, the man was grinning from ear to ear. How could he be grinning when her stomach felt as if it might empty out its contents at any moment? She wanted to hit him. She wanted to knock the idiot smile right off his idiot face.

Seated on the deck below them in the yacht's prow, Ella and Gina were having the time of their young lives, their laughs and screams filling the air at each hill and valley, at each thunderous splash. Rachel sat between them, wearing a pink bikini top she'd apparently been saving for just such an occasion. Astrid and Claire sat in front of them on a narrow bench in the prow, each soaked to their skin by the frenzying waves.

"Get ready, here comes another one!" Lincoln Lee shouted with glee from the bridge. "Off the port bow!"

Olivia's stomach slammed against her rib cage as the yacht swerved hard to face the incoming wave. Clenching her gut, she threw a look made of daggers up behind her at Lincoln, standing at the helm, spinning the wheel with an intense look of concentration. Perched on the copilot's seat beside him was an open-mouthed Walter, who managed to somehow look both terrified and ecstatic at the same time. Broyles stood at their side, his face as expressive as a block of wood.

The yacht rode up the wave, topping the crest and slamming down on the back side with a thunderous splash. Lincoln Lee whooped above them and the girls laughed and squealed with delight. Then out of the blue the blaring dirge of an air horn filled the air, accompanied by a mad cackle of laughter that could have only been issued forth from Walter's lips. Another wave followed, and then another, smaller, and then the waves were gone, the ocean still and serene, as if they hadn't just endured what felt like hours of endless pounding. Far to the east, the grayish storm front retreated toward the horizon. Occasional flashes of light bloomed inside the cloud mass, as if an aerial bombardment was taking place just over the horizon.

Peter exhaled loudly, glancing around. "Well, that was fun, wasn't it?"

_Fun?_  Maybe he had more in common with his father than he realized. "Yeah. Sure," Olivia replied prying her fingers loose from the railing. "Fun."

"You feeling okay?" he said with a frown, eyes tightening with concern. "You're looking a little green."

She cleared her throat, swallowing down the lingering taste of bile lodged in her throat since they'd first encountered the stormy weather after turning south out of Massachusetts Bay and crossed into the open Atlantic. Had she ever experienced such sickness on a boat before? Was it real sea sickness? Or the beginnings of something else? Something to do with her... condition?

"I don't think my stomach agrees with our decision to travel south by boat, Peter," she said, then peered up at Lincoln. "Or maybe it's just our current pilot."

"You want something for sea sickness? Walter's probably got something that will do the trick in his stash. Did you know the man's got more drugs than he does clothes in his bag? It's a miracle the man hasn't overdosed yet."

Motion sickness drugs? Would they hurt a fetus? She had no idea, but there was no way to ask him, or anyone for that matter. She was on her own. "That's all right, Peter," she said, trying to force a lightness into her voice that she didn't feel. "I think I might just go lie down for a bit, see if that helps."

"You sure?" Peter asked, his frown deepening. "You want me to come with?"

"No, I'll be fine," she told him firmly, and then paused, glaring up at Lincoln again as he chatted with Broyles. "Why don't you go remind our Lincoln that we're not actually on a pleasure cruise, and that some of us would like to keep down our dinner, if that's all right with him."

Peter grinned, then leaned forward and kissed her lightly on the corner of her mouth. It was an unfeigned, domestic sort of gesture, and done without thought on his part. A warm and fuzzy feeling swept through her, and a sudden rush of emotion seized her throat, mid-breath.  _It's_  me _that doesn't deserve_ you _, Peter_ , she thought, trembling on the inside.  _It's me, not you._  At least he wasn't a liar, especially to those he loved most.

"I'll be sure to let Lincoln know just how you feel about his driving abilities," he said with an evil smirk, then reached for the ladder and began pulling himself upward.

Olivia shook her head. Something of a rivalry had developed between the two men, and she sometimes found herself musing on whether or not the same dynamic existed between Lincoln and Peter Bishop from his own universe. The man was highly intelligent, her Peter had admitted once, grudgingly, and she wondered if he was feeling usurped as the resident genius that  _wasn't_  crazy.

#

When Peter was gone, she leaned over the rail, gazing out at the ocean. The occasional sprays of mist dampened her face as the yacht chugged along. She looked around for the shore but there was not a hint of land in sight, in any direction. It struck her then that for the first time in nearly a year, there was no reason to keep her guard up, no chance of an infected's attack, or of being devoured by monster's that shouldn't exist.

They were truly alone. They were safe.

Olivia glanced down at Rachel and the others where they were seated in the prow, talking and chatting and laughing amongst themselves. Their voices echoed over the rumble of the engines, faces relaxed and carefree. And happy, as if some great weight or burden had been lifted from their shoulders, if only temporarily. Some part of her longed to go down and join them, but she found that she could not — even if her stomach hadn't felt like it was full of rancid milk. Though she hated it, a distance had sprung up between them in the wake of Sonia's death. A kind of isolation, only self-imposed. Even Peter hadn't been spared. It was her lie, of course, the truth she was keeping from them. But it was also the knowledge that to do what she must, would require embracing the part of herself that she wanted nothing to do with. The part of herself that made her a freak, a monster no less unnatural than the one that had killed Charlie.

So instead she retreated below decks, down to the cramped cabin that was hers and Peters. The room consisted of a single narrow bed and a set of drawers that also served as a nightstand. The drawers were bolted to the wall, to mahogany paneling she suspected had not come cheap. A single porthole in the outside wall made a circle of light across the bed. There was nothing cheap about the yacht — their yacht, now, she supposed, as its owners were surely long since dead.

She lay down on the bed and stared up at the ceiling. It was a mustardy color, and sort of reminded her of an infected's dead gaze. The bed moved beneath her, rising and falling as the boat cut through the water. Behind the headboard, the dual engines emitted a low vibration that was soothing in a way, as the hiss of static on a television screen in the middle of the night was soothing, or the constant hiss of an air vent in the background when she was on the edge of sleep.

Little by little, in increments, she began to relax, taking measured breaths. Out of habit, she pressed down on her womb, trying to discern a difference from what she normally felt, but there was nothing. It was still too early. But she could sense other changes, like the dull ache in her breasts, her strange moodiness, the way she'd come close to attacking Peter, and damn the consequences. Her body was changing, becoming something other than wholly her own.

_You're going to be a mother... if you live long enough_ _._

She intended to live long enough, and there was only one way to do that. Taking a breath, she let her eyes fall closed, shutting away the cabin and the physical world. In the months since her escape from Jacob Fischer's torturous hands, attaining the mindset required to access her abilities had grown easier. A little. Sometimes it took multiple attempts, or was out of reach altogether, like grasping at air. But she'd been determined to follow through on her promise to Peter — to take him home if he wanted — and had finally consulted Walter in her quest to do so. She hadn't told him why, of course, but his advice had helped.

Her abilities were like an atrophied muscle, he had said, and that only with constant practice, with repetition, could she ever hope to access them without thought, without being in a heightened emotional state. It was like learning to read, or better, learning to think in a foreign language — extremely difficult for an adult to accomplish — and yet another reason why the cortexiphan trials had been conducted on children.

So she had practiced, and the proper mindset came more quickly now, if only just. It wasn't so much about being afraid or terrified as she'd first thought, but more about belief. True belief, through and through, all the way down to the soles of her feet. Belief that the things she could do, she could. That what she wanted to happen,  _would_  happen, without the tiniest shred of doubt. The clue she'd needed had been staring her in the face all along, form the very first time she'd crossed over to the other side on the bridge in Cambridge. She had been startled then, her body and mind reacting on instinct alone, before the impossibility of what she was doing could intercede. Thus far, her successes were limited to several short jaunts to the other world, back to the waiting room she had visited from her cell, and to the morgue where she had appeared sans clothing in front of a startled pathologist. But it was not her universe hopping ability she wanted or needed to practice now — even if she hadn't been on a boat in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, with no land in sight.

She had come to think of the part of her that could sense and manipulate the connectedness of the world around her as her inner eye. It was opening.

The tiny cabin became something more, larger somehow, with hidden depth previously unnoticed. She could not only see the ornamental lamp on the nightstand, but feel it from afar. The grain of its wooden base, the cold metal of the screw securing the lamp in place. It was vibrating. The room was vibrating; her clothes, the nightstand, the pocket door, their bags, the pair of swords propped against the wall in the corner, the boat, the very air itself, and a round coin she sensed on the floor at the foot of the bed.

_A coin. Yes. It's perfect._

Focusing on the coin, she reached out, pulling with her inner eye on the infinity of threads connecting to herself and everything else. The coin. She could sense other  _things_  now, the lines of force, the border that wasn't a border at all, but more like a veil, a curtain that might be parted if she so chose. But she didn't choose. Sending the coin into the Atlantic on the other side was not her goal. She closed her eyes again, blocking out the cabin, yet keeping her inner eye open, questing. It was sometimes easier this way, without her mundane vision interfering, casting doubts. The sense of _other_  grew stronger, the lines of connectedness taking on form and texture. A stray thought sent them rippling like strings on a piano. The ripples meant something, but what, she couldn't say, nor could she even describe them in a way that would make sense to someone that had never witnessed their strange etherealness.

The coin wasn't on the floor, weighing down fibers of carpet that bristled microscopically, it was in the air. It was floating, moving up and over, rotating, spinning, lines of force raying out in every direction. Reality flexed, and flexed back. The coin was the center point of a maelstrom, reality knitting and unknitting. The coin was in front of her, above her. Her inner eye stared down on it, through it, inside it. The coin was a part of her, she was part of it, a pair of ideograms stitched onto the surface of the veil, made from the same threads.

Olivia opened her eyes.

The coin was there, hovering above, revolving ever so slowly on one edge. A copper penny. The year, 2002. Traces of sweat beaded on her brow. The sense of other began to fade, the lines of force blurring inside her mind. She focused harder, tensing her inner eye, forcing the connection to cease its retreat. She held out her hand. Her palm shook. She dared not think, only to feel. The coin began to descend even as she pictured it doing so in her mind, lowering gently until it stood balanced in the center of her palm. Distantly, she felt her muscles tightening up, a sharp kink developing in the back of her neck. But she ignored her body, she ignored the growing kink, the bead of sweat dripping into her left eye. She ignored everything but the coin. Her breath rasped, the only sound in the tiny cabin. She wasn't done. There was something else she had to try.

Straining hard enough to lift a mountain, she imagined the penny rising off her palm, and it did so, rising in front of her, revolving. When it was even with her eyes, she made it stop, with Lincoln's profile facing her. Honest Abe's single eye glistened, capturing an errant ray of light from the porthole. She could feel the penny, the particles of light warming its surface, exciting its molecules. She wanted it hotter. Much hotter.

Describing what she did next was impossible, other than to say that she wanted it hotter, and so hotter it became. Its particles churned into a frenzy. The penny glowed, turning bright red around the edges. It began to smoke, white acrid wisps that twisted upward, meandering along the ceiling. The reddish glow spread inward to the center until the penny was a bright orange, radiating light. There was a silent pop, and a blue flame appeared out of nothing, enveloping it. Heat baked across her cheeks. Sweat soaked the collar of her shirt. The flame formed into a sphere, wavering, yellow and green and orange streaks roiling across its surface, and its globular shape defied gravity, perfectly formed.

_It's so beautiful_ , she thought, gazing upon the coin in wonder. Like a blooming hemlock was beautiful, or a dying star gone supernova. Beautiful, yet deadly. Her eyes began to water, and then she found herself holding back tears.

It  _was_  beautiful. And she had made it. She had  _created_  it. Like she had created the life growing in her womb. Something shifted inside her. Maybe her abilities weren't all bad. Maybe she could live with herself, live with being different. Maybe there was more to them than destruction and death. Perhaps she wasn't a monster, a freak, after all. Maybe she was just a woman, trying to find her way in a harsh world, the same as she'd always been.

Olivia smiled, trembling. A lump formed in her throat.  _Maybe I can do this. Maybe it will be okay_.

"Aunt Liv...?"

Ella's sudden gasp sent currents of fear shooting up Olivia's spine. She spared a single glance to the doorway and found her niece frozen in the hall outside. Her hand was frozen mid-gesture, eyes popping out of their sockets, mouth dropped open in a picture of childlike wonder.

_Shit..._

The penny wobbled, its revolutions becoming less than perfect. Her control of it began to slip, and that was when she realized her mistake.

Not content with making it levitate, she had created a fireball, with a white-hot misshapen glob of metal at its core. And if that wasn't bad enough, she had made it in the belly of a boat, in a room filled with nothing but flammable objects. What the hell was she going to do with it? Drop it on the floor? The bed? Anywhere she might put it was certain to start a fire. A rush of cold fear flooded her synapses.  _Great idea, Liv. Let's burn the fucking boat down next time._

"Stay out there, Ella," Olivia said in a tight voice. "I just... I just have to get rid of this." There was only one way. She had done it before, once, in another place.

Reaching out for the veil, she found it almost instantly. It was there, all around her, the impression of  _other_ , the fuzzy border between worlds, between one reality and the next, or perhaps all of them. She shut her eyes and pictured the coin on the other side, surrounded by cool salt water. The coin was somewhere else. It was over there. It was sinking, boiling the water around it, twirling endlessly in the currents before disappearing into the frigid blackness of another ocean.

She felt  _something,_ and the coin abruptly vanished from her senses. She opened her eyes in time to see the globule of blue fire dissipate, disintegrating like a soap bubble popping in slow motion. When it was gone, she stared at the spot where it had been. Her pounding heart reverberated inside her chest, thumping as if she'd just completed a marathon. What had she felt at the moment it had disappeared? A sudden blurring? A kind of fuzziness along the lines of force emanating from the penny? She knew no words to describe the sensation, but the penny was gone, sent safely elsewhere.

Olivia took in a breath, then exhaled slowly with relief. She glanced at Ella, and the pure adoration playing across her niece's face made her cringe on the inside. "Please don't look at me like that, baby girl," she said, sitting up on her elbows. "I can't bear it. I'm still your aunt, just like I was before."

Ella came into the room. "But you can do magic, Aunt Liv!" she blurted, climbing onto the bed. "It was so pretty! Like a flower, only made of fire. Can you do it again? Can you make another one? And where did it go? Was it hard?"

"It was very hard," she said, mopping sweat from her forehead. "And if I'd been using my brain, I wouldn't have done it at all."

"But why?"

"Because it was dangerous. Because I can't control it very well, yet."

Her niece seemed to ponder this for a moment, her eyes distant, before nodding slowly. "But you'll get better," she said, her voice confident, as if it was already a given in her mind. "I know you will."

Olivia grunted, lifting Ella onto her lap. "Maybe. We'll just have to see." She pulled her niece close, wrapping her arms around her waist. "So, what made you come down here, baby girl? It looked like you and Gina were having fun up there. Did you get tired of the waves?"

Ella shook her head. "No. I just missed you," she said, nuzzling into Olivia's arms. "Aunt Liv, what's it like to do magic?"

"It's not magic, honey," she replied, leaning back against the padded headboard. "But, it's kind of like... I don't know, like having another set of senses, maybe. Do you know what I mean by senses?"

"Like another pair of eyes or something? Or another nose?"

"Sort of, only it's inside my head. Sometimes I can, see and feel... things, things that my eyes can't see, or that I can't touch. It's hard to explain."

"Can I learn to do it too?" The hopefulness in her voice was impossible to miss.

"Oh, sweetie," Olivia said, hugging her tight. "I don't think so. It's not something that you can learn." And if she ever found Walter trying to dose her niece with cortexiphan, he was a dead man.

"Is it because of Walter, Aunt Liv?" Ella asked suddenly, tilting her head back until their eyes met. "That he did something to you? That's what I heard Mom say. I don't think she likes him very much anymore... but, I still like him. He's still my friend. Is that okay?"

"Of course, it's okay to still be his friend. It's just..." Olivia trailed off with a sigh, shaking her head. "Well, it's complicated."

" _It,_  is always complicated," her niece commented in awfully dry tone for a six-year-old girl going on seven.

"It does seem that way, doesn't it?" she said, grinning faintly as she rested her chin in Ella's hair.  _If you only knew how complicated it actually was, baby girl..._

The boat rocked up and down, giving off the occasional creak just barely audible above the rumble of the engines. Olivia passed the time by running her fingers through Ella's hair, combing out her knots. She'd been letting it grow out over the summer, and a long ponytail reached halfway down her back. With their increased diet at the asylum, her niece had grown an inch or two, as if her body were racing to make up for the last year. And that wasn't the only change, just the most obvious. Ella had become prone to long, introspective silences now, and didn't laugh as much as she used to. Frequently, an odd glint would appear in her eyes, one that was older than her years, a look that spoke to all the horrors she'd endured. Her innocence was lost, never to be found again. But in its place, however, remained a young girl whom she could see sprouting into a capable young woman.

"Aunt Liv, what will happen when we get to New York?" Ella asked after a time.

Olivia went still, her fingers paused amid a particularly large knot of hair. "I don't know what's going to happen," she said, resuming her stroking. "But whatever it is, we'll figure something out, together. Just like we always have."

#

Night found Olivia on the stern deck, leaning over the railing as the ocean churned and frothed in their wake, shimmering dimly beneath the starlight. The engines purred beneath her feet, vibrating pleasantly through the soles of her boots. She breathed, taking in a breath laced with the tang of saltwater.

The weather had finally cleared and they cruised the rest of the day and into the evening, rounding an indistinguishable landmass to the west that she assumed was Cape Cod before passing within spitting distance a large island that could only have been Nantucket, just after sunset. Darkness had blanketed the island, with not a single light or sign of anything alive to be seen. Further west lay the island of Martha's Vineyard, of presidential fame. The island was over the horizon, but she was certain it would appear just as lifeless as its neighbor.

At cruising speed, the  _Coy Mistress_  was not what anyone would ever call swift. Simply driving to New York from Worcester would have been several orders of magnitude faster. But, there was something to be said for a day or two of stress-free travel. She had fallen asleep with Ella on her lap, and in the meantime, someone had been busy in the galley, rustling up a dinner of canned baked beans and potato soup, also from a can. The food was nothing special, but they were infinitely better than venison, of which she'd had enough to last a life time.

She scooped up the last bit of her potato soup, imagining for a moment that she was in her apartment. That she'd just arrived home from a long day and soft music played in the background, something classical, like Bach, maybe, or better yet, some jazz — it seemed she needed some jazz in her life. That she'd left her windows open, and traffic was backing up in the street below as it sometimes did, that there were honks and voices complaining and stray beats of music filtering in from outside, something with a bassy thump that would rattle the window frames. In her mind's eye, there was a new addition in her apartment, two of them; a baby's mournful cries from the spare bedroom, and gentle, male whispers of succor. Painful longing accompanied her reverie, a longing not felt in months. Or perhaps it had merely been suppressed, and the strange normalcy and safety of the yacht had drawn it forth once more.

She heard someone approach behind her and found Peter making his way carefully along the walking space beside the port side gunwale. He carried a glass tumbler in his left hand, and as he leaned up against the rail beside her, pungent wasps of bourbon drifted across her nose, sharp odors of vanilla and toffee and caramel that made her mouth water.

"Hey, you," he said, bumping up against her shoulder. "We're gonna drop anchor for the night soon. Lincoln's bringing us around to Nantucket Harbor, it'll give us some cover from any storms or rogue waves. You feeling better?"

Earlier, she had emerged from the lower deck to find him at the helm, flanked on both sides by Lincoln and Broyles, along with Walter. To her surprise they had been talking, he and his father. Holding a conversation. And for a wonder Peter hadn't looked like he was gargling turpentine. When was the last time she had seen that? Surely since before they'd left Cambridge. Little by little, they were improving, making the best of the situation.

"Yeah, I'm all better," she replied, glancing around for somewhere to stow her empty soup bowl, before settling on the white seat cushion beside her. "Did you eat"

Peter nodded. "Baked beans for me. You may want to clear the area in a few hours." With a grin, he offered her his glass. "Want some? I found some Woodford Reserve behind the bar. It tastes like providence."

Olivia looked away, shaking her head. "No... I... I'm not really in the mood for it tonight," she said, and then quickly changed the subject before he could draw any inferences from her refusal. "I was... practicing earlier," she admitted, suddenly self-conscious. "My abilities, I mean. Ella walked in on me. I was making a penny float, and then like an idiot, I decided to make it catch on fire."

"That... maybe doesn't seem like the best idea," Peter said after a moment, his eyes narrowing. "All things considered."

"You think? Here I am, freaking out, because I have a molten penny floating above the bed and nowhere to put it."

"What did you do?"

"I did the only thing I could do," she said with a shrug, and then hesitated, wetting her lips. "I... I sent it to the other side. To the other universe."

Peter blinked, then let out a low whistle. "You can do that?"

"Yeah," she nodded. "That's how I escaped from Jacob Fischer's lab."

Peter took a sip of whiskey and stared out over the water. " My girlfriend is a superhero," he murmured after a moment, and she wasn't sure if he was talking to her, or himself, or just making a general public service announcement. "That's pretty insane," he said, grinning as he turned to face her. "And insanely cool. But what does that make me? Your plucky sidekick?"

"What? Would you have a problem with being my sidekick?" She watched him consider the idea, and was more than a little envious when he rolled another sip of bourbon between his cheeks.

"Not at all," he replied shortly, "but, I don't have any superpowers, you know."

"True, but you have other skills," she said, then eyed him askance. "Useful ones."

Peter grinned a crooked grin. "Then I'd be honored to be your sidekick, Agent Dunham, specializing in stress relief."

"Stress relief?" Olivia snorted a laugh. "For the record, I was talking about your skills with your hands, Peter. You know, fixing stuff."

"Yeah? And so was I."

Swallowing, Olivia felt a different kind of longing then, and did her best to suppress it. At least until they were alone later. Some things could only be held at bay for so long. "So, what were you doing while I was trying to burn us down to the water line?" she asked.

"I took a turn behind the wheel. This boat is amazing. We could live on her, you know? In fact, we should have been doing this from the beginning, just putting ashore when we need to resupply. Though I guess fuel would be a problem." He shook his head and sighed. "You know when I was younger, I saw myself retiring on a boat like this. Sailing the high seas, traveling the world. It was true freedom — from everything."

"And was there a woman in this fantasy of yours?" she asked, curious to know what the dreams of his younger self were like.

"Not as such." He shrugged, then met her gaze. "But there is now. A certain pain-in-the-ass FBI agent who conned her way into my life."

She arched a cool eyebrow. "Conned her way in, did she now? You're right. She does sound like a pain in the ass. But here's the kicker, Peter. Would you go back and change anything if you could? Apart from the world as we knew it coming to an end."

"The world as I knew it came to an end the moment I laid eyes on this FBI agent. So no, I wouldn't change a thing. The real question, is whether or not she would change anything."

Olivia hesitated. Why did the conversation suddenly feel like a negotiation? Or better, an ending? She wondered if he could sense what was coming. Had some part of him concluded that her plan would be highly dangerous? That her own death was a likely end result? A painful longing went through her, to tell him everything, to tell him about the child growing inside of her, to reassure him. But she could not. She couldn't lie to him, but neither could she allow him to stop her from going through with it. So, she did the only thing she could, and took the coward's way out, as she had since she'd first seen the pink lines on the pregnancy test kits.

"Apart from the people she knew and loved dying," she told him, "and the majority of the world's population turning into walking corpses? I doubt she'd change much of anything."

"What about John, then?" he asked, abandoning all pretenses of their little charade.

"What about John? He's dead." There was an opening there, to tell him about her encounter with the remainder of John's consciousness, left over from the mind-meld in the tank, but why confuse the issue? In the end, John had been betraying her from the beginning, admitted from his own mouth. And that was that. "Maybe there's some other Olivia Dunham out there in this multi-verse thing that's still in love with him," she went on, "but it's not me. Peter, why are you bringing up John all of a sudden?"

Peter gulped down the last of his drink, wincing slightly. "I don't know. Just making sure you're still with me, I guess. Liv, you've been... distant lately, with all of us. Since Sonia died. Which I understand, of course. Rachel asked me how you were doing. She said you wouldn't talk to her about it. And I think I know why."

Olivia suddenly felt cold all over. "...You do?"

"Yeah. I'd like to think I know you pretty well, now. You're afraid of what's going to happen tomorrow. You're afraid that you might fail at whatever you have planned, and that we'll never see you again. That I'll never see you again."

"I am afraid, Peter," she whispered. "There's a lot that can go wrong. I guess I've been preparing myself for that possibility. I'm sorry."

Instead of telling her that it would all be okay, he shook his head, then put his hand over hers on the railing. "Yeah. Me too."

#

"See anyone?" Lincoln asked, glancing at Peter beside him at the helm. "Or anything?"

Peter shook his head, keeping the binoculars pressed against his eyes. "No. No one. No one alive, at any rate."

After passing the night in the relative calm of a small cove off the western tip of Nantucket, they were making good time, cruising southwest along the eastern seaboard. The rains had departed, leaving in their stead a sweltering heat, sticky with humidity below a cloudless sky. The daylight was bright to the point of blinding. A stiff crosswind blowing in off the starboard bow seemed full of grit that scored across Olivia's cheeks and stank of rotting fish to boot. They were alone on deck, as the others had retreated from the pressure cooker that was being the topside, down into the incredible coolness of the air conditioning below decks — which had transformed a million-dollar yacht into a near-priceless commodity, in her opinion.

She shaded her eyes, squinting toward the distant shoreline, stretching the width of the horizon. The air seemed to waver, as if the ocean itself was boiling, sending up rising waves of heat. With her unaided eyes, the shore of Long Island was a thin strip of white and uninterrupted line of dark smudges that might have been anything, man-made structures or landscape.

"Let me see those, Peter," she said, holding out her hand for the binoculars. He passed them to her without a word, and she lifted them to her eyes.

The distant shoreline sprang into view. The beach was tan, not white as she'd thought, and glinted with infinite sparkles of reflected sunlight. Beyond the beach was a row of massive houses, widely spaced, with tall bushes and hedgerows that while overgrown at present, had been well manicured in the recent past. The homes had unique architectures, from classical to post-modern, and each was a private castle in their own right.  _They probably sold for more money than I would have made in my lifetime working for the Bureau_ , she thought, lowering the binoculars for a moment.

"What am I looking at?" she asked, glancing at Peter.

"Those would be the East Hamptons," he said, putting his sunglasses back into place. "I think I recognized one of the houses on the beach. I knew a guy who used to throw these wild parties back in the day. Back when I was into that kind of thing."

"As opposed to now?" Lincoln said with a smirk. "Where I come from, this side of Long Island is pretty much deserted. After the vortex opened up on the East River and sucked in a couple hundred people, property values tanked. Everyone sold at once, and it was a race right to the bottom. Today, all those mansions with their pools and tennis courts? They're all empty, boarded up, or homes for vagrants. Or both."

Olivia took another look through the binoculars, trying to visualize Lincoln's version of Long Island. These vortexes he kept mentioning sounded like something out of a nightmare, or bad science fiction movie. "What else is different about your world, Lincoln?" she asked, continuing to scan the beach. "How different is it?"

"It's different. Some of your technology is... well, just way behind, in my opinion, at least. Your weapons are what come to mind the most. They look like antiques from my world. And from what little I've seen of your communication tech, it seems like the kind of stuff we were using decades ago, too."

"And yet you guys still have smallpox, don't you?" she said absently, tracking a figure stumbling through the breakers along the shoreline. Now that her eyes had adjusted to the distance, other figures were visible, some in numbers, other solitary, moving aimlessly between properties.

"Of course," Lincoln said with a frown. "Don't you?"

"We had smallpox eradicated worldwide by 1980," Peter said. "You're telling me people still get smallpox where you're from? That's utterly bizarre. Maybe Edward Jenner died of it on your world before he could discover the vaccine. And how the hell did you know that, Liv?"

"There was a poster on the wall over there," she explained, lowering the binoculars. "I saw it when I crossed over trying to escape from Jacob Fischer. Smallpox and You, I think that's what the title said. It was a list of bullet points."

"Oh, yeah?" Lincoln shook his head in wonder, scratching the side of his chin. "Huh. I remember posters like that from when I was a kid. You mean you guys never had to sit through smallpox prevention and education classes?"

"No, we had AIDS education and prevention," Pete said.

"Aids? What the hell is that?"

Olivia lifted the binoculars again, scanning the shoreline as it slid past in the distance while Peter and Lincoln continued comparing the various differences between their worlds. She had never been to the Hamptons. Nor had she ever known anyone that had owned a house in the area, or ever had a reason to visit them. But she would have liked to have seen them in their heyday. To have vacationed there, renting out a house or such. People had done that, hadn't they? But she'd never had the time. And who would she have gone with? Herself? How pathetic was that? Before John, there had been no one in years — no one serious, at least. Other than several ill-advised dips into the dating pool — which had typically been awkward affairs followed by even more awkward goodbyes — her life had been consumed by her work. Sure, she'd been making a difference and it had been fulfilling in its own way, but that had made her personal life no less empty. How often had she ended her day alone in her apartment, on the couch or in the tub, with a bottle of Johnny Walker and a bowl of dried cereal, rinse and repeated, day after day? Why had it taken the end of the world for her to see that outside of her job, she'd been something of a mess?

Peter's voice grew astonished as Lincoln continued describing other differences between the two worlds. Air ships? Flights to the moon? How could his world have ended up so different? At what point in history had their universes forked apart? And why? What had been the impetus? And theirs were only tiny drops in the ocean of possibility. Just thinking about it was like running her mind through a blender.

_And you think you can fix this?_  The voice of her doubt whispered in the back of her mind. _You think this plan of yours can possibly work? Do you even have a real plan?_

Olivia shut the voice away. It had to work. There was no other option. Sonia's death had made that all too clear. Their only chance —  _her_ only chance — was to find the one's responsible, wherever they were, whoever they were, in whatever world they resided, and stop them. By any means necessary. And though it seemed doubtful at present, maybe she might even succeed. Maybe she might even live to see the aftermath. She lowered the binoculars, setting them down in a cubbyhole and giving Peter a sideways glance.

Maybe she might even have a life afterward. Or a family.

#

The remainder of the voyage passed without issue, and the sun was just beginning to dip below the horizon when they sailed into Lower Bay, angling northward toward the mouth of the Hudson River. The Verrazano-Narrows Bridge appeared in the distance, spanning the entrance to New York Harbor. Before long, it became apparent that the military's tactics had been the same as those used in Boston to prevent the spread of the infection, with similar results. All hands were on deck as they puttered beneath the shattered bridge, every voice silent, all eyes directed upward to the mess of tangled girders, to the asphalt and concrete dangling from grids of bent and rusted re-bar.

The entrance to the harbor felt like a line of demarcation, beyond which destruction had become the norm. It was all around them now, charred ruins and demolished buildings dotting the shores on either side of the channel. A massive fire or carpet bombing of some kind had taken place, on a scale that dwarfed what had happened in Boston. Brooklyn was gone. Staten Island, gone. Herds of infected roamed streets filled with mounds of rubble, and that was just what was visible from their vantage. The sight filled Olivia with foreboding, and from the uneasy looks on the others' faces, she wasn't the only one.

A mile or two beyond the bridge, what remained of the Manhattan skyline slid into view on the horizon. Olivia gasped taking it all in in a single glance. New York City's majestic towers were broken and battered. Skyscrapers leaned over, crushing into one another. From a distance, she might have thought they were rows of dominoes caught in a moment, mid-collapse. Those that still stood seemed fragile somehow, like skeletons barely held together. They kept going, cutting through the water of the bay while all around them each scene of destruction seemed worse than the previous. The skyline grew larger and larger, until it loomed on the horizon. The signs of bombardment became pronounced, windows shattered and gaping facades stained black with ash. Boats of all sizes run aground. Massive container ships. Tankers. Military vessels. Even yachts not dissimilar form their own, all littering the shores on either side of the bay like the carcasses of beached whales.

Olivia searched for the Massive Dynamic building among the mass of leaning towers, but couldn't spot it through the rubble. Manhattan's skyline had changed dramatically, and she struggled to find anything that seemed familiar, almost as if she were looking at an entirely different city altogether. One that had been smashed by some angry giant's massive fist. The foreboding she'd felt earlier deepened into despair that felt like a block of concrete lying across her chest.

A tall figure jutted up from the water just ahead on their left. Lady Liberty hadn't survived the apocalypse unscathed. The giant statue's torch was missing, along with the majority of the arm holding it. From the hulks of twisted metal scattering the grounds beneath the statue, a diving plane or a helicopter had clipped the arm, severing it messily from its shoulder.

"Damn...," Lincoln Lee's voice uttered from the deck above. "The old girl's really taken a beating, hasn't she? And why the hell is she green? You guys have some kind of problem with maintenance here?"

No one replied. What could they say? It was all so much worse than Olivia had imagined it would or even could be.

"Well, we're here, Olivia," Astrid said, standing beside her at the mid-deck railing. "But what do we do now? I don't even see the Massive Dynamic building. I know it's getting dark, but, what if it's... just not there anymore?"

"I... don't know," she replied softly, unable to pull her eyes form the ruins. Daylight was fading even as they watched, the scarlet orb of the sun sinking between the remaining structures of Jersey City to the west.  _Fuck. It has to be there_.

But wishing wouldn't make it appear. A cold dose of reality settled in her gut, heavy like a lump of lead. Sometimes there were no winners, only losers. She wondered in how many realities Earth was cold and lifeless, or smoldering in the ashes of nuclear fire. On how many had the human population been wiped out by plague, man-made or otherwise? Or by walking corpses whose only imperative was to devour human flesh? The number was certainly greater than zero.

When they came abreast of Liberty Island the rumble of the yacht's engine ceased. The boat sloshed forward in the water, then tipped back toward the stern, pushing a wave ahead of them. Beyond, the harbor and the city were dark and eerily silent. A warm breeze blew in off the water, carrying with it the shrieking cries of distant seagulls.

"I'm gonna make an executive decision and drop anchor here for the night," Peter said from the helm above. "It's gonna be too dark to make landfall without lights anyway, and I don't know about any of you, but I feel a hell of a lot safer out here on the water than on land right about now. Tomorrow, we'll see what there is to see."

"Hey, Aunt Liv!" Ella called down. "Peter let me and Gina drive the boat! I even drove it under the bridge!"

"That's great, hon," she said, glancing up and waving at her niece's ecstatic smile. "Make sure you do what Peter says, though, okay?"

"Oh, they are, believe me," Rachel assured her, popping up beside her daughter. "I've got my eye on them."

She wasn't sure how her sister could fit up there, crammed into the tiny space around the helm along with Peter and Ella and Gina  _and_  Lincoln, unless Rachel was sitting on someone's lap. And she had a fairly good idea whose lap that might be. Shaking her head, she turned her attention from the upper deck as voices carried up from below.

"I can scarcely believe it. One of the greatest cities in the world, reduced to piles of rubble. It's all so senseless."

Olivia peered over the railing where Walter and Broyles and Claire were standing in the prow, staring out across the water at the fading Manhattan skyline.

"They had no choice, Doctor Bishop," Broyles said. "The ship they were on was sinking."

"I fail to see how they had no choice, Agent Broyles!" Walter said, his voice ripe with disgruntlement. "It all seems rather elementary to me. One can either choose to destroy an entire city and everyone in it, or one can choose not to. Surely another solution could have been found. We survived in Cambridge, did we not? I believe it was still standing when we left, yes?"

"I don't think it's the same thing, Walter," Claire interjected. "Cambridge, even Boston, aren't like New York City. On any given day, there were between three and four million people here. They must have felt like they had to do something before they had a horde of undead larger than our standing army. From what Astrid told me about those times, this lab you guys were hiding out in wasn't exactly a walk in the park. And don't forget that you predicted what would happen — which I might add is pretty damn cool." The young woman's jet-black hair twirled as she rounded on Broyles, giving him a pert look. "And for the record, Phillip, can we avoid using metaphors about sinking ships while we're on one? Thanks."

Listening to their byplay, Olivia couldn't help but grin despite her black mood. She glanced at Astrid beside her. "I like her," she told her former assistant quietly, nodding down at Claire. "She's... interesting."

"I like her, too," Astrid said, her eyes locked on the woman below. A small smile creased her lips as she leaned up against the bannister. "Walter's come around on her also, after he found out she is almost as big a Violet Sedan Chair fan as he is."

Olivia quirked an eyebrow. "Violet Sedan Chair...?"

"Some old rock band. They're Walter's favorite, apparently. I'm not too keen on them myself, but for whatever reason, they both like them a lot."

"You know, I'm sorry about your father, Astrid," Olivia said after a moment of silence passed between them. She reached out, touching her friend's hand on the rail. "We haven't really had a chance to talk after you got back. Was there any sign of him at his house?"

Astrid's face was blurry and indistinct in the twilight, but there was no mistaking her downtrodden voice. "No, his house was empty," she said, shaking her head sadly. "The front door was wide open. I didn't even go inside. I could just tell he wasn't there, that no one had been there in a long time. His house was just like every other empty one I've come across over the last year. There were infected all over his neighborhood, though. A few of them were even fresh."

"Really? Were there any signs of other survivors? Maybe he was with them?"

"I drove all through his neighborhood, and through most of the other ones nearby. We didn't see anyone, or anything that looked like a safe house or sanctuary. To be honest, Olivia, I didn't expect anything different, but I just had to make sure for my own peace of mind. In my head, Dad's been gone for a long time... and he still is. And he was never in the best of health to begin with." Her lips pressed into a sad smile. "My dad used to love smoking meat. I warned him he was one baby back rib from another heart attack, but he would never listen."

There seemed nothing to say to that, so she said nothing. She listened to the murmur of friends' and family's voices and peered out across the water, where the distant skyline was little more than grayish shadows against a deeper black. It has to be there.  _Something has to be there, or we're lost. Or_ I'm _lost._ In that moment, she made a decision. About the baby, about Peter. If the morning sun revealed the worst, then she would tell him. She would tell them all. They had a right to know if there was even the slightest chance she was going to turn spontaneously, for their own safety, if nothing else.

She felt a dull ache in her heart, and another of a different kind rising in her stomach. But as she turned to go find something to snack on in the galley, Peter's voice rang out, echoing in the night air. The excitement in his voice stopped her cold.

"Umm... guys? I'm getting something over the radio. I think someone is broadcasting!"


	36. An Exodus, Part 2

**-August 2009**

Peter's sudden announcement hung in the air.

Olivia gasped, her hunger pangs vanishing in an instant, replaced by a surge of adrenaline. "What did you say? Peter, who is it?" she said, rushing across the deck to the ladder and launching herself upward. "What are they saying?"

"I don't believe it!" Peter went on, his voice urgent. "It's a message! Someone's talking!"

"A message?" Broyles said from below. "What does it say, Peter? Can you talk back to them?"

Upon reaching the bridge she found Peter standing in front of the helm, with Gina and Ella seated in either of the leather seats. She squeezed in between Rachel and Lincoln, until she was at Peter's side. She could hear it now, a faint voice speaking slowly beneath the crackle of the radio.

"Turn it louder, Peter," Olivia said. "I can't make it out."

Peter bent over the radio, fiddling with the buttons, and suddenly the yacht's speaker system came to life. A voice spoke beneath layers of crackles of static. It had a slow careful cadence, and sounded vaguely like a woman's, though it was difficult to be certain through the interference.

 _...is now contaminated. I repeat, turn back. Manhattan is contaminated ground. Do not approach. This is a warning. We have retreated to our..._  The voice faded in and out beneath bursts of static.  _...facility... Delancey Stree... ...ark... ...Jersey..._  The speaker emitted a garbled hiss, and then the voice resumed.  _...This is a warning. Manhattan is now contaminated. I repeat, turn back. Manhattan is..._

"It's on a loop," Peter said, lowering the volume. "Just repeating over and over."

"What does it mean, Peter?" Ella said.

"I don't know, but it doesn't sound good," he replied, switching the radio off altogether.

The message continued playing inside Olivia's head. "Contaminated," she said. "What do you think that means. Could it be radiation? Could they have dropped a nuke or something? That might explain the destruction." And put an end to her plan in a heartbeat.

Peter glanced away from the distant shoreline, meeting her gaze. "Not sure, but I highly doubt it was a nuke. The city's in bad shape, but not nearly bad enough for a hydrogen bomb. Even one of the lesser yield types, say a half-megaton, would flatten Lower Manhattan and all of Midtown. Even Liberty Island would have been in ashes, depending on the center of the blast zone. I think we're looking at conventional weapon damage, only really, really, big ones."

"Astute analysis, Peter," Walter called up to them. "And I agree. I'm all but certain we're seeing the effects of a large-scale bombardment by multiple high-yield warheads, similar in functionality but larger and more powerful than those employed by the United States military in the Vietnam Conflict to clear large swatches of jungle, and to strike fear and terror into the hearts of Charlie as they were simultaneously incinerated and crushed."

"Thanks for that picture, Walter," Peter muttered, but his father wasn't finished.

"You're quite welcome, Peter," Walter continued, grinning up at them. "The heat and pressure wave generated by such weaponry, while just a fraction of that of a hydrogen-type device, would still have been incredible, certainly powerful enough to destroy civilian buildings within the blast radius, and cause considerable damage even to hardened structures such as the steel construction of a skyscraper."

"Okay, then what kind of contamination could the message be referring to then?" Olivia said. "If it's not radiation, what does that leave? Some kind of chemical or biological contamination?"

"There's simply no way to know," Walter replied, "short of going there and seeing its effects on our bodies. We might then be able to reason it out. But, unless we're planning to commit mass suicide... I don't recommend we do that."

"Fuck," Olivia whispered, and smacked her fist against her thigh. She heard Ella's sharp intake of breath in response to her foul language, but couldn't manage to care. Her niece had seen and experienced far worse. It was, after all, just a simple word. Sound waves traveling through the air. It was irrelevant, just as they were going to become irrelevant if the infection was left unchecked.

"Before we make any hasty decisions, people," Broyles suggested from the lower deck, "the questions we should be asking ourselves is who left that message, and why. And if they're still there — which I can only assume they must be — what are their intentions? I don't believe I'm speaking only for myself when I say that I could do without another Doctor."

Unsurprisingly, no one disagreed with him.

#

Olivia passed a restless night, wedged into the narrow bed in their cabin beside Peter.

In the morning, she woke to blinding sunlight shining through the porthole beside the headboard. She extricated herself from Peter's arms, then pulled on her boots and slipped out of the room, careful not to disturb him. In the swanky living room, she came upon Walter, snoring on the couch in front of the TV, and a crumpled mass of blankets and a pillow on the carpeted floor in front of the bar. They had gone to bed early, while the others were still speculating on the contents of the transmission, but whoever had chosen the floor as their bed, it seemed she was not the only one to rise with the dawn.

She crept up the stairs, then out onto the lower deck. Harsh daylight greeted her, bright and painful. Seagulls shrieked in the distance, their cries echoing over the water. Shielding her eyes from the sun, she glanced about, and found Lincoln Lee with his back to her, standing in the stern and peering across the water at the ruins of the Manhattan skyline. The boat had rotated during the night, with the stern now facing northward. She cleared her throat as she approached, and he looked back, lowering a pair of binoculars.

"Hey," he said with a nod. "Good morning."

"Morning," she replied with a smile, stepping up beside Lincoln at the gunwale. Over time, he had become more comfortable with her, as if he had finally decided that she wasn't going to tear him limb from limb with her mind powers if he gave her a wrong look. "You're up early, Lincoln."

"Couldn't sleep," Lincoln shrugged. "Believe me, it wasn't my idea." He hefted the binoculars again, rolling the focus in and out for a moment before continuing. "It's funny. I was looking out at the city, and only just realized what's wrong with it. The Twin Towers are missing. Where's your World Trade Center?"

Olivia started. For a second, she'd forgotten he was from another universe. There were bound to be differences, and this must be one of them. "They were destroyed in a terrorist attack in 2001," she explained, focusing on the spot where the Twin Towers had been missing for the last eight years. "I guess that wasn't the case in your world?"

"Destroyed? Damn. No, they're fine. Or they were. The White House was destroyed in the 2001 attacks, along with the Pentagon. That didn't happen here?"

"Sort of. The White House was untouched, but they destroyed one wing of the Pentagon. The DOD rebuilt it, but the Twin Towers were gone, destroyed completely. Thousands of people were killed. You can't see it from here, we were in the middle of building a new, single tower to replace them when the world ended."

Lincoln shook his head. "Huh. This whole thing is a mind-fuck," he muttered after a moment. "The DOD on my world relocated after the 2001 attacks. To there." He nodded toward Liberty Island, now located several hundred yards off the starboard bow. "The Secretary wanted a hardened site, but one not under a mountain out in the middle of nowhere. So, they built a complex below Lady Liberty's skirts. The Secretary and most of his staff are there."

"What's the Secretary like?" she asked, curious about the man who must be similar in some ways to Peter's real father. "Is he anything like Walter?"

"Not even remotely," Lincoln said with a snort. "Sometimes I find it hard to believe they're the same man. Walter is... I dunno, kinda like your crazy old grandpa, only one with the knowledge of several mad scientists in his head. No, the Secretary is... a hard man. Imperious? Stern as hell? They say he was different before his wife died, but I find that hard to believe, too."

"And his son?" she questioned. "What is Peter like? Is he anything like mine?"

"Like  _yours_...?" Lincoln smirked at her use of the possessive, and Olivia's cheeks began to burn. "They're remarkably similar. Both are smart as hell, and both are a pain in the ass. If anything,  _your_  Peter seems a little angrier, a little more prone to brooding, though I guess that makes sense, all things considered."

"And the other me and him, they're lovers?" she pressed him. "They're still together?"

Lincoln's gray eyes narrowed. "You're just full of questions this morning, aren't you?" he said. "Is there a particular reason you want to know? You worried about something?"

"No, I'm just... satisfying my curiosity."

He pursed his lips, then sighed. "It's an on again off again thing with them. They have a child together, but can barely have a civil conversation half the time."

"They... have a... a child?" she stammered.

"Yep. A little boy. He should be about two by now, I think. An accident, you might say. Not thinking with the right heads, those two." Lincoln shook his head, leaning forward against the railing.

Olivia studied his profile for a moment, catching something bleak in the depths of his gaze that set off a spark of intuition. He was in love with the other her. But it was a one-sided thing, with him destined to observe silently from afar.  _How sad_ , she thought, thinking of Peter.

She and Peter. Were they together in every universe? An unsettling sensation went through her at the idea, the feeling that she was little more than a puppet, with invisible strings tied to arms and legs, and around her heart, tugging her emotions this way and that.  _I'm my own person_ , she insisted inside her head, sending the thought out into the void. _I make my own decisions, fall in love with who I want to_.

If anything out there heard her silent plea, they gave no sign of it.

#

The sky brightened, and as it did so, it became clear that Olivia's worry the prior night was much ado about nothing. For peeking out between the gaps of shattered buildings, the Massive Dynamic building gleamed faintly through a thin fog that lay over the city.

She stood forward in the prow, studying the monolithic structure off in the distance as the yacht chugged westward toward the New Jersey shore. Massive Dynamic was there. It was still standing. Not all was lost, yet. Though with the specter of contamination hanging over the city, venturing into Manhattan itself seemed liked an extremely bad idea. At least until they knew more. And knowing more meant investigating the origin of the strange warning. They would all go, it had been decided when the others finally made their way on deck. No more fracturing of the group. No more splitting up.

Lincoln Lee guided the  _Coy Mistress_  into an open space along a wide pier jutting out into the water, idling her neatly between a capsized yacht that was even larger than theirs, and the blackened hull of a Coast Guard cutter that had run aground. The ship looked as if it had suffered a direct hit by a stray missile. The mid and lower aft decks were torn and gouged, strips of metal curling outward as if some giant creature had burst forth from below. Strewn among the wreckage, bodies wriggled and writhed, pierced by spikes of hull shrapnel. And some did not. Some were burned down to the bone, bleached white by the unforgiving sun. Perhaps two dozen infected tottered along the wharf, each in varying stages of decay, though all were long past freshness.

"Gruesome," Ella whispered as they came to a rocking stop.

Olivia glanced down at her niece, standing beside her at the gunwale. She wore a pink t-shirt with  _Uncanny Valley Girl_  written across the front in cursive lettering. Where Rachel had found the shirt, she knew not, but its connotation was rather creepy, in her opinion. Gruesome indeed. "Stay on board, Ell," she said, reaching up and sliding her sword free of its sheath. "Just until we have the area cleared. Then stay with the group."

"Aunt Liv, when can I get a sword like yours?" Ella was giving the razor-sharp blade a worshipful look.

"When you're a bit older, kiddo," Peter said, ruffling her long hair. "For now, why don't you just stick with the twenty-two."

Strapped to Ella's waist was a small handgun; a .22 caliber Beretta they'd found among the asylum's cache of weapons. Gina carried a similarly sized gun, though with more reluctance. Both girls had been practicing with them before they'd left Worcester behind, but today they were under strict orders that the guns were reserved for last resorts only, though what exactly a last resort constituted was less clear.

"You girls ready?" Olivia asked, shifting her gaze past Peter to Astrid and Claire on the other side. Her former assistant hefted the old crowbar, the crowbar Peter and she had once fought over. Beside Astrid, Claire fingered the edge of her wicked-looking machete.

Both women nodded, readying their weapons. "Ready as I'll ever be," Astrid muttered, eyeing the infected on the wharf.

Their arrival had finally been noticed. Olivia counted eight bodies stumbling toward them, with several more beyond, emerging from behind a row of plain warehouse buildings, each with low, triangular roofs. A sign on the corner of the nearest read  _United State Army Corps of Engineers_. Heavy equipment was staggered about the pier, cranes and lifts, once used to unload Corps ships, but never again.

"Be careful, Liv," Rachel called down from the bridge beside Lincoln.

"Yes, do be careful, son," Walter added from where he stood off to one side with Broyles and Gina, wringing his hands together.

Peter grunted at this, rolling his eyes. Instead of replying, he vaulted onto the gunwale, then leapt carefully across the gap onto the dock, where he grabbed several thick ropes coiled nearby and began tossing them aboard for Broyles, who went about securing the yacht to the pier. When they were finished, he whipped his sword free, eyeing them with a grin. "You ladies coming or what?"

Astrid and Claire exchanged glances, then each made the jump from the rocking ship safely. "We can't let you have all the fun, can we, Peter?" Claire said as they joined him on the pier.

"Wait until we have the area secured," Olivia told Broyles, who nodded once in reply. "And see you soon, munchkin," she said to Ella, before making her own leap onto the dock and hurrying to Peter's side.

"I've got your back," he said softly, eyeing her sideways as the infected approached.

Olivia nodded, and they started forward to meet the undead stumbling toward them in a ragged line. "Stay together, you two," she said to Astrid and Claire as the two women separated themselves from her and Peter, giving them room to use their swords. "And don't let them surround you."

It was probably unnecessary instruction, but how long had it been since any of them had been forced into open battle with the infected? Without the asylum fence between them? Months, at least. In an unspoken agreement, their speed increased as the distance between the living and undead halved, then halved again, from a brisk walk to a slow trot, and finally to an all-out sprint, weapons raised as if they were medieval foot soldiers advancing on an enemy position. All that was missing were the shouts of rage and battle cries.

The stench of rot and decay filled the air, wafting ahead of the undead. Olivia had time to notice the tarnished badge still pinned to the nearest infected's pleated shirt, and then there was no more time for conscious thought, only for instinct, and action.

Rushing the former police officer, Olivia stepped inside its outstretched arms and rammed her sword upward into the soft flesh beneath its chin. The infected went slack, lukewarm blood gushing over the hilt and her hand as the blade appeared behind its gaping teeth. She ripped the sword free as the body fell, spinning around in time to see Peter yanking his longer blade from a dead woman's eye. Then, neatly pivoting, he lopped another's head from its shoulders with a vicious slice, dark blood spraying a path across the front of his shirt.  _Not again, Peter_ , she thought, distantly irritated. On the other side of him, Astrid and Claire were busy, cutting and stabbing their way through a small mob that was doing its best to encircle them.

She rushed to their aid, chopping through the back of the nearest's skull. The infected collapsed and she spun away with a snarl, tearing her sword free and slicing diagonally across her chest in the same motion, sinking the blade into a mop of graying hair above an ear bedecked with trinkets. Something grabbed her from behind, cold fingers closing on her neck and left shoulder. Heart leaping in her chest, she tried to shake free and saw golden eyes striated with blood, a grayish tongue squirming inside blackened teeth spreading open for the kill. Then a foot of steel flashed before her eyes, emerging from the undead's cheek below its right eye. In slow motion, she watched a thick dollop of blood drip from the sword's angled point, stretching out through the air.

 _Thank you, Peter_ , she thought catching his eye for an instant before a shadow fell across his face. Time lurched back into full speed. "Look out!" she hissed, wrenching her sword free and lashing out with her foot. She kicked the dead man's knee out, and the joint gave way with an audible snap. As it fell forward, she stabbed it through the temple, then swept her blade upward, slicing another rushing in from its chin to its eyes.

Abruptly, the space around Olivia was clear except for Peter, who was busy prying his blade free of an undead woman's jaw. Taking in a huge breath, she wheeled around, searching for another target, but there were none, only a circle of undead bodies sprawled on the pavement amid growing pools of blood. She was sure some amount of time had passed, but it felt like the melee had ended as soon as it had begun.

"Everybody okay?" Astrid said, gasping for air. Her face was speckled with blood, and bits of gore were caught in her tight curls. With a grimace, she mopped a hand across her brow, then cringed, scrubbing the blood off on her shorts.

"Good here," Claire said, bending down to wipe the blade of her machete on an infected's rags. "Thanks for saving my ass back there, honey," she added in a shy voice, eyeing Astrid. "That was a close call. I owe you one."

"Hey, anytime, sweetie," Astrid replied, grinning as she reached out and took Claire's hand. "And right back at you."

Olivia glanced at Peter, giving him a thorough once over before meeting his gaze. He was going to need yet another shirt, but that was for later. She lifted her eyebrows in a silent question. He nodded once, before mimicking Claire and wiping his sword blade clean. Doing the same, she found herself smiling at the two women's interaction. Young lovers. She and Peter had saved each other's lives so many times it was almost commonplace. A given. Thanks were no longer required or expected, nor was keeping score. There was no longer any competition between them. There was no reason. They were equal partners with equal shares in their relationship. Looking back, however, it was clear that that hadn't always been the case in her relationship with John, and almost every other relationship she'd ever been in, few as they were. She wasn't sure what that said about herself, and wasn't particularly interested in analyzing it any further.

"They're coming," Peter announced, squinting back toward the yacht.

Straightening, Olivia spotted Rachel and Lincoln leading the others toward them in a tight group with Ella and Gina at the center. "We need to find a vehicle, if we can," she said to no one in particular. "And a map. Unless one of you happens to know where Delancey Street is?"

"We'll get the map," Astrid offered, nodding toward the Army Corps building. "Seems like the kind of place where they'd keep maps on hand, don't you think? C'mon, Claire."

The two women loped off, rubbing shoulders as they went. Peter watched them for a moment, then turned to her with a smirk. "Were we ever like them?" he asked, shaking his head.

"You know we were, or worse," Olivia replied absently, glancing around the pier. Other than heavy equipment, not a single car or truck was in sight. "We need a vehicle, Peter. Or we're going to have a long walk ahead of us."

"I'll see what I can do. Meet me out front when everyone's ready, or I'll come find you first."

She nodded and a moment later he was gone also, hurrying through an open gate in the fence surrounding the Army Corps wharf. When the others arrived with all their gear, she assured them that everyone was okay, particularly Walter, who seemed especially worried for some reason. Astrid emerged with Claire from the warehouse a few minutes later, bearing a wide roll of poster paper in her fist. Her face was excited when they met her at the open gate. In the parking lot beyond, Peter was moving through the few vehicles in the lot and shaking his head as he did so, which was generally not a good sign.

"So, I think we found it, Olivia," Astrid said, unrolling the paper and spreading it wide against the fence with Claire's help. It was a detailed map of the surrounding area, extending all the way down to Staten Island to the south and Manhattan to the north, and as far east as Brooklyn, and Newark to the west. The corners were pin-cushioned with holes as if the map had been put up and taken down repeatedly. She touched a spot on the far side of Newark Bay. "Here. Delancey Street. It's in Newark, like the message said. Maybe five miles from here."

"That's on the other side of the bay," Broyles said with a frown.

"Yeah. And the only way over there from here is this bridge," Astrid said, running her finger over a dark blue line spanning the lighter blue of Newark Bay. "Unless we want to go further north into Jersey City, and that's miles out of our way. Unfortunately, it's the New Jersey Turnpike, so I can only imagine what kind of condition it's in right about now, if the bridge is still even standing. And I think we can forget about driving there across it."

"Why don't we just take the boat? Claire suggested, sweeping a finger with a chipped nail painted with purple sparkles south across the curling map. "We can just take it south into Newark Bay and skip the whole walking part altogether."

Lincoln shook his head. "I don't think so. The way into the Kill Van Kull was blocked by a crap-ton of wreckage. I saw it on the way north last night. It looked like there was some kind of blockade across the mouth of the channel, and a few idiots in container ships decided that ramming their way through was a good idea. Didn't turn out too well for them. It'd be a shame to rip the hull off of that beautiful boat, almost as much as it would be to sink, when we're this close."

Olivia leaned in close to the map. There was another line over the Newark Bay, just north of and running parallel to the Turnpike; a thin black line with perpendicular hatches. "What about this?" she said, running her finger over the line. "It's a rail line, but we should be able to cross there, also assuming it's still standing."

"That's as good a suggestion as any," Broyles said, then glanced around. "Where's Peter?"

"Trying to find us a vehicle," she replied. "I don't think he's having much luck."

It was an understatement. When they met Peter in the Army Corps parking lot, he was in a grumpy mood, usually reserved for when he'd failed at some task or another. Which, she supposed, in his eyes, he had.

"They've all got flats or they've been siphoned already," he complained, his brows drawn inward in irritation. "Or they're just too small for all of us."

"Then we'll just have to walk, Peter," Olivia said with a shrug. It was not what she wanted or had been hoping for, but when had anything come easy for them in the last year? Of course, they would have to walk. "According to Astrid's map, the street we're looking for is about five miles west of here. We can make it in a couple of hours, if we hurry."

"What about infected?" Rachel asked, glancing nervously between Ella and Gina. "What will we do about them? There's gotta be more than just those few back there around."

There was nothing they could about the infected. And her sister was certainly right to be worried. There were probably thousands, if not millions, of undead within a ten-mile radius of where they were standing. But what other choice was there? They had to find the meaning of the warning they'd heard, and the only way to do that was find whoever was broadcasting it. Assuming they were still alive, of course. That the message was on a loop was a bit worrying, but it took electricity to run a radio, didn't it? And it took people to make electricity. Olivia looked for a flaw in her logic but it seemed sound.

"We'll just have to stay away from them as best we can," she said, slinging her bag up onto her shoulder. "And above all, avoid becoming surrounded." The answer didn't seem to please her sister, but she had nothing else to offer.

#

The journey into New Jersey started out well enough, all things considered. Other than a few infected wandering out from a condominium complex across the street from the Army Corps docks — and quickly dispatched by Astrid and Claire — the narrow road leading west was surprisingly undead free.

Walking in a single-file line, Astrid led the way with the map folded into a tight square. Claire and Lincoln were just behind her, followed by Rachel and Walter and the girls, who each wore wide-brimmed hats to keep the sun away. Broyles limped along in front of Peter, and Olivia had stationed herself at the rear, watching their back trail.

The day had grown steadily hotter, until Olivia could feel the rising temperature through her boots, as if they were walking across a bed of hot coals. The air blurred ahead of them, with the blistering pavement radiating heat in waves. Some kind of head covering had become a requirement, mostly in the form of baseball hats and bandannas, or shirts wrapped about heads like turbans. Rivulets of sweat dripped from Olivia's brow, stinging the corners of her eyes on its way down to the neck of her t-shirt, where a wide ring of wetness stained her collar and then again below the ledge of her breasts. The air was still, windless. It pressed down with a kind of gritty substance that she could feel scouring away the surface of her skin. Other than the scuffing of boot heels on concrete and asphalt, or the occasional skitter of gravel squirting underfoot, there were no sounds at all. No one spoke. The birds had gone silent, the seagulls had long since ceased their endless shrieking.

After a while of this it struck her that there was no green anywhere. The weeds pushing up through the soil came into the world wilted and lifeless. What trees there were in the area had branches mostly shorn of leaves, and those few that remained curled in around the edges, were singed. It came to her that their reality was dying, all of its color bleeding out through some unimaginable wound, leaving only varying shades of browns and grays and blacks in its final death throes, in its last gasps. The silent destruction on the horizon to the north passed in and out of view, adding its silent menace to the equation.

 _The world is drying out_ , Olivia thought, gazing down upon a pathetic clump of shriveled plant life in the center of the street. It had forced its way up through a crack, only to find the world scorched and inhospitable. Not for the first time, she found herself wondering how and if such conditions would affect the life growing inside her. Trying to remain properly hydrated was all but impossible. There was only so much water to go around, and others needed it just as much as she did. So, she drank her few swallows, conserving what she could, and when Ella asked for an extra sip, how could she refuse?

When the narrow road they'd been following since the docks turned northward, Astrid led them through a gate in a fence running beside the street, then up a short hill covered in tall weeds. Beyond, at the bottom of a long incline, lay a carpet of brown grass and rolling hills with the sinuous remains of a pond at its center. Surrounding the shrinking waterline were oddly shaped flat areas and pockets of white sand. It took Olivia a moment to recognize that they were crossing over a golf course, one so overgrown that its unnaturalness was all but lost, replaced by the wildness of unrestrained nature. On the far side of one hill that formed a kind of barrier between holes, a long and wide trench was gouged down the center of a wild fairway. Crouched at one end was a back-hoe, black and yellow like a bumble bee and surrounded by a hill of dirt that might have served as its nest.

Bodies filled the trench, thousands of them. She had known it for what it was after a single glance, and was not disappointed. Some of the others were shocked and aghast, particularly Rachel, who yanked the girls away from the edge before they could so much as look inside. Unlike the last such mass grave Olivia had come across, there was no stench in the air, no reeking death boiling out in waves. The bodies inside were shriveled and desiccated, baked and dried out beneath the philistine sun. She glanced at Peter before turning away from the lip, and found his eyes distant and glassy, looking back into the past, just as she had.

They left the mass grave and the former golf course behind, crossing over a field of dried grass that had once been a soccer field, judging by the opposing goal posts at either end. Beyond was a baseball diamond with tall light poles, and then a two-lane street jammed with empty vehicles stacked up in lines that ran parallel to a highway atop a wooded embankment. They had reached the New Jersey Turnpike. The highway was in no better condition than the access road, with cars and trucks spanning every lane, north and south. Even the shoulders were packed with vehicles, creating four lanes of traffic in each direction instead of two.

Olivia wondered how far the traffic went. All the way back to the tunnel under the Hudson? And where had they been going, anyway? For those trapped in the metropolitan area of New York City, there was nowhere, not close by, at least. And certainly not with millions of others all with the same idea.

Upon reaching the median at the center of the Turnpike, they stopped for a rest, taking cover from the glaring sun in the shadow of a long tractor-trailer parked beside the concrete barrier. Bottles of water were passed around, snacks of peanut butter and crackers along with a bag of potato chips. The water was lukewarm, bordering on hot, and the potato chips stale and nearly tasteless, but no one complained. They ate and drank silently, and when it was time to go, Olivia wasn't the only one reluctant to step back out into the oppressive heat. But it had to be done.

Astrid rose first. She took a single step, then gasped, ducking down beside the front tire of green sedan. "Shh...," she hissed, at the same time motioning for them all to stay down.

"What is it, Astral?" Walter said, lifting up despite her warning and swiveling his head back and forth like an owl. He looked fairly ridiculous, with a white t-shirt draped over his head and trailing down the back of his neck. "I see nothing that warrants-"

"Shut the hell up, Walter!" Claire growled softly, jerking him down by his hand. He let out an indignant squawk as she did so, but she was having none of it, silencing him with a glare.

 _Now what?_  Olivia thought, making her way past the others with Peter just behind her. Staying low, moving along the median, until she reached Astrid's side. Like all of them, a fine sheen of sweat covered her friend's face. She opened her mouth to ask what the trouble was when she saw it herself, coming toward them through the gaps between the disorderly lines of traffic clogging the southbound lanes.

Infected, dozens of them. Previously hidden by the elongated mass of the tractor-trailer, the dead made a virtual wall across the southbound lanes. Lifting up slightly, she saw that more followed in the first group's wake. Many more.

 _Fuck..._ The thought was accompanied by a spike of fear driving into her gut.

"We should stay put," Astrid whispered. "And let them just pass by. There's no reason for them to come over here, if we stay quiet," she added, giving Walter a dark look.

There was a slight bend in the highway, and Peter rose up enough to see over the tops of the cars blocking their view of the northbound lanes. A moment later he dropped down beside her with a curse. "Not a good idea," he reported, his voice tight with a kind of strain Olivia could only interpret as panic. "They're on this side of the median too. A whole shit-load more of them."

"How many more?" Olivia whispered, as the fear became more intense, traveling up her spine. Answering her own question, she lifted up, peering northward over the tops of the vehicles on their side of the barrier. What she saw coming toward her stopped the blood in her veins. Her heart floundered, stuttering in her chest.

The infected horde coming toward them was huge, beyond belief. Easily larger than the horde that had surrounded the lab, the rotting mass of flesh stumbling toward them was at least as big as the one outside the Federal Building so many months ago, and possibly larger. They had fought their way through that one, and had just barely survived. Without children, or an elderly man, or one with a hobbled foot.

She was about to order them back, to retreat off the highway, but then she saw that retreat was impossible. They'd stumbled into the middle of a mass migration. And unfortunately for themselves, the center of the horde had been lagging behind edges, and while they had stopped to rest, those same edges had slowly surrounded their position. Dozens of silent figures were already wandering across the embankment they had just left behind, and to the front also, now, in clear view of everyone. It was a classic pincer movement, and they had walked right into it.

 _We're trapped_ , Olivia thought, swallowing down the taste of bile. Soon the center of the horde would reach them, within minutes at best. A sickly sensation swept through her at the sight of freshes waling in the undead's ranks, easily identifiable by their less rigid movements, their pale faces. Rachel let out a frightened hiss behind her, and one of the girls whimpered in terror.

"I've got a really bad feeling about this," Lincoln said, moving up beside them in a walking crouch. "We need to get the hell out of here, like now."

"No... there's no time for that," Olivia said slowly, eyeing the rotting faces as they moved closer. "It's too late. They already have us surrounded." Suddenly, in her mind's eye, she saw Charlie's face beside her, lying on his belly beneath a truck with freezing water flowing beneath as dragging footsteps shuffled past on either side. It could work.

"Then what the hell are you suggesting, Liv?" Lincoln said, gripping her forearm.

"We have to hide," she said, removing his hand from her arm while glancing at the vehicles nearby. "Quick, everyone find a car. Now. Get inside, close the doors, and they should walk right past us."

"Are you insane? What if they don't?"

"They will," she said firmly. "We don't have time for this, Lincoln. Now go!"

Following her order, there was a mad dash to find cars with unlocked doors, and she found herself sharing the interior of a dusty hatchback with Claire. Twisting around in her seat, she found Peter in a dark green minivan the next lane over, with Rachel and the girls ducking into the back row of seats. He met her gaze for a moment through the window, blue eyes burning brightly under the noontime sun, then carefully shoved the sliding side door closed.

Olivia sat back in the driver's seat, replaying the frantic scene from moments ago in her head. Everyone had found a place, hadn't they? She was certain that Astrid and Walter had scrambled into the yellow pickup truck several cars in front of their hatchback and a lane over, and fairly sure that Broyles and Lincoln had done the same with a dusty four-door sedan even further up the line. Or so she hoped. She'd lost track of them at some point, but could only assume they'd done as she'd ordered.

"Tilt your seat back," she said in a whisper. There was no way an infected could hear them, not yet, at least, but it still felt right to do so.

Claire nodded and then did as she instructed, reaching down for the lever at her side. Her face was pale and drenched in sweat, eyes bulging with mounting tension. A moment later they were both stretched out, staring up at the faded gray cloth sagging down from the interior headliner.

The first undead appeared a heartbeat later, an ancient one with gaping holes in the skin of its rotten face. The creature's mouth snapped open and closed as it shambled down the aisle, as if it was dreaming of its next meal. Another soon followed, equally disturbing to gaze upon up close. And then a pale-faced female with dark matted hair appeared in Claire's window. The fresh's gilded eyes roved about, searching.

"Stay still," Olivia mouthed, unwilling to move even a fraction lest she draw its attention.

"Not gonna be a problem," Claire replied, frozen in place, her voice a high-pitched whisper.

Then, as if it had somehow heard them, the fresh paused beside the front tire, head swiveling about. Olivia held her breath and shivered, the sudden goosebumps prickling her bare arms and legs. Blood roared in her ears as the silence stretched out, becoming razor thin.

And then the fresh sauntered on, as if it had merely stopped to take in the view, resuming its leisurely pace southward. Another infected replaced it almost at once, and then another, and another. Minutes passed by, and the streams of undead filing past on either side seemed to have no end. They shuffled slowly along, freshes and older models alike, pausing when the line grew congested, like humans moving through a ride queue at an amusement park.

The air in the cramped hatchback felt like an oven and smelled faintly of mold. Olivia grimaced at a dull ache growing in the middle of her back, where her weight rested atop her sword and backpack. There had been no time to remove either. She noticed tendons standing out on the side of Claire's neck, could feel her body shaking beside her. The woman was terrified, and justifiably so.

"Hey, it's gonna be okay," she said, taking the other woman's hand and squeezing gently. "We're gonna be fine."

"How can you know that?" Claire said softly after an interval.

Olivia considered her answer. "Because I refuse to accept anything less than that," she said finally with a shrug. "Because... we've made it this far, and, I have to believe there's a reason for that."

"A reason? For all this?" Claire's dark eyes shifted to the infected flooding past outside the car. "You really believe that?"

"I... I guess so?" she said, then shook her head, grinning. "I don't know. It sounded a lot better in my head than out loud."

Claire bit off a laugh, snorting softly. She carefully brought a hand up, wiping the corner of one brown eye. Outside their windows, the infected's migration continued, unaware of the prey in their midst. "You know, Astrid used to talk about you a lot. Back when you and Peter were missing. Around the time when I guess the Doctor had you locked in his freak show."

"Oh yeah?" Olivia said, eyeing the other woman askance. "And what'd she say?"

"That she was worried about you guys, mostly, and pissed that asshole Overbeek wouldn't let her go out and look for you. The fucker actually propositioned her — and the rest of us, I guess — to sleep with his men for favors."

Olivia grimaced. "He did?" she asked. "Rachel failed to mention that." Wait. Hadn't one of the men she'd fried with lightning been named Overbeek? If so, then good riddance. "I assume no one took him up on his offer?"

"Nobody but that bitch, Sharon. Though to be honest, I think she might have been sleeping with him long before that." The black-haired woman glanced outside at the infected. "Charlene ended up killing her on the day you escaped," she added in a downtrodden voice. "So many people have died. Christopher. Charlene. Sonia. Juliet. Everyone from my old group is gone. Hell, every single person I knew from my old life is dead. How fucked up is that?" She trailed off, then seemed to shake herself free of her sudden gloom. "Sorry. Sometimes it's just..."

"I know," Olivia said, giving her a warm smile. "Sometimes it's just... too much to comprehend. Too surreal. Like we're living inside of someone else's nightmare."

Claire nodded, leaning her head back against the rest. "It's funny, Astrid told me all about how you brought your family back, about Peter getting shot and how you rescued him. You're a lot different than the ten-foot-tall Amazon woman I pictured. You know, she really looks up to you."

Olivia's face grew hot and she looked away, shrugging uncomfortably. The two of them had never had the occasion to talk one on one before, but  _Amazon_  woman?

 _What the hell do I even say to something like that_ _?_  All she'd ever done was what she had to to keep her family alive. And Peter also, though falling in love with him hadn't even been a glimmer in her eye back then. Or had it? It was hard to say these days, when it seemed like they were connected, like he was part of her, like they'd been together forever. More than anything, though, she'd been extremely lucky, in both cases. Both outcomes could have easily swung the other way, as it had with Charlie. _And Sonia_ , she told herself.  _Don't forget Sonia. Never forget Sonia_.

Thinking of Peter, she lifted up in her seat and glanced over at the green minivan, only to find him leaning forward in his seat also, in plain view of the infected outside. What the hell was he doing? She thought they were relatively safe inside their respective vehicles, but that was no reason for him to push their luck like that. Keeping her eyes on his profile, she noticed a kind of rigidness to his posture, and the way he was staring forward intently.  _What are you looking at, Peter?_  But when she followed his gaze, she found herself leaning forward also, gripping the hatchback's steering wheel hard enough to make the leather creak.

"Oh shit...," Olivia hissed, eyeing the truck where Astrid and Walter had secreted themselves.

"What?" Claire whispered, eyes widening in sudden fear. "Olivia, what's wrong?"

"We have a problem. Look!"

The other woman sat up, then gasped, face paling. "Oh my god. Fuck... Astrid!"

The pickup truck was surrounded by a crowd of undead, and more stopped to investigate by the second. Hands hooked into claws pawed at the windows, scratching, searching for a way in. Pressed close together in the center of the cab were a pair of silhouettes, heads swiveling from side to side. Olivia raked her hair back, watching the scene unfold as the migration continued on all sides. The dead were everywhere her eyes fell, moving down all lanes of traffic, across the shoulders and down the embankments. Hundreds of them. Thousands, maybe. And that was just what was visible. How many were out of sight? Their group was a tiny island in a seething ocean of undead.

 _Maybe they'll get bored and leave_ , she hoped silently, a sick feeling twisting her stomach into knots.

Or maybe they wouldn't. She noticed another detail then, one she missed before. And her heart sank.

There was a small gap above the passenger door window, enough for an infected to curl their fingers inside, enough for one of them to get a grip. Enough for them to pull. And they were pulling, she saw with burgeoning horror. The truck began to shake, ever so slightly, leaning to and fro on its suspension. How much pressure were they putting on the window? How much before it would shatter? There were answers to those questions, but she didn't want to know them.

"We gotta do something...," Claire whispered, tears brimming in her eyes. "Oh fuck, we have to help them..."

Olivia shot a glance over at the minivan where Peter was still frozen by the spectacle, eyes glued forward.  _Look at me, Peter!_  she screamed in her head.  _LOOK AT ME!_ And whether it was a coincidence, or some heretofore undiscovered ability of hers, she cared not, but a moment later Peter looked, glancing her way. He started to turn back, then stopped, jerking back and holding her gaze.

She gave him an intent look, then inclined her head toward the truck, eyes glaring wide. W _e have to help them, Peter. I know you don't like him right now, but we need Walter._  Peter's eyes narrowed, but then he nodded and turned away, speaking to someone out of view — presumably Rachel and the girls.

"Listen to me, Claire," she said, catching her frightened eyes as several infected hobbled by outside the car. "We're getting out of here. Peter and I will help Astrid and Walter, while you help Rachel with the girls. Whatever you do, don't stop. Head west, until you hit the railroad tracks, then follow them south. Stay on them or near them. If you come to the bay before we catch up, keep going as far as you can. Just keep them safe. We'll be right behind you. You can do this, Claire. I know you can."

Claire's lips trembled and Olivia thought she might be on the verge of hyperventilating, if not entering shock outright. If she'd heard a word of the instruction, she gave no sign of it.

 _I don't have time for this_ , Olivia thought, then slapped the other woman across the face. It wasn't a very hard slap, but it was hard enough to get her attention.

Blinking, Claire brought a hand up to her face. "You... you hit me...," she said in a daze.

"Did you hear what I said? Help Rachel with the girls. Stay low, hide if you can. Find the railroad tracks to the west and then head south. Can you do that?"

The other woman drew in a long breath, and then nodded. "I can do it. I'm sorry," she said in a determined voice. "Just help Astrid."

Olivia held her gaze. "I will. Now follow me, out my side. Stay low."

She waited for an infected man to pass by, then slowly cracked open her door. The aisle was clear, for a moment, at least. It would be long enough. Reaching back for her sword, she swung out into the gap between lanes. The infected was oblivious, continuing its slow shuffle. Glancing back to make sure Claire was with her, Olivia rushed after the undead man, whipping her sword free and slicing deep into a head of stringy hair that could have been red once upon a time, but no longer. Stepping over the body, she slipped between a pair of bumpers and entered the next aisle, where another infected was approaching, golden eyes huge and starving. More followed over its shoulder, but there was a gap.  _Twenty seconds,_ she thought, eyeing the distance between the approaching infected and the next group _._   _Maybe thirty, at the most_. It would have to do. Without hesitation, she sprang forward, stepping in close and splitting the dead woman's skull before it could do more than growl. She spun away as the body slumped against a fender, racing back down the aisle past a waiting Claire to the green minivan.

Peter hopped out of the front as she drew near, and the van's slide door slid open. Rachel and the girls were crouching inside. Her sister started to speak, but Olivia cut her off before she could get a word out.

"Rach, Claire is going to help you take Ella and Gina out of here," she said, and quickly repeated the instructions she'd already given Claire. "Peter and I will catch up with Astrid and Walter. Keep moving, and don't use your guns unless you have to, unless there's a fresh. Stop and get Broyles and Lincoln on your way. They're over there somewhere," she added, motioning vaguely to the west.

"I know where they are," Claire said, reaching past her for Gina's hand, who was clearly terrified, but doing her best not to act like it. "Come on, sweetie. It's time to go."

"Are you sure about this, Liv?" Rachel asked, climbing out onto the street.

"No. Not really, but we have no choice, either way." She looked down at Ella and found her calmly studying the lay of the cars and trucks with narrowed eyes. It was a look that might have given her pause another time, but not now. Whatever change was occurring in her niece, not being scared out of her mind at that particular moment could only be an asset. "Help your mom, Ell," she said. "And you'll be fine. Okay?"

Ella looked up, her face both serious and older than it should be. "We'll see you at the railroad tracks, Aunt Liv."

And then they were off, the four of them, retracing the path she and Claire had just taken. Swallowing a lump in her throat, she watched Claire split a dead woman's head down the middle, then turned to Peter. "We have to hurry. We don't have much time."

"Don't I know it," he replied, reaching up and drawing his sword. The blade glinted like fire in the sunlight. "You know we're gonna have to run after this, right? They're gonna be on us the whole way."

"I know it," she said with a nod. Infected were moving all around them, now, and the truck was completely surrounded. Some had sensed their presence, some had not. Some were trying to reach them, working their way back slowly through the maze of cars. "Watch yourself, Peter," she whispered, capturing his eye.

"Right back at you, sweetheart," he said with a smirk that she sensed was covering up a desire to say something else, something more meaningful.

But there was no time, and no words were needed anyway. There were no more secrets between them. Except for her secret, of course, but if they were going to die together, she would rather take it to the grave than to have his last thoughts be of their unborn child whom he would never know. In any case, the time for talking, for professions of love was past.

What would come next was pure violence, and killing.

#

It was a contest, Olivia decided in the back of her mind. She wrenched her sword free of what might have been an elderly man's left eye.

A contest to see who would blink first.

She shoved the body away, and then following Peter's example in the next lane over, vaulted up onto the trunk of the car in the lane to the right of the yellow truck. A downward cut split an infected woman's skull like an overripe watermelon. She raced forward, up over the roof and down onto the hood, leaping past outstretched claws onto the trunk of the next car in line, a black Pontiac sedan. More infected surrounded it, dozens, at least, but she left them behind, clambering over the sedan's roof and leaping onto the back of a teal Mazda. A hand closed about her ankle, nearly tripping her up. With a gritted snarl, she cut the hand off at the wrist, then kicked the dead man to whom it had belonged square in the face. The infected fell back, squirting blood from a toe-sized dent in its forehead. Before another could grab her, she turned and ran, bouncing over the Mazda, then launching onto the back of the next vehicle in line, a silver Honda with an open sunroof.

Pausing on the center of the Honda's roof, she scanned across the highway for her sister and Claire and found them gathered around the sedan where Broyles and Lincoln had been hiding, and from which the two men were busy emerging. Her eyes located Ella and Gina among them, both still okay.

Olivia forced herself to look away, then started forward again. Peter was ahead of her now, stabbing and slicing bloody swatches through the infected crowding the aisle on the driver's side of the yellow truck. It was just ahead. She bounded forward, jumping over the next gap to a beige two-door that she missed the make of. She stuck the landing, finally coming abreast of the besieged pickup truck. At least a dozen or so infected were crammed into the aisle below her, straining to reach Walter — whose frightened eyes were staring out at her through the rear window.

"Agent Dunham!" Walter's muffled voice carried through the crack in the window. "Help us! We need help!"

 _What the hell do you think we're doing, Walter?_  she thought, and then got to work.

The sword she carried was a weapon of finesse, and wielding it properly, as it was intended, she could only suspect, was something of an art form. But finesse would do her no good here, only brute force would suffice, like hacking limbs from a tree.

Olivia rained blow after blow down on the infected, again and again, cutting and stabbing and slicing until her arms ached of it, until traces of fire burned through her clenched fingers, her wrists, up to her shoulders, where pain spread across her back. They were impossible to miss, yet as soon as one fell, another replaced it almost immediately. She bore down, spearing an infected woman above its left eye, and then chopped another through the back of its neck. Blood sprayed up in black froth that was the head flopped forward, rebounding off the truck bed. Another slice removed the head altogether and she continued the cut in a wide arc, burying the blade in the face of the infected beside it, shearing through its jaw and part of its nose. Yanking the blade free, she cut away a pair of hands reaching for her feet, then swung again, felling their owner with a downward slice that removed the upper half of its skull. At the same instant, the mistakable crash of shattering glass filled the air.

In the corner of her eye, she saw an infected in a filthy tank top reaching inside the cab of the truck. Walter screamed, his voice filled with fright and Astrid's cry of panic echoed in the background.

"Walter!" Peter was shouting from the other side of the truck. "Walter!"

Olivia stabbed the infected below above its ear, then scrambled to her right, onto the hood of the beige sedan. The dead man's arms and head were already in the cab. A sickly mixture of fear and adrenaline saturated her from the inside out at the sight.  _No! Walter!_

Without thought, she lopped the head off another trying to reach into the cab, then leapt down, reversing her grip on the sword in mid-air and driving it through the center of the creature grabbing at Walter's back. Steel grated against bone until the hilt was stapled against its shirt. Landing hard on her feet, she wrenched the infected out of the cab using the sword as leverage. A chorus of hisses and bubbling rasps that sounded like death itself ensued, as if the infected sensed vulnerable prey was at hand. Operating fully on instincts, she heaved the heavy body down the aisle, shoving it forward like a battering ram into the chest of an infected woman so massive it could barely fit between the aisles. She pulled her sword free as the pair of them went down in a heap with the larger flopping on top of the smaller male, arms and legs flailing grotesquely. A single thrust stilled the dead woman's struggles, at the same time creating a barrier that she thought might or might not hold for a minute or two.

Then, in the midst of the churning chaos, Olivia found the world changing around her. Or perhaps it was herself changing, becoming aware of more than what she could see in front of her, or on the fuzzy edges of her vision. A pair of somethings were approaching behind her, one of them moving rapidly. And there was more. Much more. Now that she was consciously aware of the change, information began flowing into her brain from all quarters. There was Walter, still in the cab, and Astrid beside him. And there was Peter, on the other side of the truck, his sword a streak of silver in the air. The infected, converging from all sides. The sensation was impossible to describe. There was no word for it, no frame of reference to connect thought to feeling. The best she could come up with was that it was like remembering something that had yet to happen, remembering forward in time — but even that was only a pale shadow, still incomplete. She simply knew what she knew, as if they were a part of her, and she of them. It was like the coin. Like Jacob Fischer and his men.

She felt a second tick past.

The first of the somethings was nearly upon her. Someone was shouting her name, a frantic warning. Olivia whirled about to find a fresh wearing full body armor charging straight toward her, teeth gaping open. Her mind distantly registered the SWAT in white lettering across its chest, even as stark terror rippled beneath the surface of her thoughts.

A gunshot boomed from inside the truck, exploding the side of the fresh's neck. It kept coming.

She could feel it, feel the strange matrices of its life force. It was the same as her, yet different. Changed.  _Infected_. The source of the corruption hung in the space behind its glowing eyes. The fresh sprang, arms outstretched.

_No._

The thought was singular, all alone inside her head. She wanted it to stop.

So it did.

The fresh hung in the air, balanced on one foot as chaos flourished on all sides. But they were in the eye, the center, and all was still.

She staggered back against the truck. Maintaining her control over it was like gripping a freezing ball of ice. Her head ached. Pain pulsed at the tip of her spine. Clamping her teeth together, she forced it all aside. The fresh's eyes never blinked, never strayed from her face. It watched her watch it, straining without end. She reached out for the knot of infection behind its eyes, not with her hand but with her eye — the inner one. The one that could see what she could not touch, and touched what she could not feel.

Olivia reached out, with what she knew not, and began to squeeze, to twist.

The fresh quaked inside its skin, and then its face went slack, the light in its eyes extinguishing. A gush of bright blood burst from its ears, its nose, a crimson waterfall spilling over lips pale in undeath.

She drew in a breath, gasping. Hot air burned in her lungs. Sweat poured down her face, drenching her shirt. Her skin felt on fire. Without fully understanding how or even what she was doing, she retreated, pulling back from the stricken fresh in the same way a boxer danced away from a downed opponent. As she pulled away, so did her control over it, and the fresh dropped like a sack, falling straight onto its face. It was dead — yet she had never touched it, physically.

Looking up from the body, she found Walter watching her. Time had passed, but how much she couldn't say. Enough for him to have made his way out of the cab. His eyes were huge and full of wonder. He had seen her, and understood. She glanced down at the fresh sprawled on the pavement, at the pool of blood spreading beneath it.

 _I killed it — without even laying a finger on it_. A shiver went through her, despite the incredible heat.  _What am I becoming_ _?_

Time jerked back into full speed then, and she became aware of Peter racing around the truck, with Astrid just behind him. A glance back revealed a long line of infected coming toward them down the aisle, drawing close to the huge dead woman whose bloated corpse had formed a makeshift stopper.

"Are you okay, Walter?" she heard herself asking.

"I'm fine, dear," he replied approaching her carefully, as one would a skittish horse. "That poor fellow merely took a bite out of Agent Farnsworth's crowbar. Are  _you_ okay? I believe that, is the more relevant question."

Was she okay? She took stock of herself and realized the sensations from before hadn't left her completely. The strange connectedness — it was still there, still inside her, beckoning. Why was it still there? Why wasn't it going away like it had before? Peter skidded to a stop behind his father. He was covered in blood and bits of gore. His chest heaved, and she saw with dull amazement, that he was glowing. Or not glowing, exactly, but shimmering, like she was seeing him on an old movie screen, or a hologram.

"It's because he's from the other side," Walter said. His quiet voice captured her gaze. "What you're seeing, my dear. It's because he's from the other side."

Olivia flinched. She must have been gaping, but how had he known at what? What else did he know? Clearly, he had not told her everything — a situation she would rectify if they made it out of their current predicament alive.

"Everybody okay?" Peter asked, glancing between each of them in turn, and herself last.

Their eyes met. The eerie glow around him was gone, but his heart was thumping, beating quicksilver inside his chest. She could sense each contraction, each expansion. She could feel  _him_ , all the way through. She could feel all of them — including a tiny something down low in the center of her pelvis. If it wasn't all so unnerving, she might have cried.

"We have to get out of here, now," Peter was saying. "Before they can surround us again.

Olivia came back to herself then, yet the connected feeling never quite departed. "Yes," she agreed, nodding. "While we still can." Infected who had already passed by were returning, drawn in by the sounds of battle. And she could feel more infected approaching from behind, like sparks rising from a bonfire.

Astrid lifted up on her toes, peering across the highway. 'Where's Claire?" she asked, her voice tinged with panic. "Where's everybody else? Are they okay?"

"They went on head," Peter said. "We'll have to catch up. Can you handle it, Walter? We're gonna have to move fast."

"I'll do my best, son," he said. "Thank you for... for coming to my rescue. Oh, and for Aspirin, too, of course."

"Thanks, Walter," Astrid muttered, shaking her head. "Thanks a lot."

Olivia watched Peter shrug at his father's thanks, at the way he looked away uncomfortably. In the middle of it all, he'd been shouting his father's name. He'd been worried. Another sign that perhaps not all was lost between them.

They started off, leaving the yellow pickup truck behind. Infected were all around them now, but most, thankfully, were cordoned off by interceding lanes of traffic. There were gaps, of course, but for the most part, reaching the far side of the highway was far easier than Olivia would have guessed possible, though in hindsight she should have seen it at once. Individually, the infected were relatively simple to dispatch. It was only when the undead could reach them in large numbers that they became something fearsome to behold. And as long as they kept moving, it simply wasn't possible as long as they stayed on the highway.

Had she been wrong before to overrule Lincoln's suggestion they flee? The others were gone, with only a trail of bodies as evidence of their passing. They hunkered down in the shadow of a work van parked on the outside lane of the Turnpike, surveying the way forward. Ahead the sprawling wooded area, with thickets of tall weeds interspersed throughout.

"What now?" Astrid whispered, crouched beside Peter.

"Those train tracks we saw on your map should be somewhere in those trees," he said, pointing with the tip of his sword.

"Well, that's great, Peter, but what about them?"

Olivia studied the herd of dead bodies wading through the forest, traipsing aimlessly southward, following the path of the highway. From a distance, they looked like dejected concert-goers on their way out of a canceled show. There were hundreds of them spread out all along the embankment, possibly thousands, with those that were surely hidden among the trees.

"I don't see any freshes," Peter said after a moment. "We can make it if we stick together."

Olivia met his gaze, and both of their eyes shifted to Walter for an instant. She knew what he was thinking. If it was just the three of them, she had no doubt they could make a run for it, evading the infected with their speed. But Walter? Surely, he could not, even without his bum knee. But what other choice was left? She thought some part of her had known it might always come down to this. A final marathon.

"I'll be fine," Walter said in a stiff voice, as if he'd known exactly what had passed between them. He met each of their gazes in turn. "I've made it this far. And I'm not as old and decrepit as I might appear. Don't let me be the one to hold us back now." Straightening, he took off suddenly, hurrying down the embankment toward the tree line at a slow trot, leaning hard on his walking stick.

"Walter!" Peter hissed, then hurried after him. "No. Wait! Walter!"

"Well, that settles that," Astrid said, standing up. "I guess we're going."

Olivia rose beside her, eyeing the approaching infected. "I guess so," she said quietly, reaffirming her hold on her sword's hilt. The cloth was wet and tacky against her palm, yet her grip remained firm. Now the real race begins, she added silently in her head, then started down the embankment after them.

#

Peter crashed through the tree branches ahead, inadvertently whipping them back in her face. Olivia ducked at the last moment, averting disaster.

"Hey! Watch it, Peter," she muttered, slashing the branch aside.

"Sorry...," came his reply from just head. He said something else, but his voice was muffled by the violence of their passage through the brush.

The forest was a mirage of greens and yellows and browns, of hanging vines and weeds taller than themselves, obscuring their view. She knew that Astrid and Walter were somewhere off to their left — or so she hoped, at least — despite not having seen either of them in some time. The two of them had become separated, after they'd stumbled into the path of a small horde that had been heading in the opposite direction. The fighting had been frantic, with herself and Peter ending up back to back. And when the final body had been put down, they had been alone in the clearing.

Noises echoed from where she thought they might be; a series of heavy thuds and crashing footsteps, followed by a grunt that could have been human or undead. A female voice cried out a garbled warning, followed by another voice that sounded like Walter's, calling out one of his idiotic nicknames for Astrid that seemed to change daily.

"That way!" Olivia hissed, rushing past Peter.

Taking up the chase, they crashed through the underbrush. Shadowed figures ghosted on the edges of her vision, but she ignored them. Speed was what they needed, instead of becoming bogged down killing every infected they came across. Walter's voice rang out again from somewhere in front of them. Clearly, she and Peter had both underestimated his father's fortitude. A flutter of wings erupted as she dashed beneath a massive oak tree, and indignant squawks floated down from overhead. More avian tweets and caws reverberated ahead and behind, adding an eerie ambiance to the whole affair.

She leapt over a log and nearly stumbled over a body lying in the weeds on the others side. Passing over it, she noted that part of its skull was missing, hewn off at an angle above its right eye. She kept going, and soon found another body, this one with a jagged hole off-center in its forehead. She jumped over it, plunging through a wall of hanging vegetation, and suddenly found herself out in the open. Blue sky gleamed overhead, visible through a wide gap in the trees.

Peter landed beside her a second later, chest heaving. "Which... way?" he gasped, bending over and trying to catch his breath.

The break in the forest ran north to south, and was bisected by a rusting train track atop a bed of gravel. An infected lay crumpled across the tracks to their left, and another not far beyond. Further south down the tracks, a pair of distant figures several hundred yards away were just disappearing around a bend, the taller of which had a distinct limp.

Olivia pulled in deep breaths of her own before replying, heart blaring in her ears.  _How the hell are they managing to stay so far ahead of us?_  She opened her mouth to voice the question, but something tickled the inside of her mind an instant before an infected crashed through the shroud of hanging vegetation, lunging for Peter's back. "Peter, watch out!" she cried, spinning to meet it with a whirling slash.

Her blade bit deep, shearing through hair and flesh and bone with satisfying ease. The undead — a former employee of McDonald's, she noticed dimly — spun off the blade in a splatter of blood as it collapsed, and then she found herself facing two more undead that had been following it through the underbrush. Before she could react, Peter rushed past her, thrusting his sword through the face of one of the nearest with a savage grunt. Olivia stepped forward, ducking under the other's lunging grasp, and slashed a vicious cut across its right thigh. The infected went down on one leg, then began slithering toward her, teeth bared and hissing as it clawed into the gravel bed.

Turning, she booted the creature in the face, knocking it back. "They're this way, Peter!" she said, leaping over the squirming infected and racing down the center of the track.

Walter and Astrid were gone, having rounded the bend. She shot a look back and found Peter — along with at least a dozen infected — racing down the path behind her. He let out a shout of warning, and she turned back to find two more stepping onto the tracks ahead of her. Charging between them, she slashed wildly at the one on her right, while dodging away from the other's reaching hands. Her blade bit deep into flesh and then she was past it, speeding toward the bend in the tracks.

Trees and leering faces flashed past on either side. Shortly, the trees disappeared for several moments, and she glimpsed city streets down a steep incline, with houses and businesses, all teeming with undead. And then the city was gone, and she was back in the forest. The rail line began a long sweeping curve to the west. Pounding footsteps and skittering gravel announced Peter closing in fast.

He came abreast of her, holding his sword out to the side, angled away from her. "I don't... know where they all... came from," he gasped between breaths, "...but, stopping now would be a very... bad idea."

Olivia heard panic in his voice and looked back to find a solid wall of infected clogging the gravel path behind them. A stab of fear drove into her chest as she looked forward again, renewing her speed. There were hundreds of them. Thousands. The numbers mattered not. What mattered were the plethora of pale faces at the front of the horde, the dozens of freshes sprinting after them with a kind of sickening agility, despite their ungainly and out-of-sync strides.

"Oh fuck," she gasped, icy chills racing up her spine. "Faster, Peter! Faster!"

Peter hissed something unintelligible in reply. Sweat was pouring off his face, and off her own, stinging her eyes with salt. The air seemed even hotter somehow, as if the earth had suddenly shifted closer to the sun's glare. Olivia's legs were on fire, thighs and calves burning with lactic acid. She would've killed for a drink at that moment, but her water was tucked away in her backpack, which could have been a million miles away for all the good it did her.

The tracks began to straighten out, and the single track became two as another rail curving up from the south took up a parallel route. If her memory of Astrid's map was correct, both tracks would lead them straight to Newark Bay. They pounded over another rail line, a pair of tracks beneath a narrow bridge, and then they were out of the trees and back in the open air with the sun's harsh gaze beaming down.

The New Jersey Turnpike hung in the air off to their left, elevated on wide columns of concrete several hundred feet away. The highway was jammed in both directions with abandoned vehicles, and infected — more than Olivia had ever seen at once, since the beginning of the outbreak. The horde stretched on for miles, without end, and it was at that moment that the difference in scales between New York and Boston finally struck home.

 _My god..._ she thought _, there's so many of them_. She tried to estimate how many, packed onto the overpass like sardines in a can, but it was impossible. The mass of infected seethed, shimmering like a mirage in the distance. How many? A hundred thousand? Half a million? And that was just those she could see. How many more were hidden from view by the forest, by the horizon? Absently, she found herself wondering how many were New Yorkers, how many had sought safety and succor outside the city? Only to find none, only to find death?

"There they are!" Peter said suddenly, his voice hoarse, laced with exhaustion.

Olivia tore her gaze from the highway. Perhaps a quarter of a mile ahead of them, a group of humans were walking on the tracks. She recognized Walter and Astrid, her sister's golden hair, and the shorter figures of Ella and Gina among them. The two girls were balancing on the rails, arms wind-milling out to either side. The others were there also, Lincoln and Broyles and Claire, all present and accounted for.

 _What the hell are they doing? Why aren't they running?_  Did they think they were safe? She glanced back and found the pack of freshes closer than before. Much closer. A brand-new surge of fear twisted her gut in a knot. The distance between them was less than half of what it had been. One of them was even closer still, far out-pacing its fellows. Close enough for her to make out its yellow-eyed stare, its leering snarl full of teeth still white enough for a dentist's cleaning. A mop of black hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail that bounced and swayed about as the fresh galloped toward them.  _What was it, a fucking marathon runner? How can it be so fast?_

"Run!" Olivia shouted, waving her sword in the air where the others would hopefully see it. "Go! Run!"

Peter took up the call also, his shouts echoing over hers. The others looked back, stopping on the tracks. She imagined their curious faces, their confused expressions. Why weren't they listening? Why weren't they going? Couldn't they see what was happening, the danger they were all in? And then she realized they couldn't. They probably couldn't even hear their shouts clearly. Not yet, at least. But that would soon change.

She looked back again and nearly stumbled in fright. The fresh was there, right behind them, its teeth snapping at the air, less than ten yards away. Its eyes glowed with rage, with unquenchable hunger. And they were locked on Peter's back. She could sense the wrongness emanating from it, like a film of oil settling on the surface of a lake.

"Peter!" she shouted, transferring her sword to her left hand. "Loot out! It's right behind you!"

He glanced back and cursed, then yanked his pistol and began firing desperately behind him, his face a mask of alarm. Olivia tore her pistol free and fired wild blasts back at the infected, squeezing off round after round. Their guns boomed. Explosions of red peppered the undead's t-shirt, its shorts, its crotch, blowing away one of its ears in a bloody mess. Then her gun was empty, and Peter's also, making only clicking sounds. The fresh kept coming. It seemed to accelerate, homing in on Peter's back like a missile.

Olivia gasped, panic and fear blurring her vision. At the same instant, her sense of the world deepened, to the point where she could have counted the hairs on the dead woman's head, or predicted the arrangement of freckles running across its back. She could feel it; she could feel everything. Including Peter's terror as he swerved from side to side, trying to shake its pursuit to no avail. It was going to take him. It was going to take Peter. She saw it happening before it happened.  _Peter!_

"No...!" The scream tore up her throat. The fresh dove through the air, fingers stretched into hooked claws. "Peter!"

She acted without thought, reaching out as she had before, back at the yellow pickup truck. Only instead of merely holding, she shoved with all her mental might, with every ounce of her will. Her vision doubled painfully, head ringing like a gong, and the fresh abruptly changed course, mid-flight.

Like some invisible giant had reached down and flicked it aside, the dead woman cart-wheeled silently through the air. Arm and legs pinwheeling, ponytail awhirl, it smashed into a wide tree with a stomach-turning crunch. Horribly, the body folded around the trunk like crushed origami, blood and chunks of gore spraying up and down the bark in abstract patterns. And then it was gone, vanished behind them both.

Peter's eyes bugged out of his head. For a stuttered heartbeat, Olivia thought he might stop moving altogether in the midst of his shock. But there was no time for wonder, no time for anything but to run. Holstering her pistol, she reached out and took his hand, pulling him after her.

The pack of freshes was gaining, hot on their trail, and beyond them, the massive horde roiled like a swarm of devouring locusts sweeping over the land. Ahead, the others had finally realized what was happening. Rachel's hair flashed in the sun. She and Claire and Walter ran head with the girls, racing down the flat depression between the tracks. Staying behind were Broyles and Lincoln, and Astrid, who stood over the two men when they inexplicably knelt down in the middle of the tracks.

Olivia gaped. What were they thinking? Fighting off a deep exhaustion, a ludicrous thought that they were kneeling down to pray crossed her mind. But then something shiny glinted near Lincoln's head. Glass? What was it? Binoculars? No. A scope. A rifle. And suddenly, she understood.

"Give them... a line of fire, Peter...," she gasped. Talking was difficult. Her lungs felt on fire, as if they might burst, or failing that, simply implode. "Spread out... give them room."

"Do... what...?" he wheezed, giving her a sideways glance that indicated he thought she might be losing her mind.

And maybe she was losing it. In most cases, running straight into the teeth of automatic weapon fire was an invitation for being shot dead. But that was exactly what their former boss had in mind. They were good shots, weren't they? They had better be. Following her own instructions, she swerved into the deeper gravel to her right, giving the two men a clear view of the mob behind them.

"Lincoln... had better not shoot me...," Peter panted between huge gasps of air. "Or, I swear I'll come back... and eat his brains."

Olivia snorted, holding in the sudden urge to laugh, and nearly tripping over a jutting railroad tie in the process. It was ridiculous. Only Peter Bishop could and would try and make her laugh at a time like this. He swerved away from her, leaping over the left-hand tracks and creating a wide gap between them. It would have to be enough, or they were both dead.

Yellow starbursts erupted in Broyles's fist, mirrored an instant later by Lincoln. Then the heavy thud of automatic gunfire split the air. A hail of bullets whined past, like swarms of angry gnats zooming past her ear. The effect was dizzying — and terrifying. A single miss could end her life, or Peter's. She risked a glance over her shoulder and saw freshes tumbling across their line, skidding onto their faces in the gravel, sprays of blood splattering the air. At least a dozen remained upright, however, each intent on their flesh. They were close now, perhaps twenty, thirty yards away. The gunshots grew louder, merging with their visual counterparts exploding from each rifle's tip. Astrid's frantic voice reached her ears over the conundrum, urging them to go faster, and faster.

But there was no faster. Not for her, not for Peter. Her legs burned as they never had before, her lungs starved for air. If anything, they were fading, each stride more difficult than the one before it. They had simply come too fast, too far. A part of her was impressed that Peter had managed to keep up for so long — he'd never been the runner she had been in their old lives.

Astrid's eyes bulged, the whites visible even from a distance. She raised her pistol and began firing also, adding her own deadly rhythm to the mix. Broyles stopped to reload, with Lincoln following suit a moment later. In the interim, Peter began falling back in her peripheral vision, pain and exhaustion stretching his face thin.

Olivia slowed also, staying by his side.  _I won't leave you, my love_ , she thought as the staccato gunfire resumed. Bullets whizzed past, so close she could have sworn she'd felt the wind of their passage. Another look back revealed the freshes' numbers greatly diminished. Only a few remained upright, but frighteningly near. Their eyes glittered with insane glee, teeth snapping audibly. She kept going, glancing at Peter beside her, willing him to keep up.

"Dunham, out of the way!" Broyles deep roar carried over the cacophony.

She became aware of footsteps, stomping in the gravel directly behind her. Looking back once more, she stared into the face of a fresh as it reached out, fingers only inches from grabbing hold of her hair. Overcome by panic, she dove off to her right, tumbling down a steep hill of tall razor-like weeds as fresh gunfire erupted, bullets ripping the air overhead. Something smacked hard against her head and she ended up on her back, watching in a daze as her sword flipped lazily through the air, its edge sparkling with light against the blue sky. The blade came down off to her right, stabbing downward into the earth.

"Olivia!" a voice that sounded like Peter's shouted. "Olivia!"

Feet pounded through the brush. A shadowed figure came into view, face obscured by the blinding sunlight. Olivia blinked and stared at the silhouette moving toward her, still groggy from her fall. Her face stung with tiny lashes, her thoughts clouded by fog.  _Peter...?_  She reached up, touching a spot above her ear where she found a sticky wetness.  _My head hurts_ _._ Voices shouted from close by.

"Bishop!"

"No! Olivia!"

The silhouette came to a stop above her.  _You're not Peter_ , she thought, and suddenly recognized the mortal danger she was in through the haze filling her mind. The silhouetted man let out a rasping hiss, and then pounced, falling toward her like an avalanche.

With a gasp, she rolled to the side, toward where she vaguely recalled seeing her sword fall. The fresh thudded onto the ground beside her, kicking up dust, carrying with it the familiar stench of rot and dead bodies from her old life. The hilt of her sword poked up through the grass not far away. She lunged for it, crawling, fingernails gouging into the hard-packed soil. But then a hand closed about her ankle like a vice, yanking her back roughly. Something clamped down on her left foot, and looking back, she found her boot between the fresh's teeth. Yellow, blood-specked eyes stared up at her. The creature made a low growling sound, like a dog tearing through a bone.

Olivia screamed as something sheared loose inside her. Other screams echoed from somewhere, voices and shouts, pounding feet. She thrashed and kicked like a cornered animal, without thought or reason, her mind a flat line of terror. Her sword, her abilities, distant memories not her own. The fresh's mad eyes blotted out every thought, erased all reason. With a shriek and some effort, she tore her foot free of its teeth, sans her left boot. She scrambled forward through weeds on all fours, her thoughts only of escape now, of survival. But the fresh followed right behind her, not content with her boot. It clawed at her ankles, then gouged its nails into her calf and hauled her back toward its waiting teeth.

Suddenly a silver streak blurred the air. The pressure on her legs relaxed and she fell forward into the grass. Gasping through panicked breaths, she rolled onto her back. Peter's form stood over her, eyes furious as he separated the fresh's head from its shoulders with a savage overhand chop, then kicked it off into the brush like a soccer ball. A fibrous cloud of dust hung in the air in the aftermath, stirred up by the scuffle.

For a moment, she lay still, frozen, chest heaving, eyes locked onto the pair of grimy hands — one wrapped about her left ankle, the other gripping he right calf. She couldn't look away. She couldn't breathe. Both of the hands were attached to a pair of forearms, one cut cleanly through above the wrist, the other below the elbow. Shuddering with revulsion, she kicked them away. They had still been alive, still been gripping with evil strength.

Then Peter was there throwing himself down on the ground beside her. His face was white, his eyes fragile and misty. He reached out carefully, examining her legs, twisting each this way and that. He was terrified. She could feel it in his touch, in the violent shake of his hands, and most of all, in his silence.

"Peter, I'm okay," Olivia said softly, sitting up with a wince. It was a half-lie, as evidenced by the pounding inside her skull, and the knot she could feel growing above her ear.

"I saw it...," he said in a breathless, trembling voice. "I saw it biting you... and I... I thought..." he trailed off, darkness and misery emanating from his blue eyes.

"I'm all right," she told him again, taking one of his hands and pressing it to her lips. His skin was callused and rough, and stank of rotten blood. But none of that mattered. "It didn't bite me. You got there in time. I'm okay, but... I don't think my boot is going to make it," she added deadpan.

"Your... boot?" Peter frowned, then burst into a fit of laughter that lit up his face like the rising sun, before falling back into the grass beside her.

Olivia found herself laughing also, and so hard that she couldn't stop. It was all so fucking ridiculous. The world had ended, they were lying in the weeds on the side of a railroad track in the middle of New Jersey. She had been in the actual jaws of death, and had somehow survived. What else was there to do but laugh? It was either that or crying, and it didn't seem like the time for tears. She crawled on top of Peter and kissed him soundly on the lips, driving her tongue into his mouth in a sudden fit of need and overpowering lust.

"What the hell are you two doing?" Broyles's brusque voice said out of the blue.

Peter went still beneath her, his hands — which had somehow already found their way down the back of her shorts — froze in their rather delicate position. The former Special Agent sounded both shocked and outraged. Olivia lifted her head and found him standing atop the incline with a rifle on his shoulder, and Lincoln Lee hunched over with hysterical laughter beside him. Astrid stood there, also, covering her mouth with her hand.

"Shit..." Peter whispered, closing his eyes with a sigh. "That's some bad timing."

"Aw, this is too much," Lincoln chuckled, shaking his head. "You two really are the same everywhere. Get a room. Seriously. And while you're at it, find one that's not about to be overrun by at least a hundred thousand flesh-eating monsters."

Olivia rolled off Peter, face burning as she retrieved her sword, then searched the weeds for her missing boot. As she pulled it on, her eyes went to the wall of infected approaching. Somehow, she had forgotten all about them, and, she realized with a sudden surge of terror, she'd forgotten all about the baby growing inside her womb.

She'd just tumbled headfirst down a hill. She'd had a  _fall_. Pregnant women were always warned about falling, weren't they? Weren't they? What if something had happened to it?  _Oh, god, what if I hurt it,_ _what if I hurt my baby?_  Would she turn spontaneously as Sonia had? Without even being aware that she'd used her abilities until afterward, she focused on the life growing inside of her, probing its texture with her inner eye. It was like a spark, tiny and helpless, floating in a sea of black nothingness. But it was there, just as it had been before. It seemed okay, and knowing that, relief swept through her, taking the harsh edge off her pounding headache.

 _You have to be more careful, Liv,_ she told herself, following Peter back up the incline. _You have to be much, much more careful._  Unfortunately, however, being careful wasn't something she was particularly good at, now, or ever. And where she was going, being careful wasn't part of the plan.

#

They hurried out of the trees, out into the open where muggy blasts of wind rushed in off the bay. Behind them, a seething mass of bodies followed, creeping over the landscape like a plague. The raised tracks passed over a rocky beach strewn with trash and debris, and, with what appeared to be hundreds of bloated dead bodies. A dank stench hovered in the air. They plowed through it and out onto the bridge where a sheer crosswind did its best to toss them off into the water, far below.

The train bridge was narrow and without handholds of any sort. Only a narrow space running between the tracks seemed safe to walk down. Just to the south, the Turnpike crossed over the water also, or had. Like most of the bridges in and out of Boston, a wide span of bridging was missing, sheared off cleanly between two columns. Yet the way ahead seemed clear, unaffected my military strikes. Just over halfway across the bay, a structure of rusting metal braces and girders seemed to block the track ahead of them.

Olivia wasn't sure what she was looking at, at first, but then its purpose came to her: it was a vertical-lift bridge, below which container ships and tankers could pass. The type of ships that had blocked off the entrance to the bay. As the structure drew closer, it became apparent that it had been left in a partially elevated position. After some debate, they decided that it had more than likely been left so on purpose, creating an effective barrier for any being incapable of climbing a ladder; of which there were two, each running up the side of massive scaffolds of interlocked structural iron on either side of the bridge. Which left the infected following them out of luck.

The others were waiting at the base of the raised section. Olivia scanned her sister and niece for injuries, but other than a new scrape across Rachel's forehead, they seemed no worse for wear. The same could be said for Walter, for Claire and Gina. They had all made it, despite enduring long odds and chaos. It came to her that the same could be said for all of them, since the very beginning of the outbreak.

"What took you guys so long?" Ella wanted to know. "We've been waiting here, forever, Aunt Liv."

"Yeah, what did take you so long?" Rachel added with a frown. "I thought you'd be here a while ago."

"We... ran into some trouble," Olivia explained, tucking her hair behind her ear while avoiding her sister's curious gaze.

"Yeah, that's one way of putting it," Lincoln muttered under his breath, but thankfully didn't elaborate.

"I was worried about you, son," Walter said, hesitantly approaching Peter. "When we became separated, I was very worried about you."

"Well, you did just kind of take off without us, Walter," Peter said. "So, you can kind of blame yourself for that. But... if you must know, I'm fine." He looked back, narrowing his gaze on the columns of infected beginning to squeeze out onto the bridge. "I don't know about you guys, but I think finishing this discussion up there..." He paused, gesturing at the elevated level of track, before continuing. "Seems like a better idea. They're not what I would call quick, but they will get here eventually."

"I couldn't agree more, Peter," Broyles said, then went about organizing the effort in his usual efficient manner.

Olivia waited, taking a sip from her last bottle of water as Lincoln and Astrid began their ascents. They were the first to go up, followed by Walter and the girls, then Rachel, and then everyone else. For herself, Olivia was content to go last, as did Peter to stay with her until the end. The elevated track was higher than it had appeared from a distance, and the whole process took longer than she'd anticipated.

She stared out across the water as they waited for their turn. The wind whipped her hair about, tearing it loose from her ponytail. After a few failed attempts, she gave up trying to fix it, letting the wind have its way. Below, miniature whitecaps surged in toward the western shore. Whitish specs of sea birds wheeled in the distance, diving down toward the water, their cries echoing distantly. She lifted her gaze to the Turnpike, to the rolling waters below the collapsed section. There was no sign of the fallen vehicles, or of the broken spans of bridge. Had they waited until the civilians were clear? Or had they repeated the atrocities they'd committed in Boston, murdering innocent people in the name of the greater good? Sometimes, she wondered if humanity even deserved to survive, if that was the best they could treat one another, if Jacob Fischer and his ilk were the norm. It was a dark thought, but didn't they all seem bent that way, lately?

"So... you did something back there," Peter said when they were alone. "You have been practicing, haven't you?"

Olivia nodded. "Yeah. I have, though, what I did back there... I still don't really know what I'm doing half the time. It's all just guesswork, and I'm just muddling my way through." She saw the fresh's body exploding against the tree, splattering like an egg, and shivered, despite the intense heat. "These abilities, Peter. They scare me," she admitted, meeting his gaze. "Sometimes I wonder what I'm becoming. Something, unnatural, I think. Like one of them." She nodded past him, to the approaching infected.

Peter took her hand, rubbing slow circles across her palm with his thumb. "Olivia, these things you can do," he said, his voice both gentle and insistent, "they don't define you. You are who you've always been. And I know what you're thinking — that you'll end up like this other one Lincoln told me about, this evil twin, this other... Olivia Dunham, who's turned to the Dark Side. She's not you, and neither is the Olivia from Lincoln's world. Whatever the circumstances that made up their lives, they aren't yours, or they would be you. The fact that you're worried about this proves that you're different."

"You two coming up, or not?" Claire called down suddenly, getting their attention. Her black hair hung forward as she leaned down from above.

Olivia lowered her eyes to Peter. Was it true? Was she her own woman? Independent of all others? She prayed it was so. She prayed that she would remain herself. "You're probably right," she said finally, squeezing his hand once before pulling away. "You ready to get out of here?"

With a grin, he motioned for her to take the lead. "Ladies first."

"Is that chivalry I detect?" she said, rolling her eyes as she pulled herself onto the ladder. "In this day and age? What, are you trying to get lucky, Bishop?"

Peter shrugged, and seemed to consider her question seriously before replying. "Maybe," he said, cobalt eyes twinkling. "Think it'll work?"

Now it was her turn to consider. She paused between rungs, staring down at him. How much time did they have left? It could all come to an end at any moment, as it nearly had for them both just a short while ago. Their lives were precarious things, balanced on the point of a needle. "You know, it just might," she told him finally, holding his gaze for a long moment before resuming the climb.

"Olivia."

Something in his voice made her heart tremor. Pausing again, she looked down at Peter's face between her boots. He was on the ladder beneath her, peering up from below. He probably had an eyeful, but it was nothing he hadn't seen already, and from the way he was looking at her, it was the farthest thing from his mind. "Yeah?"

He wet his lips before speaking. "I love you."

"I... love you, too, Peter," she replied softly.

It felt like a lie, in spite of it being the truth. A lump rose up in her throat, and she forced it down. She thought of the thing she'd been considering, of her plan, and of the secret growing inside of her. He deserved to know. He deserved to have something to fight for, like she did. Something beyond herself, beyond the two of them.  _But I can't. Not Yet. I'm sorry, Peter. I'm so sorry_ _._

#

The others were waiting at the top of the ladder, and they quickly made their way across to the other end of the raised track, where they repeated the order from before. Going down the other side was slower for some reason, and the girls weren't the only ones who had a hard time with the heights and the wind and the wide-open space. When it was Olivia's turn to go, she paused on the threshold, taking in the view.

Off to the southwest was Newark Airport, with its oval-shaped concourse, its array of circular terminals just visible in the distance over the roofs of rectangular warehouse buildings, shipping and container yards arranged in grids. Closer in, on the shore of the bay, were several of the largest parking lots she'd ever seen in her life, all jammed full of cars and trucks. She blinked at the sheer quantity of automobiles present. Blackened craters marred the lots in random places, in which the vehicles were twisted and melted into unrecognizable scrap heaps. But even taking the destruction into account, the number of vehicles was staggering, beyond belief. Thousands? Hundreds of thousands? She wondered what sort of place it was, and then it came to her when she took its geographic location into account. Undoubtedly, she was looking at some pre-outbreak automobile manufacturer's import-export lot. Or several manufacturers'. Probably foreign. Japanese or Korean, maybe. Perhaps European. Making a mental note to search among them for a working vehicle, she made her way down the ladder.

At the bottom, the Newark shore seemed close enough to touch. They hurried down the center of the tracks toward the spot where the train bridge merged with a mass of greenery, mainly rows of wide bushes and evergreens atop an embankment. A train was stopped on the right-hand tracks, and its long line of connected hoppers seemed to go on forever. Beyond it, lay a massive container yard, with stacks and stacks of multicolored metal boxes. Off to their left was the first of the gigantic parking lots, with rows of vehicles that appeared in pristine shape up close. Olivia was about to mention the cars to Peter, when out of the blue voices began shouting from all sides.

_"Freeze! Don't move! DON'T MOVE! Put your hands up! Drop those weapons! Do it now!"_

Men in dark sunglasses and black armored jackets appeared on top of the train cars, each holding an automatic weapon. More appeared behind them, stepping out from the bushes, and to the sides and to the front, seeming to rise from the ground like specters.

Though she had no memory of drawing he weapon, Olivia found her gun in her hand, pointed straight at the head of the nearest assailant. Lincoln had his rifle against his shoulder, shouting his defiance. As was Peter, shifting his gun between at least three different men at the same time, and Broyles, and Astrid, each with hard faces. On top of it all, Rachel and Claire were screaming for everyone to stop, their faces pale and terrified, while Ella and Gina cowered in fear against her sister's hip. Oddly, Walter was the only one not out of control, and merely stood still frowning down at his hands.

It all registered in Olivia's mind in the span of several heartbeats. The shouting grew more intense by the second, each face more determined.  _Someone's going to pull a trigger, either on accident, or on purpose. And then it's over._  They would all die. Every one of them. The strangers had them surrounded, outgunned and outnumbered, and they held the high ground. Like fools, they had walked into a trap.

Taking breath, Olivia lowered her gun. "Stop! Peter! Lincoln! Stop it, all of you! Stop it!" she shouted, moving to Peter's side and grabbing his wrist. "Stop, Peter. Lincoln. Stop it, before someone gets killed."

Peter cursed, and then lowered his pistol. After a moment, Broyles followed suit and then Astrid, and finally Lincoln, who looked ready to spit fire and chew rocks.

"You sure about this, Dunham?" Broyles said in a deadly voice.

"We don't have a choice, sir." Olivia tossed her pistol onto the dirt. When the others had all done the same, she raised her hands. "We give up!" she shouted. "Don't shoot! Please. We don't want anyone hurt."

The clearing grew quiet. She heard Peter's intakes of breath beside her in the silence, as well as low muttering coming from Walter. One of the men moved from his position on top of a coal hopper, climbing down a ladder to the ground. From the confident way he moved toward them, she assumed he was the leader. The other men kept their guns trained on them, staring silently behind their dark glasses.

"You heard our guns earlier, didn't you," she said when the man came to stop before them. "That's why you're here. Are you the one broadcasting the message?" Astrid gasped behind her.

The man said nothing in reply, inspecting each of them closely. Olivia studied him in turn. He was tall and thin, clean-shaven with pronounced cheekbones that gave him a skeletal look. Something about his stance was familiar, though she couldn't say why, exactly. She had either seen the man before, or he reminded her of someone she had seen before. Hanging from a strap on his shoulder was a sleek sub-machine gun equipped with a long and fat suppressor, and a banana-shaped magazine. He pulled a two-way radio from his pocket and spoke into it.

"I have them," he said in a voice laced with Brooklyn, then lifted the radio to his ear and listened for a moment before speaking again. "Yep. Seven and two children. No trouble at all. I don't know about the rest." The man listened again and Olivia caught whispers of a faint voice speaking. "Yes, sir. Over and out." He lowered the radio, tapping against his palm. "No one is going to be hurt," he said, addressing them for the first time. "But, I'm afraid you're all gonna have to come with me.

"Who the hell are you people?" Lincoln demanded.

The man ignored him as if he hadn't spoken. "Boss's orders. We have to take you in."

One of the men on top the coal hopper shouted suddenly. "Hey, we got incoming hostiles! Runners and walkers!"

"Do we have a location?" the unknown man called without taking his eyes from them.

"North, and south!"

"Shit. Time to go people."

"What about our weapons?" Broyles said. "We're not just going to leave them here."

"My men will grab it all. This way," he said, motioning behind him. "We don't have much time. Unwelcome guests will be arriving shortly. You all stirred up a real hornet's nest. This sector's never been properly cleared, and with what happened in Jersey City a few weeks back, the runners are everywhere again. I'm sure you've got a ton of questions, but they're gonna have to wait."

Olivia frowned. Sector? Cleared? What had happened in Jersey City? They had passed just south of Jersey City, just a few hours ago. _What is this? Who are these people?_  Military? She glanced at Peter. He was unhappy about it, but would comply. In any case, there was nothing they could do but follow.

The man led them down a short gravel road running alongside the train tracks to a pair of plain and white dust-covered vans parked out of sight behind a row of bush. He pulled open the side door to reveal rows of bench seating, enough for their entire group and more.

"Where exactly are you taking us?" Peter said, stopping with his hand on the van's frame.

"To a place not far from here. Get in. I wasn't kidding about how much time we had."

"Peter, it'll be okay," Olivia told him with a nod. She prayed it was true. It had to be true. That they were still alive had to mean something.

After a moment, Peter sighed, and then climbed into the front row of seats. They piled into the van after him and were soon zooming down unfamiliar streets, most of which were clear of obstructions. Infected roamed down side streets, herds of them closing in, including a high percentage of freshes, which seemed odd. Runners, they had called them. So, he hadn't been lying. And despite having taken their guns, the man seemed unconcerned about their other weapons — including her and Peter's swords — which made no sense if these people truly intended them ill. She felt a ray of hope, and saw the moment when Peter realized this oddity also, when he reached up, fingering the cloth-wrapped hilt poking up over his shoulder with a furrowed brow. A glance out the rear window showed the second van, staying close to their trail.

Several minutes later, the van made a series of zigzags between a staggered line of vehicles blocking an intersection. An extremely long building appeared on the right, hugging the street. The building was several blocks long, at least, and surrounding it was a fence of thick, iron spikes, reinforced with crossbeams and by concrete at the base. The fence made the one surrounding the asylum seem laughable, paper thin, and no protection at all. The van slowed suddenly, and a section of fence began sliding open, seemingly of its own volition.

Olivia felt a dull shock. She gasped and heard others doing the same. The gate was obviously powered by an electric motor. A woman with dark hair stood inside the fence, operating the gate, which again slid smoothly closed after both vans had passed inside the perimeter. Men and women stared down from the roof above, armed with scoped rifles.

 _They have power, electricity,_ she thought, eyeing the guards, and their weapons. They seemed unalarmed and unsurprised to see them _. What is this? Where are we?_

Inside the gate was a wide parking lot that ran near the length of the entire facade. Off to the right were several loading docks with tall overhead doors. To the left, were a pair of glass doors, of the sort that might have been found at the main entrance of any commercial building before the outbreak. The van came to a stop in front the entrance, and the man driving them hopped out. They filed out into the parking lot, and their host — she wasn't going to refer to him as their captor, not yet, at least — led them inside, and even held the door open politely.

The blast of cold air that greeted Olivia when she stepped across the threshold drew tears from her eyes.  _Oh my god, they have air conditioning. Air conditioning._ It felt like saw looks of wonder on the others' faces, looks she was certain mirrored her own. Their guide marched them down a long corridor lit by overhead lights in a grid, past any number of closed, nondescript doors, until they came to one that was open.

Classic rock and roll poured out into the hall. The music seemed old and out of date to her 1990s era ears, but Walter seemed to perk up at once.

He began mumbling the words, his face a vision of distant ponderings, of times gone by. "...me tell you 'bout the way she looked, the way she'd act..."

Glancing back at Broyles, Olivia nearly stumbled at the strange expression on her former boss's face. He appeared stunned, his eyes white and huge. As if he'd just come to a realization. But, how could he?  _What is going on here?_  She could only wonder.  _Where are we?_

Their guide came to a stop in front of the open door, but did not enter. "The Lady wants to meet all of you," he said, then stepped back, motioning her inside.

 _The Lady?_  Olivia frowned, searching the man's face for some sign of his intent, but there was nothing to see. He was a professional, a blank board. A nothing. And, she thought likely, little more than a middle man. Just following his orders. She stepped through the doorway and froze.

_I don't believe it. I don't fucking believe it._

Inside was a spacious office, with a wide desk facing the doorway. The woman seated the desk in a tall leather-bound chair was dressed all in black and had dark red hair cut short, but still long enough to cover her ears. She was older, perhaps as old as Walter, with a sharp jawline that gave her the vulpine look of a predator, and intense, hazel eyes. Emerging from the sleeve of her right arm was a black leather glove.

Olivia felt her eyes bulging out of their sockets, but was helpless to stop them. "It's... it's you!" she managed to gasp, grabbing hold of the door frame.

For a moment, the woman seemed just as shocked as she did, but then Nina Sharp smiled. Her chair creaked as she leaned back, pressing her hands together in a steeple below her pointed chin. "Agent Dunham," she said in that same elegant voice Olivia remembered from before, a voice that brought back a flood of memories. "I must say, you are always... something of a surprise."


	37. The Prick of a Needle

**-August 2009**

Olivia fought to keep from gaping, stop her eyes from goggling.

Nina Sharp? How could Nina Sharp be here? Her mind raced into overdrive, buckling under the deluge of questions. What were the chances? After all the chaos of the outbreak, after the very end of human civilization itself, what were the chances of running into someone she knew, now, almost a year later? And in a random building in the middle of New Jersey? What were the odds of that happening? Astronomical, surely. Or, at least, improbable beyond belief.

The silence in the office stretched out, for what felt like a full minute. Nina had turned her music off — something from the Sixties, that had sounded vaguely familiar — and in the quiet aftermath she heard the tick of a clock somewhere out of view. She could feel the others out in the hall behind her, could sense Peter peering over her shoulder, trying to get a look inside.

Nina Sharp broke the stasis for her, rising from her seat. "I can see my presence here shocks you, Agent Dunham," she said, nodding sagely. Her hazel eyes dipped up and down, studying, as if she were a drill sergeant making inspection. They widened momentarily on the sword hilt sticking up in clear view over Olivia's shoulder, before coming to rest on her face once more. "And I see that you've changed since we last spoke. The young agent who so thoroughly enjoyed barging unannounced into my office to make her demands — much to the chagrin of Danielle, my assistant, Danielle, bless her soul — is gone, I think, and in her place? A warrior? Or just a survivor. You've been through a lot, haven't you?"

"I... I'm the same person that I've always been," Olivia said, finally managing to open her mouth and speak. She felt Peter close behind her, and caught a whiff of his scent that sometimes drove her wild with lust, but not now.

"Hmm? Yes, it does often seem that way, from our own perspective, at least," Nina agreed with a trace of amusement creasing her lips. Her gaze went past Olivia to the others crowding the doorway out in the hall, and then she started around her desk. "Well... I suppose I should take a look at what you've brought me then, or rather, who you've brought me, I should say."

Olivia stepped all the way into the room, and the others began filing in after her. Peter was the first to enter, and the former Massive Dynamic executive's eyes widened on his face, before darting between their matching swords with a look of cunning speculation.

"Peter Bishop?" Nina said, stopping him just inside the doorway. "I was informed that you might be accompanying Agent Dunham here, if you were still alive. It's good to see you again."

Before Peter could reply, Nina had moved on, greeting Astrid and Claire as they entered with warm smiles, and the same for Gina who was looking around with wide eyes. Lincoln Lee received the same treatment, as she politely introduced herself and shook his hand. Much to Olivia's surprise — and of everyone who saw — she seemed truly delighted to find Broyles still among the living, and greeted him by way of a kiss, full on the lips.

"Phillip," Nina said, pulling away from him. "You made it. I'd given up hope long ago. You look older, my dear friend."

"As do you, Nina," Broyles replied, his normally stern tone softening only slightly. "I've been lucky. Very lucky. We all have."

"Nina? Nina Sharp, is that you?" Walter said, bustling into the office. "How marvelous! It's strange, I was just thinking of you. That song was always a favorite of yours, wasn't it, my dear? The Zombies? You remember, don't you? The acid parlor? The Green House Galas?"

Nina turned to him, pulling him into a hug. "Walter," she said, smiling. "I was hoping you were one of those with Agent Dunham. It's been far too long. I'm so sorry about dear Elizabeth. She was always a good friend to me."

Some of the joy fled from Walter's face. He nodded, his eyes turning glassy and inward. "Yes. She was always a kind soul. Far too good for the likes of me."

"You've met Nina Sharp before, Peter?" Olivia whispered fiercely in his ear. "Why didn't you tell me back then?"

"I've never met her before," he replied, his expression unreadable, eyes never leaving Walter's face. "Not that I'm aware of, at least. I have no idea what she's talking about."

"And who have we here?" Nina continued, letting Walter past. Rachel and Ella were the last to enter, and they stopped inside, their faces uncertain. "You must be Rachel and Ella Blake, Agent Dunham's sister and niece."

Olivia stiffened. What the hell? The old suspicions she'd held for the Massive Dynamic executive resurfaced in an instant. "How do you know my sister, Nina?" she said, taking a step toward the woman. "Or Ella, for that matter? How can you know them?"

Nina met her gaze, her delicate eyebrows arched innocently. "It is, or was, I should say, common practice to know one's adversaries when billions of dollars were at stake," she explained. "And... you impressed me, Agent Dunham, which was not easily done. If you'll recall, I offered you a job, and I make it a point to know everything I can about prospective employees, especially those whom I felt had great potential."

"Is that what I was? Your adversary?"

"Perhaps adversary was a poor choice of words. But that's all moot now, isn't it?" Nina Sharp glanced around her office, taking them all in while picking at the fingers on the glove covering her right hand. "And as pleased as I am that you're all here," she said while moving back around her desk. She sat down, then gestured for them to do likewise in an array of plain chairs pushed out to the office's perimeter. "Please sit down, all of you. Now that the pleasantries are all out of the way, why don't you tell me why you're really here. I can only assume that you haven't shown up out of the blue just to pay myself a visit. What is it you want? Sanctuary? This facility is quite secure, the fence surrounding it is electrified and quite effective against the undead population. You're quite welcome to stay, of course, though you'll be expected to contribute in some fashion, the same as everyone who lives here. Or is it merely supplies you're after? I'm afraid I can offer you little, as my people would certainly frown on my giving away our livelihood."

"Actually, as strange as it may seem, we did come to find you," Olivia said, taking a seat beside Peter. "Or not you, so much as Massive Dynamic. I need access."

"Ah. And now we come to it." Nina hesitated, rubbing her palms together. Her eyes drifted to Walter for a moment. "Unfortunately, Massive Dynamic, and all of Lower Manhattan, for that matter, are off limits, at least if you want to stay alive, that is."

"We heard the radio broadcast," Broyles said. "Which was how we ended up here. I assume that was your voice we heard? What does it mean?"

"It means just what it says, Phillip. Massive Dynamic and all of the areas around it are... contaminated."

"Would you care to elaborate?" Peter suggested, spreading his hands wide, before crossing his arms tightly. "The whole corporate obtuseness shtick you've got going on probably worked fine in a board room, but we're talking about the extinction of the human race here. Is this contamination some kind of radiation? Or are you just talking about the infection? Cause we're pretty familiar with that at this point, what with ninety-nine-point-nine percent of the world's population turning into walking corpses. And how the hell did you end up here, anyway?"

Olivia laid a hand on Peter's thigh, squeezing gently. His frustration she could understand, having dealt with the woman's vague responses and insinuation before, but he wasn't helping the situation. They needed Nina Sharp's help, not her enmity.

Nina regarded Peter coldly. "You were less rude when we last me, Peter Bishop," she said, eyes glittering. "I'm quite certain your mother, whom I knew and respected as a friend, raised you better.

"As for how I ended up here, it's quite simple. Prior to several months ago, we'd been living quite successfully at Massive Dynamic, several hundred feet below the surface of the earth, where our secure vaults and research labs resided. Successfully, that is, until my people began undergoing the transformation from living to... unliving."

"It was spontaneous, Nina?" Walter said, sitting up. "None of them died or were bitten by other infected first?"

"Correct. The first occurrence happened in the middle of our mid-day meal, precluded by seizures and convulsions, at first, but then by no warning at all. The others followed shortly after. We had no choice but to flee, and it was only when we left the proximity of Manhattan that the transformations stopped. Any and all subsequent attempts to return have been met with similar results. Those living in this facility are all that made it out."

"And you have no idea what caused this?" Astrid said, exchanging worried looks with Claire. "None at all?"

Nina shrugged, swiveling her chair slightly. "Brandon, my new chief of research, has been trying to come up with a hypothesis, but he's found nothing concrete that could explain it, any more than he can explain the sickness itself. What exactly was it you wanted from Massive Dynamic, Agent Dunham? A cure? I hope you don't have your hopes pinned on such, as Brandon assures me that there is no cure, nor will there ever be one. But you're already aware of that, aren't you? Surely, you've come to the same conclusion, Walter."

"Yes, I've suspected such from nearly the beginning of the outbreak. There is no corresponding biological component. Its source lies elsewhere, or so I believe."

"Elsewhere...?" Nina's eyebrows lifted expectantly.

"Cortexiphan, Nina," Olivia said, cutting in before anyone could reply. All this talk and rehashing was wasting time. "I was looking for cortexiphan. I need a sample. Or the formula itself, so Walter can make some."

Nina Sharp went still, her palms flat on her desk. "Cortexiphan? I'm not certain what you're talk-"

"Let's cut the crap," Olivia interrupted. The woman's gaze had gone to Walter, before she'd started into her lie, just for an instant, except that she had been watching for just such an occurrence. It all added up to one thing: Nina knew the truth. And was it a surprise? The woman was a close associate of William Bell, the person he'd trusted to run his multi-national conglomerate. What else did she know? "I know everything, Nina. We all do. From the experiments William Bell and Walter conducted on me when I was a girl, to Peter, and the other side."

Except she hadn't known that Nina had known; Walter had excluded her from the story altogether. Why? Had he forgotten? Or was there some other reason for it?

"I see...," Nina said after a moment of stoic silence. "Very well. William told me it might come to this. That there was a high probability you would turn up before this was over, that the stress and harsh conditions of our new environment would likely bring out the best in you. I must admit, I had my reservations, as you no doubt understand. But, he said if we did meet again, I was to help you in any way I could."

"He said all that?" Peter said with a snort. "What, could he see the future?"

"In some way, yes. William was quite gifted at drawing the correct conclusion with only limited information at hand. As I understand, you are also, Agent Dunham."

"Where is Belly, anyway?" Walter said, leaning forward in his seat. "Is he here? Is he well?"

"I'm afraid William is dead, Walter," Nina said with a sigh.

"Oh... I'm so sorry to hear that," Walter said, his voice crestfallen. "That's... that's terrible news."

"We were in communication for a time after the outbreak," Nina continued. "He'd been... on the other side for years, keeping tabs on your other self, among other things. A few weeks before we were forced out of Manhattan, I received a message from him, indicating some sort of... gravitational singularity had formed on the Atlantic seafloor, far off the coast. He said they were unable to contain it, and soon after conditions worsened, with some kind atmospheric anomalies spreading across the globe. His last communique was that he... he was down to his last tank of oxygen." Nina's voice cracked, her eyes misting over. "I've... never heard from him since. I'm afraid the other side is more than likely gone by now."

Lincoln let out a low whistle, eyes widening. "That's the nightmare scenario," he said, shaking his head, "the one situation we could never account for. A vortex opens up some place inaccessible to us, like below the earth's crust, or on the ocean floor. The amber needs air to disperse. Underground, underwater. A breach like that would be theoretically impossible to seal. It'd just grow and grow, until a critical mass is reached, and then... that's it. Game over."

"And who are you again?" Nina asked, eyes suddenly sharp like a predator's. "What experience do you have with such phenomenon?"

"Lincoln is from the other side," Broyles said. "Only... from what I can gather, from a different other side..."

Olivia stopped listening as the others continued the discussion. Her mind raced, seeking answers. The other side was gone? How could it be gone? And if that was the case, then what reality had she been crossing over to then? She glanced at Peter and saw his chin dropping onto his chest, mouth opened in a silent gasp. Something that felt like a fist slammed into her gut at the sight. Peter's family. His real family. _Oh god, they're dead_. There was no going home. Not for him. Horribly, a secret part of her rejoiced at the realization. He wasn't going to leave her, or their baby. Not now, not ever. But the elation lasted for an instant only before she quashed it ruthlessly amid a surge of intense guilt.

No one but herself seemed to notice his reaction. He leaned forward, staring at the floor. She placed a comforting hand across his back, rubbing gently. She wished they were alone, that he could talk to her about it, tell her what he was feeling.

"I'm sorry, Peter," she whispered softly, continuing her ministrations. "I'm so sorry."

Peter glanced back and shrugged, his eyes red-rimmed. "Well... it's not like I really knew them, or was planning to go back any time soon, anyway," he said in a quiet and bleak voice that made her heart swell with sorrow. Then, as if sensing her own sadness, he forced his lips into the shape of a smile. "I hope you aren't getting tired of me yet, Liv, cause it looks like you're stuck with me for a while, still."

Stuck with him? At least he still had his sense of humor. Before she could reply to that, however, Nina was addressing her, tapping her lips with her index finger, eyes narrowed.

"Agent Dunham, suppose I did have access to the formula for this drug you're looking for. What would you do with it?"

Olivia met the older woman's gaze without blinking. "I would find whoever it is that's causing the infection, and stop them. One way or another, whatever it takes."

Nina Sharp stood slowly, her palms flat on the top of her desk. "In that case, you should come with me," she said. "This facility, has among other things, a hardwired connection to the Massive Dynamic mainframe. Or it did. Years ago, William had certain policies put in place, policies which, I suspect, neither he, nor anyone else ever expected to actually come to fruition. I certainly did not. In the event of a certain class of catastrophe, world paradigm changing events such as nuclear war, or a... a... planet killing asteroid strike, or even a worldwide pandemic, if it were terrible enough, complete backups of all of Massive Dynamics accumulated knowledge, technology, and theoretical research were to be pushed to all branch servers connected to the system. It was William's intent and hope that preserving such information in as many places as possible could help ensure its survival, and, accelerate the recovery, if at all possible. I initiated the sequence almost a year ago, when it became clear that the world as we knew it, for all intents and purposes, was gone."

#

* * *

#

His family was dead.

Peter walked silently behind Olivia, his eyes following the sway of her silken ponytail over the fabric of her white t-shirt. The knowledge was of portentous magnitude, and yet despite that, thinking of it, what it must have been like for them, only made him feel tired. And numb. When he tried to force his thoughts down a different path, his mind kept circling back, caught in a strange kind of gravity created by the bomb dropped so casually by Nina Sharp. The explosion had left him barren on the inside, somehow empty of emotion.

Numb.

The woman herself was at the front of the group, giving them a guided tour on their way to wherever it was she was taking them. Much of what she showed them, several common areas with sofas and TVs and game tables, offices converted into sleeping quarters, a full kitchen — with fully stocked refrigerators, no less — he hardly noticed. Indeed, none of it made more than a blip on his radar.

His true parents were dead, de-atomized inside some kind of gravitational singularity, by all accounts. He had no memories of them, yet he still ached for the loss. What had his real mother been like? Had she been haunted in the same manner as the mother he knew? Had his real father been gifted with Walter's particular brand of madness? He would never know, now. Not that he had made any plans to find them. How could he? The only way back was through Olivia, and he could have never asked it of her.

The pain she'd tried to hide while offering to do just that was more than his soul could bear. He never wanted to hurt her, not ever, no matter the cost to himself. Nor could he leave her, even if he wanted to. Somehow, Olivia Dunham had become a part of him, in a way he'd never before considered possible. A part so vital that the thought of being without her was like having his heart ripped from his chest. He could not leave her.

And yet her plan, her mad idea to hop from one universe to another until she found the one she was looking for among an infinity of them, would more than likely take her away from him, forever. He watched her stride ahead of him, sensing her singular focus in the way she waited impatiently for Nina Sharp to move on, to get them to their destination. Why was she suddenly so determined? Was it merely Sonia, and the sudden change in the infection? Why she often seemed on the verge of confessing something, lately? Whatever _it_  was, it was present in the back of her mind, always. It was in her distant gazes, in her distracted silences. Yet he could do nothing but trust her. He loved her, and knew that she felt the same. Though at the same time, she was pulling away from him, from them all, bit by bit. He knew the reason why, and Nina Sharp would only hasten the inevitable. He found himself eyeing her coldly as she continued her tour.

The Massive Dynamic executive was a diminutive woman with hair the color of burgundy wine, perfectly coiffed above her shoulders and framing an angular face only touched with a few stray wrinkles; around the corners of her mouth, and a pair of crow's feet spreading out from eyes colder than slate, despite the remnant of a smile that seemed to always crease her lips. And despite the woman's earlier insinuation, he had never seen her in his life. But he remembered Olivia's descriptions of their encounters, what seemed like a lifetime ago now. Back when all their cases seemed to involve Massive Dynamic in one way or another. The shock of finding her here, alive and well, and living in relative comfort had yet to wear off.

He passed beneath an air vent in the ceiling, through a blast of cool air that caressed the moisture saturating his shirt. The coolness brought him back to the present, back to the wonders of their surroundings. Air conditioning. It was difficult to fathom after being so long without. How could they be running air conditioning units? He listened for a generator running somewhere but heard none as Nina Sharp led them through the facility. The maze of corridors was endless, the layout of rooms and spaces almost haphazard, as if its construction had taken place in separate phases, with each not taking the previous into account.

"In case any of you were wondering," Nina was saying, stopping in front of a pair of closed doors, "this facility was the sole operations and manufacturing home of SolTech, a highly advanced solar energy research venture — and full subsidiary of Massive Dynamic. Before the sickness, this building was energy self-sufficient, and in fact fed power back into the grid during peak hours. Over ninety percent of the roof's surface area is covered by a grid of prototype solar cells, and coupled with a battery array several generations beyond what was available for public distribution, we have a net energy surplus which far exceeds our demands, even on the hottest of days, even taking our water desalination system and the other... modifications we've made into account."

"What sort of modifications, Nina?" Broyles asked from behind Peter.

"Let's find out, shall we?" she said with a smile, then pushed through the double doors.

The doors opened into a huge, brightly lit space filled with rows upon rows of plants, hanging in the air, suspending above layers of white piping. There were all shapes and species; tomatoes, huge and red and juicy-looking, potatoes and onion, carrots and lettuce and spinach, to name a few.

Peter's mouth flooded with moisture at the sight, and he wasn't the only one, from all the slight gasps echoing around him. Humid air slightly hotter than the corridor outside pressed down on his skin. Above each row of greenery, grow lights of varying shades of red and blue cast conflicting auras, while the low trickle of running water tickled his ears. A dark-haired, boyish-seeming man in a white lab coat moved among the rows with a clipboard, inspecting each closely before moving on to the next.

 _And how do I get his job?_  he wondered, glancing around.

"And this is our hydroponics grow room," Nina said, sweeping her gloved hand ahead of her as she led them further into room. "Where we produce the majority of our fresh food." She motioned toward the man inspecting the plants. "Brandon estimates we could provide enough for four or five dozen people, once we're producing at full capacity." As she spoke, the sleeve of her blouse slid up her forearm, revealing a distinctly mouth-shaped tear in the leather.

Peter started at the sight. She'd obviously been bitten, and it hadn't been a love bite, either. And yet she somehow lived. What the hell? "What happened to your arm, Miss Sharp?" he asked, getting her attention. "If you don't mind my asking?"

Nina stopped and turned back to him, eyebrows raised, then held up her arm for inspection. The sleeve fell back, showing off the long glove that went all the way up her forearm to her elbow. "My former head of biological research transformed as I was reaching for the mashed potatoes. Luckily, I'm made of sterner stuff than I appear."

She pulled the glove back, revealing a prosthetic limb unlike any he had ever seen before underneath. The exterior was made of a transparent, but darkly tinted plastic or resin of some kind, through which he could see gears and servos spinning and actuating as she moved her wrist about. It was highly advanced, and Peter could only assume it was some heretofore unknown Massive Dynamic technology. She let the sleeve fall back into place, glancing briefly at Olivia as the dark-haired man approached.

"We have some new arrivals, Brandon," Nina said as the man came to her side. "Agent Dunham, this is Brandon Fayette, former head of Massive Dynamic's theoretical research division, and now my lead scientist in all manners of research."

Olivia went to greet the fellow, but he barely gave her a passing glance. Instead, the man's eyes went past her, past Peter, and whoever was behind him — Broyles, he noticed, following the man's gaze — all the way to the rear of their group where Walter was bent over rack of tall upright plants, with distinctive star-shaped leaves. The dark-haired man brushed past him, his eyes full of wonder as he made his way to Walter's side.

Peter took a second look at the plant his father was bent over and cursed inwardly.  _Of course Walter would find the pot plants before anything else_ , he thought, scrubbing his hair back.  _Great. Perfect. I'm going to find him later today, bombed out of his mind somewhere_.

"Doctor Walter Bishop...?" Brandon Fayette said as Walter leaned in close to one of the marijuana plants, sniffing with his eyes closed.

Walter jerked at hearing his name, spinning away from the plant as if he'd been stung. "Eh? What's this?" he said, eyes darting about before settling on the man standing beside him. "I didn't touch anything! I swear!" He paused, his brow furrowing. "Wait. Who're you?"

Brandon Fayette held out his hand. "Doctor Bishop?" he said again, his voice growing excited, bubbling over, his boyish face beaming. "It really is you. Oh man! This is far out! I can't tell you what an honor it is to actually meet you in person. I'm a huge fan of your work... your research! It was so far ahead of its time — it still is, in some cases. Tell me you've found a cure! That's why you're here! There's something I missed, I knew it!"

"Peter!" Olivia hissed in his hear. "What the hell is happening?"

"Well... apparently, Walter has just met his number one fan," Peter replied, watching as the man continued to gush over his father — who was soaking up the attention like a dry sponge. _Of course, he is. This is probably the proudest moment of his life_ _._

"Yes," Nina Sharp said with a hint of amusement. "Brandon can be a bit, shall we say, over-exuberant, at times. But he has an exquisite mind. He just needs some... direction, occasionally." She raised her voice. "Brandon! You can fawn over Walter later. Right now, I require your assistance."

Brandon turned away, clearly reluctant. "Sorry, Miss Sharp," he said, hurrying over to them. "It's just that, well, it's... Walter Bishop! He's the last person I thought I'd meet when I woke up today."

"Yes. Well. Agent Dunham here is looking for the chemical formula for a drug William developed in the late Seventies. Cortexiphan. It's unlikely that you've ever come across it before, as it was never patented or produced in any great quantities. In fact, only enough was ever made for several field tests, if I recall. But there should be a record of it in the archives. Somewhere."

Peter grimaced.  _Field tests_. That was what she called what had been done to Olivia, and who knew how many other children? He fixed the woman with a glower that could have peeled the paint off the walls.

"Cortexiphan?" Brandon muttered with a frown. "In the archives? You're right, Miss Sharp, I've never heard of it. What's it do? Does it have something to do with the sickness?"

"It's got nothing at all to do with the infection," Olivia told him. "I need it to cross over to another universe."

Despite how intensely he disliked what was happening, Peter couldn't help but grin. If Brandon Fayette's eyes had been huge for his father, they came close to popping out of their sockets at Olivia's explanation.

#

* * *

#

The man Brandon Fayette led them to a nondescript office buried deep within the facility's interior. Other than a fingerprint reading locking device on the door outside, there was nothing to differentiate it from any of the dozens of others they'd passed by — certainly nothing to indicate that inside lay the full breadth and width of Massive Dynamic's technological might. Nina Sharp pressed her left thumb and then her index finger to the reader. There was a bright blue flash, and then a metallic snick of a bolt being drawn back. She swung the door open, and motioned them inside.

The room was small and unassuming, little bigger than the one Olivia had shared with Peter back at the asylum. In the middle of the room sat a single desk with a mouse and keyboard and a widescreen monitor spread across the desktop. Brandon Fayette sat down without a word and typed in a password at the cursor that seemed long enough for a paragraph. The screen flashed once with the iconic Massive Dynamic logo, and then he began typing and clicking away flying through menu after menu, mouthing softly to himself as he did so.

While she waited, Olivia eyed Peter's profile on her left and found his gaze focused coldly on Nina Sharp's face. From the thin set of his lips and clenching jaw, it was obvious he was more than a little unhappy about what was happening. She had never expected him to be. But he'd said nothing, put up not a single word of protest when she'd explained in broad terms to Nina and her subordinate what she was planning to do. Either that, or he was still thinking of his birth family, and how could she fault him for that? Or for any of it, for that matter. If their situations were reversed, she undoubtedly would be the unhappy one.

The office was silent other than the taps of keys being pressed. When it became clear that they would be taking up Nina on her offer of sanctuary, Rachel had elected to stay behind, wanting to settle herself and the girls into the rooms that had been found for them. Olivia suspected it wasn't the entire reason, however; Peter wasn't the only one who was unhappy. Astrid and Claire had offered to stay with them, and it was a good thing they had, as the tiny office was a tight squeeze. She snuck a glance back at the remaining members of her party.

Broyles stood at the back of the room, as stone-faced as ever, with Lincoln beside him, his gray eyes narrowed on the man sitting at the computer. Somehow, he had recognized Brandon Fayette. The glimmer of shock that had flickered across Lincoln's face when Nina had introduced him had been all too easy to read. And in addition to shock, something else had been prevalent; a sharp look of distrust. He hadn't been happy to find the man here, which made her wonder just who Brandon Fayette was on his world, and why the sight of the man had set Lincoln so on edge. Making a mental note to find out, Olivia shifted her gaze to Walter.

He had stayed with them also — not that she had given him any choice in the matter — and was busy examining an odd contraption made of interlocking gears and a funnel-shaped spiral of wood sitting on a shelf in the corner. After a moment, he plucked a shiny metal ball out of a depressed holder on the device's base and placed it on top of the wooden spirals, which appeared to have grooves running down their center. The metal ball raced silently down the curling track, faster and faster until it reached the bottom and disappeared into a small hall in the side of a gear shaped like a waterwheel. The gear clicked into motion, and then stopped. Walter waited expectantly for something else to happen, and when nothing did, he turned away, face wrinkled with dissatisfaction.

"This device in an utter sham," he muttered in an outraged voice. "Doesn't even work! Perpetual motion my-"

"It requires sunlight to function properly," Nina cut in smoothly, noticing his disgruntlement. "Note the miniaturized photo-voltaic module on the backside. Fully patented, of course."

Frowning, Walter turned the contraption around and his face lit up. "Ahh...," he sighed, suddenly delighted, and Olivia thought it might even be genuine. "Ohh! How ingenious! Where can I get one of these? Are they for sale, Nina? Name your price."

"Walter..." Peter sighed, exhaling as he shook his head.

Nina waved her gloved hand. "Feel free to take that one, Walter. Its prior owner is certainly in no condition to care about its whereabouts." She turned to her man, still typing away on the computer. "Any luck, Brandon? Have you found anything at all?"

"Actually... yes?" Brandon Fayette replied without taking his eyes of the screen. Menus flashed, lists of files and folders scrolling past. "Check this out. I found a reference to cortexiphan in a fold called Project Genesis!" He looked up with a grin, glancing between them. Clearly, he was expecting some kind of reaction or response from one of them, but whatever it was, Olivia hadn't the slightest clue to what he was referring. "C'mon, genesis? Khan? Anyone?"

"Khan...?" Peter said after a moment. "As in... the wrath of?" He raised his left hand, splitting four fingers into a v-shape.

"Yes!" Brandon Fayette smacked his hands together, then thrust a stubby finger back at Peter. "Star Trek! About time somebody around here gets one of my cultural references. You, I like."

Peter blinked at the man's intensity. "Um... okay, then," he said, exchanging a confused glance with Olivia.

"What in god's name is this fellow blathering on about, Nina?" Walter said, approaching her with a scowl. Clutched to his chest was the strange contraption he'd laid claim to.

"Yes, Brandon," Nina said, peering over her subordinate's shoulder. "Have you located the formula or not?"

"Yep. I think so. Just let me..." He fell silent, eyes intent on the screen as he made a final double-click of the mouse. The screen flashed, before being filled with a picture, clearly a scanned image of a piece of faded notebook paper covered with scribbles of messy, slanted handwriting surrounding what appeared to be a highly complex molecular diagram, with hexagonal branches of chemical compounds off shooting in all directions. "Voila!" Brandon exclaimed with a grin. "Cortexiphan. Or... at least I think it is. I don't recognize the formula, but the name was embedded in the file properties."

Walter leaned in close to the monitor, scrutinizing the image. "That's Belly's handwriting," he said, nodding his head. "I'd recognize his longhand anywhere. It's quite distinctive, and worse than mine ever was."

" _Is_  it cortexiphan, Walter?" Olivia said, peering at the screen beside him. "It doesn't say that anywhere."

"It could be," he said, rubbing his chin. "Or, it could be Belly's failed recipe for longevity in the bedroom. The two of them shared some common compounds, if I recall. The only way to be sure, however, is to make some. I'll know it when I see it, though. Cortexiphan had a very distinctive flavor and odor. Citrus, similar to that of an overripe kumquat. Unfortunately, I no longer have access to a lab to try and make some."

"Huh...?" Brandon said, twisting around in his chair with a frown. "Didn't Miss Sharp tell you, Doctor Bishop? We have a lab. Apart from the solar power, it's the main reason we chose this site. There's a lab right below us. Fully stocked, organics, inorganics — and anything we don't have, there's a chemical manufacturing and storage facility less than a block away, also one of our subsidiaries. It's still intact, and anything we don't have on hand, it'll have what we need to make it ourselves. And I mean anything." The younger man's eyes lit up, filled with a kind of hope that reminded Olivia of a puppy looking worshipfully at its owner, begging for a treat. "You want to see it?"

Walter gave a broad grin. "Young man, nothing on this earth could would make me happier."

#

The laboratory in question occupied close to half of a spacious lower level, the rest of which was crammed full of strange machinery and shelves of odds and ends, all unrecognizable to Olivia's eyes. The lab itself seemed as modern as any she had ever seen, white and sterile and bright, and made Walter's lab space down in the basement of the Kresge building seem positively antediluvian.

She stood off to one side, waiting, watching as Water and Brandon Fayette went about searching the shelves of chemical supplies for the compounds they would need. Lincoln wandered about, exploring the lab and its various pieces of equipment. From the hints of recognition that flickered across his features as he paused here and there, it was not his first time in such a place.

She looked around for Broyles and found him gone, him and Nina both, though she hadn't noticed either of them leaving. What were they up to? And why had she kissed him like that before? As strange as it seemed, the two of them had a history — one which he'd failed to mention, or even hint at, at any point during their investigations before the outbreak. The failure to do so was incredible, considering the high standards that Broyles had always demanded from his subordinates, and himself, but if it was romantic in nature, she supposed she could understand why.

Peter watched the proceedings impassively from her side, arms crossed over his chest. His jaw clenched and relaxed, repeating, each breath audible in the silence. His eyes shifted, following his father as he moved among the rows of supplies, grabbing what looked to Olivia's unpracticed eyes like bottles and jars at random. Peter had spoken little — to herself or anyone else — since they'd left the others behind. What was he thinking about? What was he so intent on?

"Hey...," Olivia said quietly, taking his hand. Much to her dismay, he stiffened for an instant at her touch, before relaxing, curling his fingers gingerly around hers.  _Oh, Peter. What is going on with you? Is it me?_  Was there a part of him that could sense the secret she was withholding?  _God, I wish I could tell you, but it's for the best, my love, my Peter_. Wasn't it? Sometimes it seemed like all her time was spent trying to convince herself that it was so. But the simpler truth was that he would try to stop her if he knew. Walter would do as he wished, and if she insisted anyway, it might very well destroy their relationship, which she could not allow, either. She smiled up at him. "You okay?"

"How soon will you leave?" he replied softly, sparing her a bleak look. His voice was wound tight, a coiled spring quivering for release. "Today? Tomorrow? Tonight?"

Olivia swallowed. _So that's it. Of course_. "Um... well, I was planning on testing it first, but, tomorrow, if I can, or whenever your... whenever Walter has it ready."

"Testing it how?"

"By taking Lincoln back to his world. Peter, I think it might have been where I've been going all along. Or at least, once your world was... " She trailed off, unable to say the words out loud.

"Destroyed? Turned inside-out?"

"Yes."

Peter's lips thinned, turning white under the pressure. "Then I'm going with you when you get back."

 _No..._ Olivia shook her head. "Peter, I don-"

"I'm going with you," he interrupted. "If you can take Lincoln, than you can take me. You're not invincible, Liv. You need somebody to watch your back over there."

"Did I hear somebody mention my name?" Lincoln said, sauntering toward them. His lips were angled into a smirk, but he was watching the two of them carefully, particularly her.

She glanced at Lincoln. "Peter, we can discuss this later."

"There's nothing to discuss," Peter said, then leaned close, for her ears only. "I'm going with you... or I'll tell Walter to stop what he's doing. And you know he'll listen to me."

Olivia stiffened, her face suddenly suffused with heat. "You wouldn't dare," she hissed, tearing her hand away from his grasp. He wouldn't, would he? He couldn't. Didn't he understand what was a stake?  _But he doesn't understand, because you haven't told him_ , a voice inside her head reminded her.  _But if I tell him now, then he'll make Walter stop anyway_. It was a catch-twenty-two, and she'd caught herself right smack in the middle.

"I'm afraid I would, Liv," Peter said in a whisper. His blue eyes were bright and full of misery as he turned to Lincoln, who looked decidedly uncomfortable having witnessed the exchange. "Cheer up, old pal," he said, clapping the other man on the shoulder as he started past him toward the door. "Looks like you're going home."

"Peter, wait," Olivia called to his retreating back, reaching out a hand. "Peter!" But he didn't stop, and an instant later he was gone, vanished through the door. She rubbed her eyes, then pushed her hair back out of her face and let out an irritated huff. "Shit..."

"What did he mean I was going home?" Lincoln said, glancing back through the door where Peter had disappeared. When he turned back, his eyes narrowed. "You two all right?"

Olivia stared through the floor tile. She couldn't stop him. Peter would do exactly as he had said.  _Goddammit_. Yet deep down, had she truly expected him to sit idly by? They were partners, after all, in every way possible. She could see herself doing the same for him, would have insisted on it, no matter what he'd said. Part of her was relieved that he'd played out his remaining hand, in spite of the rest wanting to keep him as far out of danger as possible. Perhaps this was just how their lives were meant to unfold.

She met Lincoln's gaze coolly. "Peter and I are fine, Lincoln," she said, shaking her head slightly. The ease in which the man often inserted himself into their relationship was becoming increasingly annoying. So much so that she was beginning to miss the days when he'd been in terror of her, of being torn limb from limb by her mind alone. "We were just... discussing what happens next."

"What does happen next?"

"If Walter's successful, then I'm going to try to take you home, back to your world. If I can, I'd like to talk to the Secretary. It'll be a way of testing whether or not I can stay on the other side, and find the world I want to." She hesitated, at the string of emotions flickering across his face. "That is, if you still want to go, at least," she added. She always assumed he would want to go home, even jump at the chance, despite the conditions on his own world being less than ideal. Whatever was happening there, it had to be better than her world, didn't it? But who knew what resided in the thoughts of any man? "Do you want to go home, Lincoln?"

Lincoln snorted. "You mean, do I want to leave all this behind?" he said, throwing his hands wide. "The walking dead? The great food? The fair weather we've been having for the last few months? No offense, Liv, but apart from you and your sister and the rest of your little crew, your world kinda sucks. So yeah, I'm all about getting the hell out of here. If you're willing to take me, that is."

Olivia cocked an eyebrow. Her world sucked?  _I suppose it does, at that. At least in its present incarnation. Which is kind of the whole point of this, isn't it?_

She nodded toward Brandon Fayette, who was busy juggling an armful of plastic jugs filled with liquids whose colors ranged from clear to bright orange. "I saw your face, before," she said in a low voice. "You recognized him. Who is Brandon on your world?"

"He worked directly for the Secretary," he replied, barely moving his mouth as he spoke. "I only met him a couple of times, but the dude always rubbed me the wrong way."

"In what way?"

"I don't know, exactly. Something about him seemed off, though. It was just a feeling. Like we were all insects to him, maybe. This guy here, though, not the same."

Olivia nodded. She could appreciate the sentiment. Similar feelings had come upon her before; from suspects, from perps, even from witnesses on occasion. Some people gave off certain vibes, and once the brain was attuned to receiving them, they were impossible to ignore. "Did you recognize Nina Sharp, too?" she asked. "Is she the CEO of Massive Dynamic on your side?"

Lincoln shook his head. "No, I've never heard of her, or of William Bell, or of this Massive Dynamic. I don't think it exists on my world. At least, not in the way it does here, if at all."

She supposed it made sense in a way. Not everyone existed in every universe. Simple probability insured that. Anything could and would happen over the course of someone's life; accidents and mishaps, decisions made or not made, the randomness of life. She had never given much thought before to the chance of her own existence, of how many odds had fallen in her direction. Or her parents, or her grandparents, and on down the line. At any point, the lines of causality might have failed, forking new branches of reality in which she never existed. Perhaps it was the same here.

She eyed Lincoln's profile as another thought occurred to her, a potential issue with his going home. "Are you sleeping with my sister?" she asked bluntly.

From the way he seemed to jump inside his skin, it was not a question he'd been expecting. Swallowing, he met her gaze for an instant before looking away. "I... thought sisters told each other everything," he said, rolling his shoulders. "Would you have a problem with it if I was?"

Olivia shrugged. "No, not really. Rachel's a grown woman. She can do what she likes. But, you  _will_  say goodbye to her, before I take you home."

"Of course I'll tell her goodbye," Lincoln scowled. "What kind of an asshole do you think I am, anyway?"

"Sorry...," she apologized with another shrug. "I just had to make sure. Big sisters and all that, you know? She's been through a lot already."

"I know, she told me all about her husband," he said softly, eyes full of regret. "I'm just sorry I never had the chance to meet her in my own world."

"Olivia."

Walter's voice cut across the room, ending the conversation. She turned and found him and Brandon Fayette standing behind the elaborate set of chemistry glassware erected atop a long island of cabinetry in the center of the space. He had found a white lab coat, and with the addition of tinted safety glasses, looked more like the Walter of old, the Walter who had been so rejuvenated by his return to the Kresge Building than he had in recent memory.

"Do you have everything?" she asked, crossing over to the two men. "Everything you need to make cortexiphan?"

Walter wrung his hands. "I... I believe so, yes."

"Great. And how long will it take?"

"Well, assuming this is the correct formula, then by sometime tomorrow, I should have several doses ready." He hesitated, tongue peeking out as he wet his lips. "Agent Dunham. My dear, Olivia. Are you certain that this is the path you wish to take? It is not without... risks, my dear. There is no way to test the drug's efficacy, no way to be certain that I have the formula exactly right. I'm afraid Belly's notes are rather vague in a few areas, and if I'm wrong, even in the slightest, the drug could kill you, or render you utterly mad, at the very least. The areas of the brain affected, they're very delicate, yes? That you've been exposed to cortexiphan previously, should mitigate some of the risks, but there was a reason we gave it to children, whose brains had not yet fully formed. In a normal, mature and healthy adult, serious brain injury would more than likely occur, followed shortly by a very painful death. Do you understand what I'm telling you? Have you discussed this with Peter?"

Olivia exhaled slowly, a knot of icy fear sinking down into the pit of her stomach. "I have," she admitted.  _Sort of_. "I don't have a choice. We don't have a choice."

Lincoln stepped up beside her, grabbing hold of her forearm in the familiar way he had probably done with this other Olivia Dunham he knew a thousand times. "Liv, you do have a choice," he whispered harshly in her ear. "You don't have to do this. Not for me. As much as I wish I was home, it's not worth your life. There has to be another way."

"I'm not doing it for you, Lincoln," she told him, pulling firmly out of his grasp.  _I'm doing this for my world. And for myself, and for Peter, and for our baby_. Those last might be selfish of her, but there it was. "And there is no way other way. Do it, Walter."

Walter sighed, then nodded slowly, his eyes downcast. "Very well, Olivia. I'll do my best."

"That's all I can ask," she said, then brushed past Lincoln, leaving the three men behind.

#

She went in search of the others, and found them gathered in what must have been the staff lounge or break room in the building's former life as a high-tech solar power research and development facility.

Overlapping voices and laughter echoed out into the hall outside. They sounded relaxed, carefree in a way Olivia hadn't heard in what seemed like eons — even counting the months spent in the relative safety of the asylum. At least, until Sonia had happened. She stopped just outside the doorway, where she could observe unnoticed.

On one wall was a full kitchen, with a sink and what looked like a wide commercial stove, refrigerator and several microwaves. Food was cooking, steam rising up from pots and pans being tended to by a man in a white apron — a man she recognized as one of the security team that had brought them in. Pasta? Hints of oregano and rosemary floated in the air. Her mouth watered, her stomach growled, reminding her that her body was no longer wholly her own.

Filling the space across from the kitchen were couches and love-seats, table and chairs and recliners — and people, her own and a dozen or so of Nina's. Peter was among them, lounging with his long legs stretched out in front of him, crossed at the ankles. Rachel threw her head back, covering her lips to contain peals of laughter elicited by either Astrid or Claire, who were sprawled across the cushions of a love-seat. Her sister looked happy, and that was all that mattered. Others were there; men and women she didn't recognize. If they minded having strangers in their midst, they didn't show it. Unsurprisingly, Nina Sharp ran a tight ship. Were they all former Massive Dynamic Employees? She suspected some at least, had probably been part of the CEO's security detail.

Mounted high up on one wall, a wide television flickered. A movie was playing, an old action flick about out of control dinosaurs, of all things. Ella and Gina sat below it, enraptured, staring up with wide eyes. She dimly recognized the movie, having seen it in a theater in her youth. Once upon a time, she might have considered the movie inappropriate for six and seven year-olds. Too scary, maybe, or too violent — but that was in another life, a life not filled with death and horrors far beyond anything that had ever appeared on the silver screen.

Pain squeezed Olivia's heart, clenching ruthlessly. She memorized their faces, their smiles, the sounds of their voices. Against every imaginable odd, everyone of them had made it. Everyone of them was still alive. They were survivors, all of them. And she had to leave them, and maybe for all time if it all went south on her.

Her gaze lingered on Peter. Despite sitting among them, she sensed he was somewhere else altogether. Arms crossed, his eyes were turned inward, locked in some inner struggle or torment. Then, as if he had somehow sensed the pressure of her regard, his eyes sought her out, locking onto her through the doorway. The sadness present in his glance burned into her soul.

Meeting Peter's harrowed gaze, she inclined her head, motioning for him to join her out in the corridor. They had to talk; stubbornness would get neither of them far. For several pounding heartbeats, he remained utterly still, unblinking, before finally rising to his feet and crossing the room, coming to a stop before her in the doorway.

"Peter," she said, giving him a hopeful look.

He graced her with a self-deprecating smile in return. "Olivia."

"Look, can we talk?"

"What's there to talk about?"

Olivia pressed her lips together. "Don't be an ass, Peter," she scolded lightly. "It doesn't suit you." With that said, she reached out and took hold of his arm, hooking through it as if he were walking her down an aisle somewhere. "Please. Walk with me."

To her intense relief, he offered up no resistance when she turned and led him back down the hall, seemingly content to go where she led. It might be considered an allegory of their relationship up to that point, and she didn't know what she would have done if he had decided for once to do something different. Despite her stated intention, she found that she couldn't speak, not right away. She wasn't ready to say what she had to say, her normally ordered thoughts in disarray. Or perhaps she simply didn't know what she wanted from him, yet.

So they walked in silence. Through the twist of corridors, past offices and board rooms, past workshops converted into armories and other rooms packed with bundles of food and supplies of all sorts. She wondered where it had all come from. Some of it she'd seen on Nina's impromptu tour, some not. The building was a huge rectangle, several city blocks long and at least one or two wide. The side they had entered was mostly administration, offices, and such, but the opposite end was wide open, filled with hulking machinery. And robots, she noticed also. Robots suspended in stasis, knuckled arms and turnbuckles poised on the brink of their last commands.

"What was this place?" she asked, just to say something. "What did they do in here?"

Peter glanced down at her, shrugging slightly. "Automated robotic assembly lines, I guess," he said. "From what I can tell, this place produced nearly every part of the voltaic modules in house from the substrates down to the bending and bonding of the structural framework. It's pretty impressive, actually."

"It's a shame," she mused, eyeing a wide workstation with dozens of lifeless computer screens. "All this technology — this will all go to waste."

"In the short term, at least," he agreed, "but I could see Nina Sharp starting a little empire out of this place someday, couldn't you? She's got the market cornered on electricity for the foreseeable future, and tell me she's not gonna leverage the shit out of that."

Olivia found herself grinning. At least he was talking to her, and sounding something like himself. It was as good an opening as she was likely to get. "If we can ever stop the infection, at least," she said, nudging him with her arm.

Peter grunted. "Yeah. There's that."

She took a breath, filling her lungs. "Peter, about before... it's not that I don't want you to go with me."

He pulled them to a stop between two massive robots yawning on either side and turned to face her. "Then what is it? Don't you trust me to watch your back? I think I've been doing an okay job of it for the last year or so. I thought we were partners."

"We are," she said quickly. "Of course we are. And I do trust you, more than I trust anyone. It's not an issue of trust."

"Then what is it?" he said again.

"It's... I'm afraid I'll lose you, all right?" she said, looking away from his burning eyes. She felt her own eyes beginning to sting, and a shudder went through her. "Or what if I fail? What if I can't do whatever I'm supposed to do? What if I get lost in the spaces between worlds? Or if I can't find my way back? What if we get wherever we're going and I can't bring you back with me, Peter? I can't... bear the thought of knowing that I was the one who-"

"Olivia," he said, drawling her name as he reached up, cupping her face. "You won't fail. You know you're the most amazing woman I've ever met, right? From the moment I've met you, all you've ever done is the impossible. Over and over. And maybe you're right. Maybe this will be the time when our luck runs out. Maybe we'll get lost, maybe we'll both die in the process, but we'll be together, at least. When I said I wasn't going to leave you, I didn't mean only unless it got hard."

She trembled against his palm, letting her eyes slip closed.  _Oh Peter. What have I done to deserve such blind faith? To deserve you?_  She couldn't refuse him. And upon further reflection, she didn't want to. If she was going to her death, which was a distinct possibility, who better to have at her side than the man she loved? Not that she wanted either of them to die, or to fail — she wanted to fix the world, after all. She wanted to have his child, to have a family, to start a life together, a life that went beyond the day to day survival of the present. Maybe having him with her would be a good thing. Maybe it would make all the difference. Was it worth the risk? Was his life worth the risk? Was hers? Their baby's? The secret she held was a malignant tumor growing between them. She despised it, despised the necessity.

Reaching up, she took his hand, pressing it to her lips. "All right," she said, meeting his gaze. "All right. You can come. After I take Lincoln home, if I can take you with me, I will. That's the deal."

Peter relaxed then, the tension seeming to evaporate out through his eyes. He rubbed his face, letting out a long sigh. "That's all I wanted. There's no reason for you to do this alone, Liv."

"Would you have really stopped Walter from making the cortexiphan?"

"I don't know. Maybe. It was all I had to work with."

Olivia stepped into his arms. "What'll we do when this is over, Peter?" she whispered, resting her head on his shoulder. "Suppose we actually succeed. What then?"

"What then?" She felt him shrug. "I suppose we'll try and start over somewhere. Assuming the weather goes back to normal, I was thinking somewhere tropical, with white beaches and coconuts and hammocks and pina coladas. What do you think?"

Lifting up on her toes, she brushed a kiss across his lips. "I think I like the sound of that, Mister Bishop," she said. "C'mon. Let's get back to the others. If we are leaving tomorrow, I'd like to spend as much time with Rachel and Ella as I can, just... just in case, you know..."

"Liv, we're going to be fine," Peter said, tucking a length of her bangs behind her ear. "You'll see."

Olivia nodded, but couldn't help the cold feeling that slowly settled around her heart. Yes, a part of her was relieved that he'd convinced her, but there was another part of her, the larger part, that was utterly terrified of the prospect.

#

Upon waking the next morning, Olivia found the sleeping pad beside hers empty. Confused by this oddity, she sat up, glancing around the room in which she and Peter had passed the night. Peter's bag lay where he had left it in the corner beside hers, along with his sword, his gun also. But of the man himself, there was no sign. She touched his pillow and found the fabric cold. So he had been gone for a while, then. The room contained a single window covered by horizontal blinds, and when she rose up on her knees and peeked out between them, the sky was touched with just a hint of orange to the east.

She wiped the sleep from her eyes, frowning down at the empty pillow. A nervous tremor went through her as she went about pulling on her clothes, her boots. It wasn't like Peter to be up so early, and even less like him to leave without telling her. How often was he even awake at this hour? And without her being the one to wake him? The answer was never. What was he up to? Springing to her feet, she rushed out of the room.

The corridor outside was empty, the other rooms dark, with not a single hint of light showing beneath. Rachel had a room beside hers, Ella and Gina in a room of their own beyond. Astrid and Claire's room was somewhere nearby, same with Broyles and Lincoln. There were living areas spread throughout the facility, and some of Nina's people had rooms nearby, though unsurprisingly, the woman herself had a room elsewhere. Of Walter, there had been no sign when they'd finally called it a night. She had left him to his work, and as far as she knew, he had never emerged from the basement lab. There was not a doubt in her mind that he had slept there.

Leaving the block of sleeping quarters behind, Olivia hurried toward a red exit sign casting a paltry glow at the far end of the hall. Suddenly a dull noise intruded on the edge of her hearing, just loud enough that once she became aware of it, it was all she could hear. Coming to a stop, she glanced around. The noise seemed to emanate from everywhere at once.  _What is that sound?_  she wondered, starting forward again. And then it came to her, and her cheeks began to burn, despite her being the only witness to her own embarrassment. The noise was the building's central air conditioning system, the passage of air through the ducts. What else would it be? After a year of not hearing it, the white noise seemed deafening, ten times louder than it should.

Shaking her head at her own stupidity, she pushed through a door and hurried down another hall that would take her back to the break room, if her internal compass was at all accurate. Of all the places Peter might go, the room with a kitchen and food seemed the most likely place to find a wandering Bishop in the early morning hours.

She rounded a corner and gasped. _What the hell?_  She sniffed the air, detecting delicious, mouthwatering morsels floating on invisible currents. Her feet propelled her forward, faster, moving of their own volition, her mouth suddenly flooded with saliva.  _What is that? It smells like... like..._  Shoving through a metal door, she found herself in the break room she'd been looking for.

Olivia froze in the doorway. Her mouth fell open, jaw hanging slack. For several confused instants, she thought it must be a dream, that she was still in her bed, that what she was seeing couldn't possibly be real. Just to make sure, she pinched her thigh hard through the fabric of her shorts, until pain lanced up and down her leg.

The image remained the same, however, unchanging. She wasn't dreaming.

Peter was standing diagonally across the room from her, facing the stove top. He wore shorts and a white t-shirt with a yellow towel thrown over one shoulder, trailing partway down his back. Filling the room was a faint sizzling, clearly the source of the incredible aromas she'd smelled from outside. On the counter beside him was a cutting board laden with what could only be mounds of fresh vegetables; green peppers and onions, tomatoes, and even what looked like chopped potatoes. And there, sitting on a towel were handfuls of brown eggs, shells cracked open. Peter's elbows moved as he worked a spatula into a frying pan, making... something. He was whistling, she realized with growing amazement, some tune beneath his breath that sounded jazzy and whimsical, and vaguely familiar.

He was cooking.

In all the time she had known Peter, not once had she ever seen him cook anything. She hadn't even known he  _could_  cook, beyond mixing packages of dried oatmeal with water or heating up a can of pork and beans over a Bunsen burner. But now that she'd seen it — the ease and efficiency in which he went about it — it made all kinds of sense. He'd been a man alone for years before she'd barged into his world. Alone. Isolated. Of course he knew how to cook, how to take care of himself.

Watching him silently, unaware, the slight sway of his shoulders, it struck her that she barely knew him. Oh, she knew she could trust him with her life, of course; that he was a fierce warrior, and would keep his head under pressure; that family was dearly important to him; that he would watch her back, always; that he would do anything for her; that he could be oh so gentle; that he loved her, and that he'd been willing to forsake his world to stay with her... but what else did she know? Beyond what she'd learned by riding out the apocalypse beside him?

What of the little things? What did she know of them? How did he take his eggs? She didn't know, they'd never had real eggs together. What was his favorite food? Why had she never asked him? Because it was depressing when all they'd had to eat was the detritus of the world's ending? What had been his favorite television show as a kid? Had he been a biker? A skateboarder? Neither? Both? Such information wasn't remotely vital, but at his core, however, such information was what made him, him.

A tremble went through her at the realization. She gulped down the lump of sadness rising up her throat, then stepped into the break room, closing the door quietly behind her.

The aromas rising from the stove were intoxicating. Peter reached for a handful of vegetables and tossed them into a second skillet to saute, head and shoulders swaying as he continued whistling his familiar tune. Olivia drew close, crossing the room silently until she was directly behind him. He was tall, almost a full head taller than herself. His wavy hair had grown long in recent months, and lately looked more like Shaggy from behind than himself. She resisted the urge to run her fingers through his hair, and instead reached out, touching the small of his back through his t-shirt.

Peter jumped as if she'd touched him with a live wire. He spun around, eyes bulging for an instant before relaxing upon finding only hers standing there. "Jesus, Liv! You scared the crap out of me," he said, wiping the back of his hand across his forehead. "How about a little warning next time?"

"Sorry," Olivia said with a grin, then raised up, kissing him as an apology before stepping back, taking in his work station. "Peter, what is all this?" she asked looking past him at the skillet. Inside, a perfectly formed omelet was sizzling away, eggs bubbling up around the edges. The sight of it made her stomach soar with hunger, intense and immediate.

"Veggie omelets," he said with a flourish of his spatula. "Breakfast of champions."

"But... but, where did you get this food?" she stammered, motioning toward the skillet. The smell of it was driving her mad, clouding her thoughts in a way she'd never considered possible before. She wiped a hand across her mouth and was distantly surprised there was no drool present on her lower lip. "This... this isn't ours. We can't just eat their food, Peter."

"No, it's all good," he insisted, turning back to the stove. "I checked with Nina last night. She told me it was fine... as long as I agreed to make breakfast for everyone. Which, in my opinion, at least...," he said, flipping the omelet inside the first skillet with a practiced flick of his wrist, "seemed like an excellent trade-off just to see that look on your face."

He flicked his wrist again, tossing the omelet up and over. Olivia watched the way his hands moved, mesmerized by the ease with which he performed the feat. It was a skill of his she'd never seen before, never even considered until that moment, and told stories all at its own. Suddenly, electric tingles zinged across the surface of her skin. She pushed her hair back, intensely aware of the fabric of her t-shirt, of the way it chafed lightly across her bare chest like a lover's caress. The atmosphere in the break room was abruptly suffocating, and growing hotter by the second. Her mind was trapped in a wave of lust, rational thought blotted out — on top of the intense hunger rising up from her mid-section.

 _Not again_ , she thought, trying to force the surging emotions back to the straight and narrow.  _I can't deal with this right now._

"You want yours now?" Peter asked, glancing back over his shoulder, oblivious to the fireworks going off inside her head. He reached for the second skillet, tumbling its contents onto the nearly finished omelet with his spatula. "I was going to try out the whole breakfast in bed thing, but I guess that's out the window. I think this one's about ready."

Olivia nodded. She didn't trust herself to speak at that particular moment.  _I love you, Peter_ , she said inside her head as he slid the omelet onto a waiting plate. He folded it carefully over with his spatula, spilling its luscious guts out like an overripe taco. A blast of steam rose up, supplying a fresh wave of titillating aromas, and longing. Of pure bliss. On top of the raging hunger was the overpowering urge to take him right then and there, on the break room floor, no matter that anyone at all might walk in on them at any moment.

Peter shoved the plate into her hands, the passed her a fork. "And here you are, Miss Dunham," he said, brandishing a smile. "Your breakfast awaits."

"Um... thank you, Peter," she murmured, blinking up at him, the rush of blood filling her ears.

His smile continued, quirking to one side. Then his gaze dipped momentarily downward, where her sudden arousal was no doubt on full display through the thin fabric of her t-shirt. "You, uh... feeling all right?" he asked, eyes narrowing.

She nodded, spinning away from him. "This looks... amazing, Peter," she said, moving toward the nearest table. And it did look amazing. Better than amazing, whatever the word for that even was. Now that the goods were in her possession, the lust melted away, replaced by an intense need to stuff her face. She considered the distinct possibility that she'd never been hungrier than at that moment. It seemed impossible, yet why did her stomach feel as if it had taken control of her body?

Olivia sat down. At the first bite, a groan that bordered on orgasmic escaped her lips. The omelet was piping hot, and a bottle of ice cold water was quickly passed her way, followed by a cup of coffee, black with one sugar, just the way she'd always liked it. A wave of nostalgia crashed over her, and she thought she might cry from the normalcy of it all.

"So how is it?" Peter asked over his shoulder as he started on another omelet, cracking more eggs and stirring them together in a stainless steel bowl. "Need anything? More salt? Pepper?"

"Peter, this is... incredible, really," she said, forking up another bite. "It's perfect, just like this. Where did you learn to do that? To flip an omelet like that? Don't tell me you were a chef somewhere, too, were you? Otherwise, you've got some explaining to do, mister. I don't recall you ever cooking for us back at the lab."

He glanced back, eyeing her over his shoulder. "Nope, nothing like that," he assured her with a chuckle. "My mom taught me that when I was twelve years old. She was a big believer in the whole breakfast is the most important meal of the day thing. I guess I've gotten better over the years."

Nodding, Olivia gulped down another delicious mouthful. It made sense. That was near the time of the accident at Walter's lab, and his subsequent committal to St. Claire's. Had his mother figured that with just the two of them, Peter would be on his own more often? Had she guessed at the solitary path his life would take? Chewing thoughtfully, she studied Peter's profile as he finished making his own omelet.

"Where do you suppose they got these eggs from?" she said after he sat down across from her and began to eat. "I mean, I haven't seen any chickens anywhere, have you?"

"They've been trading with another group of survivors," he replied, motioning abstractly with his fork as he did so. "I asked the same question when Nina gave me the okay to do something special for you this morning — which, I might add, she only agreed to after extracting her pound of flesh for my _rudeness_  yesterday, as she called it." He rolled his eyes and Olivia grinned, imagining how that conversation had gone. "There's some kind of farming community west of here. She supplied them with some solar panels, in return for eggs and meat and things they can't make or grow here. They've got at least a dozen cartons in that fridge over there." He grunted, shaking his head. "What'd I say? It's the start of her little empire."

Olivia snorted softly at the comment, tucking her hair back out of her eyes. For a while, they ate in silence, the soft clinks of their forks on their plates the only sounds. Their eyes brushed occasionally, and she couldn't help the small smile that kept creeping over her lips. Within the comforting confines of the air conditioned break room, she could imagine that they were some place normal, a cafe or a coffee shop, or even the kitchen of her apartment. Just the two of them, eating their breakfasts together like any couple might do. It was a glimpse of what their lives might have been like had the course of history taken a different path. She wondered at the breadth and width of infinity, of universes where untold possibilities were playing out in kaleidoscopic blurs. There must be multitudes of them where history had in fact unfolded differently, where their lives could have come together in any number of ways.

As always, the thought of other versions of herself brought to mind the red-haired one from Lincoln's world, who had born her and Peter's child. Accompanying those thoughts were thoughts of another.  _The_  other. Thinking of that one made her cold inside. As if the life was being sucked out of her. She forced the icy feeling down, forced her mind down a different path, one that led back to the present, back to something Peter had said earlier.

Nina Sharp. What had he told her? And why?

"Peter... what's this all about, anyway?" she said finally after scooping up the last bite of her omelet. She gestured toward the remains with her fork. "This breakfast? Wanting to do something special for me? Don't get me wrong, it's really great, and I appreciated it, but why? It's not because of yesterday, is it? Because there's no need to-"

Peter reached across the table and took her hand. "Liv, there is a need," he said. "Look, I'm sorry about yesterday. I shouldn't have gone about it the way I did. But it's not really about that." He hesitated, massaging the back of her palm. "This thing you're going to do, these abilities — I've seen the way they affect your body. And I think I know you well enough by now to know that you're not going to wait, that you're going to jump in head first, today, if possible. If Walter has the cortexiphan ready. Am I right?" He waited for her to deny it, then continued when she didn't. "But here's the rub... I love you, Olivia, and if at all possible, I want you to come back. I want us both to come back. And anything that I can do that'll give you an edge, anything that'll increase the odds of that happening, of us continuing on once this is over — including force feeding you and loading you up on protein and vitamins — I'm gonna do. I may not be able to shift between universes or blast bad guys with my mind, but I can do that, at least."

Olivia swallowed a sudden lump in her throat, trying to forestall the tremor running through her chest. Not for the first time, she wondered what she had done to deserve him. "Well... I guess I can't argue with that, can it?" she said quietly, lowering her head. After a moment, she met his gaze again, willing her eyes to remain dry and clear. "So I guess Nina knows about you and me then?"

"Well, I didn't say it in so many words, but I wasn't trying to hide it. Why? What difference does it make?"

Did it make a difference? Maybe? The woman was devious. If there was a way she could use the information to her advantage, she no doubt would, and without hesitation. Or, at least, she would have, before the end of the world. But now? Who knew what even motivated the woman now? Broyles seemed to trust her, and she and Walter apparently went way back. But in spite of all that, Nina Sharp had been a manipulator in the old world, and Olivia doubted that part of her personality had just gone away. Still, she had offered them all sanctuary, so there was that.

"I don't know, probably not," she admitted with a shrug. She took a gulp of coffee, savoring the flavor before swallowing it down. It was good coffee, finally. "I guess it's hard for me to trust her fully. I don't really know her all that well, you know? And during our cases before the outbreak, she wasn't what I would call forthcoming."

"You may have a point there," Peter said, chuckling as he forked up an absurdly large piece of egg and green pepper, then wolfed it down. "But then again, she was the CEO of a multi-national technology conglomerate with billions of dollars at stake. I'm sure she had shareholders to think about, not to mention William Bell."

"Now you sound like, Charlie," she muttered, rolling her eyes. "He told me almost the exact same thing during the Flight 627 investigation when I wanted to bring Bell in for questioning."

"Charlie was a wise man," Peter said in a somber voice.

Phantom pain shot through Olivia's heart at the memory of her old friend. "You're right. He was."

#

Not long after they were both finished eating, people began trickling into the break room, and a line quickly formed behind Peter, who was soon busy serving up made to order omelets for everyone. The room became loud with layers of competing voices, conversations and ringing laughter.

Olivia found herself cajoled into the action, working the other skillet beside Peter's, despite having never been particularly adept at forming omelets. It was easier to just scramble it all together, and she dared him with a dangerous glint in her eyes to say a word in comparison. Wisely, he did not.

As the orders rolled in, she got a sense of the mood and hierarchy of Nina's people. Most of them had been security or technicians in the old world, before accompanying the executive — or escorting her, more likely — on the journey from Manhattan to Newark. They seemed pleasant enough, and from what she could gather, had spent most of their time below ground in the Massive Dynamic archives and research facility. Until they'd been forced to flee, at least. If any of them resented a group of newcomers joining them and eating their supplies of food, they gave no sign of it. She found herself flooded with questions on the conditions outside the New York metro area, on Boston, and the surrounding countryside, what they had seen, what they had heard. Either their interest was genuine, or Nina's control over her people was ironclad, and both possibilities suited her just fine.

The others from her group arrived before long; Astrid and Claire, Lincoln, Rachel and the girls. Broyles, not long after them, followed suspiciously by Nina a short interval later. Both of them pointedly ignored each other, which seemed odd, all things considered. Had they spent the night together? Olivia found the idea difficult to fathom, but there was that kiss between them as evidence.

While finishing an egg scramble for a man from Hoboken who served on Nina's security detail, she glanced to her left and found Peter serving up eggs for Gina and Ella, both of whom seemed ecstatic to eat real eggs for a change. Sneaking covert glances their way, she observed Peter as he tried to teach them his flipping trick, his voice patient as he explained how it was done. Continuing to watch unnoticed, her free hand strayed down to her womb, to where their unborn baby was growing inside her. Unbidden, images of a faceless child peppering him with questions flooded her mind.

She noticed her sister watching their interaction also, her expression wistful. Their eyes met, and Rachel grinned. Olivia returned the look, wondering who her sister was thinking about. A certain sharp-haired man from another universe? Lincoln was seated at a table with Astrid and Claire, and both women looked on the verge of falling into hysteria from some story he was regaling them with. If they were sleeping together, Rachel had yet to mention it to her, and it seemed likely she would have by now. Had he told her he was leaving yet? Perhaps that explained her earlier look.

Near the end of the breakfast hour, Walter at last emerged from the basement looking as if he hadn't slept a wink. Deep bags resided under his eyes as he strode in behind Brandon Fayette. Upon entering the break room, he hesitated, glancing around, his gaze quickly finding and settling on Peter, before finally shifting to herself.

Olivia lifted an eyebrow in a silent question. Had he done it? She directed the thought his way with a pointed glance.

Walter's lips trembled. He looked away, wringing his palms together, his face slack. Finally, he swallowed visibly, then met her gaze once more from across the room. With a sigh, he nodded once, then moved forward without looking at her again, stepping into the short line behind Peter.

 _He did it,_ she thought, and gasped silently at the electric thrill that traveled up her spine, tingling the nerves at the base of her skull.  _He made cortexiphan._ Peter's word's from earlier echoed between her ears.

_...you're going to jump in head first... am I right?_

Peter knew her all too well. And he was right. She would try it that very instant if at all possible, but, she supposed waiting until after Walter had eaten his breakfast before approaching him was the least she could do. As he moved closer to the front of the line, the huge bags under his eyes came into focus. He was exhausted, both mentally and physically, if the dullness behind his blue eyes was anything to go by. She wondered if he had pulled an all-nighter, and felt a surge of guilt at the thought.

When Walter reached the front of the line, Peter seemed unsurprised to find his father standing there. He shot a glance her way, then leaned in close and whispered a question in his father's ear, which elicited another weary nod.

Peter pulled back, his face grim. "I guess it's a go, then," he said softly, giving her a sideways glance before turning back to his skillet to prepare Walter's omelet.

"I guess so," Olivia murmured in reply. Across the room, she noticed Brandon Fayette whispering in Nina Sharp's ear. Of course he would report to her. She wasn't sure why it bothered her, but it did, for some reason, which she could only attribute to her natural distrust of Nina Sharp showing through. "Are you sure you've got it, Walter?" she asked, turning back to him and Peter.

Walter gave a tremulous smile and shrugged. "After much trial and error," he began, "I'm reasonably certain the formula is correct. The taste and color are there. I believe it is cortexiphan. But again, as I told you yesterday, my dear, the only way to test it is to inject it into the base of your skull and see what happens. Are you certain you wish to proceed, Olivia? If you will give me more time, perhaps I can come up with another, safer, alternative." He hesitated, frowning as he peered over Peter's shoulder. "And please pay attention to what you're doing, Peter. You're going to burn my breakfast! Eggs are very delicate, son. You should be aware of that."

"I  _am_  aware of that, Walter," Peter grumbled, shaking his head. "This may come as a shock to you, but this is not the first omelet I've made in my life — or even this morning."

"Walter, how soon can you be ready?" she said, giving in to her rising impatience. "All I need is a shot?"

"A shot is one way, an IV drip another, I suppose, though it would take a bit longer. The choice is yours, dear. And I can be ready as soon as you are, but... I would like to eat first, if at all possible. Any maybe hit the crapper, also," he added with a cagey grin. "I've been horribly constipated as of late."

"Um, that's a little... too much information, Walter," she said, wrinkling her nose. "Finish your breakfast and your... other thing, and then we'll talk."

Eyeing her sister and Ella at their table, Olivia steeled herself, then gave Peter's forearm a gentle squeeze before leaving him and his father behind and crossing over to them. They were just finishing their eggs, and Ella wore a huge smile when she pulled out a chair and sat down across from them. She met Rachel's gaze. Her sister frowned, perhaps sensing what was coming.

Now came the hard part.

#

Olivia leaned back in the office chair, resting her head on the back cushion's top edge. A ring of concerned eyes surrounded her, Peter and her sister's the most prominent among them. Next to the chair was a tray with several cotton swabs and alcohol, and a pair of small vials, each filled with a reddish-brown fluid that looked almost like tea, except it wasn't. Sitting beside the vials were a pair of syringes, equipped with needles that looked freakishly huge.

 _You've got to be kidding me_ , she thought, eyeing the syringes with more than a hint of trepidation.  _Those look big enough for a fucking horse_.

"Are you sure those are the right needles, Walter?" she said. "I mean, they're... a little big, aren't they?"

"Eh...?" Walter gave the syringes a frown, then shook his head. "No, they should work just fine. This is the only size we have on hand, in any case, so I'd say we're rather lucky in that sense."

 _Lucky?_  Gulping, she tried to work moisture back into her mouth. She hadn't given much thought to the administration of the drug, but now that it was upon her, the uncertainty of what she was about to do began to sink in. A bead of sweat trickled down her temple.  _You asked for this, Olivia. Stop being a coward. It's the only way._

Taking in a deep breath, she looked up at Walter. "All right. Let's do this. How's it going to work?"

"Well, there's not too much to it, really," he replied. "You'll receive a pair of injections, each into the back of your neck, just above the C1 vertebrae. You may feel... something, initially, but don't be alarmed. It's all perfectly natural."

"There's nothing natural about any of this, Walter," Rachel said, still glowering, arms crossed tightly. "What guarantees do you have that this isn't going to hurt my sister?"

Walter turned to regard her. "There are no guarantees, Miss Dunham," he said in as sober a voice as Olivia had ever heard from him. "We are navigating beyond the realms of known science in this endeavor. All I have to offer is the knowledge that the cortexiphan was safe before, when Olivia was a child, and in all likelihood, it will be safe again, with her brain already having been acclimatized to its effects."

Olivia didn't miss how Walter neglected to mention his uncertainty that he'd even made the drug correctly, and that cortexiphan would more than likely kill a normal adult full stop. It seemed he knew Rachel well enough to recognize the need to edit his explanations. She glanced at Peter and found his face wooden, utterly emotionless. He was taking the whole thing about as hard as she'd expected. But, to his credit, he made no attempt to stop her. She held his gaze, until the facade he was wearing began to crumble.  _I'm going to be fine_ , she thought toward him.  _We're going to be fine_.

"How soon until the drug takes effect, Walter?" Broyles said from where he was standing between Nina and Astrid. He wore a deep frown that made clear his discomfort with what was happening. "She's not going to just vanish, is she?"

"Vanish? I should think not. Not unless she chooses to. As for how long, the drug should take effect immediately." Walter picked a syringe and one of the vials. "Are you ready, my dear? Are you certain you want to go through with this? No one could fault you for being hesitant."

"She's already made up her mind," Peter said, speaking for the first time since they'd made their way down to the lower level laboratory. "We're just wasting time here debating it."

"Peter!" Rachel said, skewering him with a furious glare. "I can't believe you! That's my sister you're talking about. That's Olivia! The woman you love. She's not a fucking lab rat."

 _But I am Rachel_ , Olivia thought sadly. _Sometimes I think it's why I was born_. "Peter's right, Rach," she said before Peter could respond. "I have made up my mind." She motioned for Walter to begin. "Let's get this over with."

Walter sighed, glancing between Rachel and herself. "Very well," he said, then began preparing the two syringes, drawing copious amounts of the reddish liquid into each. He talked as he went about it, his voice taking on a lecturing tone, explaining how the first dose was merely to prep her brain for the influx of cortexiphan, and how the second — which was far greater — would bring the amount of cortexiphan in her brain to levels far beyond what he and William Bell had ever envisioned. Enough, in theory, to allow her to pass freely between universes.

"How old was I the first time?" she asked, watching uneasily as he filled the second syringe, holding it up to the light overhead. "Do you remember?"

"Three? Four?" Walter shrugged, setting the hypodermic needle down on the tray. He circled her chair, until he stood directly behind her. She glanced upward, where he was holding the first syringe up, tapping out the air bubbles. "I'm afraid I can't recall the exact date. Young enough that your neuron pathway development was still at its peak. Ideally, according to Belly's theory, introducing cortexiphan  _before_  the natural limiting process of the human brain's potential could even begin to occur would give the highest probability of success." Olivia felt his hands on the back of her head, pushing the mass of her hair aside, exposing the back of her neck. Then his fingers began probing, pushing on the top of her spine until he found the spot he was looking for. Something soft and wet dabbed at her skin. "Lean forward now, my dear," he murmured, and then something sharp pressed against her skin, just below her hairline. "Yes, I suspect, given the chance," he continued, "Belly would have preferred a newborn, or even a child still in utero to test the process on, but how could we have asked that of anyone?"

In utero? Olivia frowned, all at once frigidly cold on the inside.  _In utero_. She was just beginning to grasp the meaning of his words, and more importantly, what that might mean for herself when the pressure on the back of her neck became a fiery splinter, stabbing inward.

Olivia gasped, and then an explosion detonated inside her head, banishing all thought.

Her eyes bulged out of their sockets. A tempest of pain blasted through her skull as blinding colors intruded on the edges of her vision, dilating inward. Her heart bucked inside her chest, pounding like gunshots. Her body jerked, skin prickling with alternating hot and cold flashes that left her breathless. Mouth gaping open, her fingers clamped around the arms of the office chair. The room blurred into a rainbow of insubstantiality. The faces surrounding her drew back, receding away from her. Her mind was floating through time, her body falling through space.

She became aware of someone else.

 _Peter_. He was in front of her, kneeling. Covering his face was a satin sheen that sparkled and glinted. His mouth opened and closed, but there was no sound, only torrential chaos flowing through every particle of her self. Her mind was on fire. Her mind was splayed open, melting like soft wax. She felt Peter's hand on her knees and at the same time felt her knees through his hands. She felt a strange doubling, as if she were more than one person, more than two. Suddenly she saw herself, sitting on the chair; a thin, blonde-haired woman with a wan face and vacant eyes. The view shifted, moved to the side, then vanished beneath a raised hand.

 _I'm dying..._  The thought dredged up from the bottom of her soul.  _I'm... dying..._

But she didn't die. Instead the chaos began to recede, instant by instant, eternity by eternity. She became aware of clamoring voices, speaking from the other end of the earth. They started as a faint buzz, then grew louder, louder, until they were megaphones shouting beside her eardrum. Pain blasted through her skull, pain like a thousand needles puncturing her flesh at once. She tried to scream but her body was gone, only her mind remained, floating in the vastness of space.

One voice stood out from the others. She focused on it, bringing every ounce of her will to bear, until it alone echoed inside her head. As it did so, other perceptions became apparent. She felt her body again. She felt other feelings, other sensations, outside of herself. She felt her sister, emanating waves of terror. And there was Broyles, stern as an old oak tree, and Nina Sharp with her robotic appendage. The woman was colder than ice. Astrid with her heart of gold. Lincoln Lee, watching nervously from across the room. The man Brandon Fayette, brimming with unbridled glee. Walter was nearby, filled with terrible consternation. She felt their hearts beating, the blood rushing through their veins.

And there was Peter, in front of her. She could feel him, feel inside his skin. He was bursting with beautiful light. With love. It burned through him like wildfire.  _Peter..._

She felt the atoms in the chair beneath her, shifting like liquid silver. The floor. The ceiling. The walls. The shelves of lab equipment; the beakers of glass, the vials and tubing, the jars and bottles. Their structure was messy, disorganized. Without understanding how, she inserted her self, her inner eye, into their granularity, into the vast distances between swirls of mesmerizing particles. A series of running thoughts broke across the surface of her scattered mind.

_So much space. There's nothing here... Why aren't they floating? They should be, like clouds up in the sky? Floating..._

" _Olivia! Olivia. Stay with me. Look at me!_ " Peter's voice intruded from the other side of the universe.

She looked then, meeting his gaze with her own eyes. As she did so, a resounding crash rattled the void in which she drifted.  _What was that?_

Peter's voice came into focus. "That's it. Look at me. I've got you. I've got you. Come back to me."

"Peter...?" Olivia blinked, and the shuttering of her eyes seemed to take decades. In the interim, she became aware of her body again, of a dull ache behind her eyes, in the back of her neck. "Peter?"

"It's me, sweetheart," he said softly, touching her face. "You're back. You're okay."

"What happened? How long was I out?" she asked, shooting glances around the room. Everyone was still there, though she thought her sister might be on the verge of fainting. Even Nina Sharp looked stunned, and Broyles, too.

"You were out only for a few moments, my dear," Walter said, stepping into her line of sight. In his left hand was another syringe, its barrel filled to the brim. "Furthermore, I believe it's safe to say it's working."

"Working? Oh... wow!" Brandon Fayette exclaimed, hands on top of his head as he looked around with apparent amazement. "That was wild! Did you guys see that? A full on psycho-kinetic episode! It was freaking amazing!"

Only a few moments? It felt like an eternity had passed. She met Peter's gaze. "What does he mean? What did I do?"

Peter threw a nervous glance behind him. "Well... uh, you may have damaged some of the glassware," he said, turning back to her with a crooked grin. "Or all of it. But it's nothing that can't be replaced. All that matters is that it worked, and that you're okay."

"How did you do that?" Brandon Fayette said, his pudgy face animated as he suddenly appeared over Peter's shoulder. "What was it like? Can you do it again? What else can you do?"

"Brandon, that's quite enough," Nina Sharp interceded sharply.

Olivia ignored them both. There had been something, right before Walter had injected her. Something he'd said. Something about...  _in utero_. The baby. Fear blotted out the room, blotted out everything except for the sound of her own breaths, harsh in her ears.  _Oh my god. What have I done?_ Panic seized her by the throat, squeezing inexorably, followed by a spike of stark terror crashing down with the weight of a mountain.  _What have I done? What have I done to my baby?_  She met Peter's gaze.  _To_ our _baby_ _?_

"What is it?" Peter's voice intruded. He took hold of her hand. "Olivia, what's wrong?"

She shook her head, unable to speak. Drowning beneath waves of surging guilt and fear, she reached out with her mind, trying to sense the tiny life growing inside her as she had done once before, when the fresh had taken a bite out of her shoe. It was remarkably simple to do so, far easier than it had ever been. Though whether from her current state of mind, or from the increased level of cortexiphan in her system, she couldn't say.

"Liv...?"

Olivia exhaled slowly, relief making her head spin. It was there; a minute spark glowing in an endless void. Had it changed? Was it any different? She couldn't be sure. It seemed the same, mostly. So small. So helpless and feeble. A _nd I'm the one that's supposed to protect you_ ,she thought, feeling utterly wretched.  _I promise I'll be better. I just have to do this, for the both of us. For the three of us_. She sent the tenebrous spark inside her thoughts of love and warmth and safety. And did it flare up? Even for a microsecond? Did it respond? Perhaps it was her imagination. Perhaps it was merely her own desire talking back to her.

"Liv!" Peter said again, squeezing both of her knees. "Are you with me?"

"I'm here," she said, taking in a breath. She wet her lips, mopping a hand across her brow. "I'm sorry. It's... all a bit much. I can't explain it."

"I get it," he said, relief blooming in his eyes. "I thought you were checking out on us again for a second there."

Walter loomed over Peter's shoulders. "Agent Dunham, unless you want to experience what you just experienced again," he said, still holding the second syringe aloft, "I suggest we do the final dose now, rather than later, before the cortexiphan has a chance to fully dissipate into your system."

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Rachel spat. Her face was red, her eyes dark, brimming with anger and fear. "I don't care if you can make stuff float around. That shit looked like it was frying your brain, Olivia. And you're going to let him give you  _more_? Do you actually  _like_  being his lab rat?"

Olivia met her sister's gaze calmly.  _I'm sorry, but this is what must be_. "Rachel, if you can't watch this, then you should leave. This is what I'm doing. I'm sorry."

Rachel pinched a hand over her mouth, shaking her head. Her eyes filled with tears. Without another word, she twirled around and stalked out of the room, brushing roughly past Lincoln who stood watching silently from the doorway.

"I'll go after her, Olivia," Astrid offered in a quiet voice, glancing back toward the door. "If you want that is. She wasn't there before, after Flight 627. She doesn't know."

 _She doesn't know her sister was already a freak?_  The thought came automatically, almost in reflex. She forced herself to smile at her former assistant, now her closest friend other than her sister and Peter. "I know, Astrid," she said. "And thank you. She means well. She's just worried." She waited until Astrid was gone, then glanced up at Walter. "Let's get this over with."

Walter nodded, his lined face looking even sadder and more aged than was usual of late. "Very well. Lean forward once more, my dear."

As he had intimated, the second dose was easy compared to the first, as if her brain were still saturated, her senses still acclimated to the drug's effects. The moment passed with barely a glimmer, and she kept her abilities in check. And though the pain and confusion were gone, the lingering guilt and fear about what she was doing to herself, to the baby, and to Peter, remained, ever present.

#

A few hours later, Olivia found herself skimming across the choppy waters of Upper Bay. The little boat surged and bounced, skipping and hopping over the waves, instead of cutting through them, as a larger craft might have. The boat was flat bottomed, with bare metal exposed all around. Other than a thin cushion atop the pilot's chair, there was not a hint of comfort to be found. The outboard motor blared, screaming with indignation at every bouncing impact. The baleful eye of the afternoon sun glared down, impossibly bright as it glinted off the water. Hot and humid air roared in her ears, whipping her hair about. She looked back, eyeing the arcing rooster tail of water spaying up behind them as they chugged along. The v-shaped foam of their passage swerved steadily westward, back toward the wreckage guarding the mouth of the channel.

There had seemed no point in waiting.

Water travel was fairly routine for Nina's people, apparently, and a boat was already waiting for them, fueled up and ready to go. There had been several to choose from, but only two were small enough to find a path through the floating junkyard that occupied the narrow channel stretching between Newark and Upper Bays. After seeing the wreckage up close, she had not a single doubt that the  _Coy Mistress_  would have never made it through, not even close. She had spotted the yacht several minutes ago, still docked where they had left it, off to the west. She had plans for the boat, if by some miracle it all worked out.

She held no illusions that it would work out, however. Things rarely worked out, all nice and tidy, wrapped up with little red bows. No, in real life, in her experience, at least, and especially as of late, most endeavors ended in tears, and suffering. Part of her expected no different from this one, no matter how much she might wish it otherwise.

Saying her goodbyes had been difficult; to Ella who had been sad and quietly afraid; to a still tearful Rachel, who had refused to even speak to her; to Astrid and Claire, both of whom had put on hopeful faces for her benefit; to Gina, the little girl who'd been through so much but was still struggling on. Even to Nina Sharp, who had told her she would do well, as if the woman thought herself some sort of guide or teacher, as ridiculous as the notion seemed. And finally, to Walter. The elder Bishop had been tearful and contrite, his voice a quiet whisper as he'd stepped forward, hugging her gently, as if he were afraid of breaking her, or more likely, of her reaction. He'd smelled like marijuana, and she couldn't fault him for it — indeed, part of her wished she had been one to partake in such activities, if for no other reason than to calm her nerves.

 _My dear Olivia,_ he had said in her ear _. I couldn't be more proud of you were you my own daughter, my own flesh and blood. I know I've told you before, but... I am so, so terribly sorry. For everything that I've done. Thank you for... for choosing to look past it, and for making my son as happy as he can be. And for Peter's sake, you must come back to us, you simply must_ _._

Of course she had assured him she would do everything in her power to do so. She hoped to come back. She hoped to see them all again, to live out the rest of her life in peace, with Peter and her family, and even start her own little family unit. But who knew what the future held? For any of them? The way ahead was fraught with peril.

She shot a glance at Peter, seated beside her on the widest bench in front of Broyles. His overgrown hair fluttered in the wind. Locked forward, his gaze never left the northern horizon, where the Manhattan skyline rose in the distance. He and Walter had said their goodbyes, also. Much to her surprise, he had pulled his father aside, and whatever he'd said, in the end, Walter had choked up, engulfing Peter in his arms, clutching him to his chest. Even more surprising, was that Peter had allowed it, even going so far as to pat his father's back, offering comfort of a sort, if a bit half-hearted. She wondered what had passed between them, but Peter had not spoken of it, or even uttered a single word since they stepped onto the boat — to her, or to anyone. He was on edge, like a high tension wire cranked tighter by every passing moment. No doubt, in part, at least, to the pale green figure rising above the water in the distance.

Liberty Island lay dead ahead. The island's mass was just coming into view, below the ripples of Lady Liberty's skirts.

"You sure about this?" Peter said suddenly over the whine of the motor. His eyes stayed focused forward, locked on the horizon.

Olivia blinked. How did he always seem to know when she was looking at him? In her mind, at least, she'd been fairly covert.

Was she sure about crossing over? Not even remotely. But if her goal was to speak with Walter's counterpart in Lincoln's world, then crossing over where he spent most of his time seemed the most obvious way to go about it. Lincoln had agreed, though he had warned her the plan was not without a certain amount of risk. On his world, Liberty Island was under heavy guard twenty-four hours a day and off limits to the public, reserved for those with only the highest of security clearances. He had not come right out and said so, but she'd had the distinct impression that being shot on sight as foreign agent, or at the very least, detained, was not out of the question. Predictably, Peter hadn't cared for the idea, not one bit, and neither had Broyles, but they were out of options. Instead of being stable, the infection had changed, and not for the better. Who knew when it would change again, and what new terrible effects it might have? Walter was all but certain that it was the result of some event or agent from another universe, perhaps on purpose, perhaps even inadvertently. And now that she had a lead, even one as tenuous as this, it had become a case like any other. Which made her first witness to interview the Secretary.

"Peter, I don't see any other way, do you?" she said, then paused as the little boat hit a particularly rough of water. "The Secretary might know something. He might even be willing to help us. They've been at war for years with this other universe. He must know something."

"Have you considered the possibility that he's the one responsible?"

"For the infection?" Olivia said, taken aback.

Peter shrugged. "I have the distinct impression that Lincoln doesn't trust him, and everything he's told me makes me think he's nothing like Walter. When we were prisoners together, I could hear him in his cell, going on about his secretary. I thought he was out of gourd, but he wasn't. He was talking about this man, this Secretary. Olivia, he didn't have anything nice to say about him. Quite the opposite."

Olivia hesitated, glancing back at Lincoln seated behind Broyles in the bow. Hearing Peter speak so about a man that was likely another version of his real father was surreal. She had thought he might feel something toward this version of Walter, some kind of pseudo-connection, possibly, but that didn't seem to be the case. Far from it.

"So what are you saying?" she said. "That you don't think I should go? I already knew that. Peter, the night Walter took you from your world — that event seems like it's the center of everything that's happened. In Lincoln's world, and maybe in our world, too, for all we know. If anyone knows something, it's Walter. Be it ours, or theirs, or some other version of him somewhere else. And if we have to track down every single one of him until we find the answer, then that's what we're going to do. But I don't think it will come to that. You heard Walter's theory. Whatever's causing the infection, he thinks it's near us in terms of... how did he put it?"

"In terms of spacial and relative probability?" Peter supplied, glancing over at her.

Olivia snorted. "Yeah. That. Whatever that even means."

"Well, according to Walter, it means that some realities may be closer, more... accessible, than others, based on the differences between the originating probability sets, or in real world terms, based on things that had happened or didn't happen. If you think of the multi-verse as a giant tree, then every time something big and world changing happens or doesn't happen, you could say a new branch is formed, and each branch has small stems or branches, based on smaller events. In theory, I would think, realities on a common branch would likely be closer to one another, spatially if that term even means something when we're talking about dimensions beyond the three we can see and touch and feel." Peter looked at her and smiled, emotion creeping back into his face for the first time since they'd stepped on board. "Does that help at all?"

Olivia pursed her lips, considering. His eyes were incredibly blue and vivid at that moment. She found herself wondering if it was the stark sunlight or his terra-cotta t-shirt with a yellow smiley face across the chest bringing the color out. "Did I ever tell you that you're kind of cute when you go all professorial on me?" she said squinting up at him.

Peter's eyes lit up, a grin stretching his lips from ear to ear. "Is that so?" he said. "Maybe I'll keep that in mind, Agent Dunham."

She gave his thigh a squeeze. "It's gonna be fine, Peter. I can feel it."

"Can you?" he said, eyeing her askance.

"No, not really," she admitted with a shrug. "But it's what I want to happen. More than anything." She glanced ahead of them, where the one-armed Statue of Liberty now towered overhead. "Look, we're almost there."

The island was close. The patina figure of the Lady Liberty loomed only several hundred yards away. Overgrown grass made a green carpet that lapped up against the old star-shaped fort that served as a pedestal beneath the statue's feet. Set back from the shore was a retaining wall of weather bricks covered in algae where they met the earth. Having visited the island once nearly a decade ago, she remembered the sea wall encircling the island in its entirety, and that a pair of docks jutted out into the ocean off its eastern and western shores. Of the missing arm with its torch, there was no sign of yet, or Lady Liberty's assailant. The motor's belligerent tenor changed as Broyles swung the little boat starboard, angling toward the eastward facing shore.

"See anyone?" Lincoln called up from the back of the boat. "Or anything?"

Peter pulled a pair of binoculars from the duffel bag behind their seat. He scanned the shoreline, chewing on the corner of his lip. "Looks deserted," he reported after a moment. "No, wait. I see something. Looks like a soldier. Right there on the path leading up to the fort."

Olivia looked but all that was visible was the faint form of a person, standing upright in the distance. As they drew closer, it became clear that it was a man, or had been. The infected began lurching eastward as they rounded the island's southern tip, trawling toward the low dock now visible above the water. A tangle of wreckage came into view, previously hidden by the bulk of the statue's base. Planted upside-down in the soil was an enormous fist, still clutching the missing torch, crushed nearly flat like a stomped-on can of soda. Buried among the mounds of rubble and furrowed earth surrounding the dismembered statue were hunks of twisted metal that vaguely resembled parts of an aircraft, already showing signs of rust, of settling into their final resting places.

Broyles killed the motor as they approached the dock, turning sharply at the last moment and sliding them in as if he'd been driving watercraft all his life. And maybe he had. What did she actually know of his life outside of the FBI? Nothing. Maybe he'd been a fisherman, or had loved to water ski. She'd never even thought to ask until that moment.

As the boat bumped up against a wooden piling, slick with slime rising up from the water, Peter jumped out, scrambling up a rusted ladder bolted to its outward face. He tossed them down a thick rope, clearly made for tying off much larger craft than theirs, and Olivia looped it awkwardly around one of the bench seats. It would hold, hopefully. She tossed Peter their gear, the followed him up the ladder, with Broyles and Lincoln joining them on the dock a moment later.

A lone infected rushed toward them on the shore, following a waist-high fence of cast iron that topped the sea wall. The creature's eagerness to make their acquaintance was obvious in the way it continually bumped up against the fence, as if taking the fastest possible route was thought in the remnants of its brain.  _Or_ , she thought grimly,  _maybe it was a geometry teacher in its former life_.

Lincoln glanced down at the dock, shaking his head. "This isn't here on my world," he said quizzically. "The only way onto the island is by helicopter or by one of the official transports at shift change."

"Where's the best place to cross over?" Olivia said, keeping one eye on the approaching infected. It had nearly reached the opening in the fence that led out onto the dock. "Inside? On the grounds somewhere?"

"Definitely not inside. That's just asking to get shot by some corporal with a loose trigger finger. Somewhere out in the open, where they can see us. We may have to... convince them we are who we say we are, and my Show-Me is long gone. On my world, at least, there's a landing pad on the backside of the statue. I say we try to cross over there."

"Show-me?" Peter asked with a frown. "That some kind of ID?"

"Yup. It's illegal to walk around without one. People can go to jail for that."

Now it was Olivia's turn to frown. "Really? For not carrying an ID? Sounds kind of... I dunno, fascist, to me, don't you think?"

Lincoln shrugged, crossing his arms and scratching uncomfortably at one elbow. "Hey, I didn't make the rules," he said. "I just have to live by them. We've been at war for a long time, first with nature itself, and now with this other reality that's doing its best to kill us all. It may not be what you're used to, but we do what we have to do."

"I'm sorry," she said, "I didn't mean anything by it. It's just... surprising, that's all."

Broyles spoke then, eyeing the shoreline at the opposite end of the dock. "There's a similar open space behind the statue here, too, Lincoln." His dark eyes were turned inward, filled by some distant memory that stained his face with sadness. "New arrivals go there first. There's a big flagpole in the center, a lot of benches where visitors would sit and eat and people-watch, taking in the view. It was peaceful, when the wind would come in off the water, the seagulls wheeling." He swallowed, eyes closing briefly, and then seemed to shake himself free of some memory. "Anyway, it seems like as good a place as any."

Without another word, Broyles turned and began the long march down the dock to the shore. Lincoln, glanced between them, then turned and hurried after the bald man, whose limp, while still pronounced, had lessened considerably over the last few months. A moment later, Olivia and Peter stood alone. Her hair danced in gusts of salty wind coming off the bay. She gave up trying to contain it, and met Peter's gaze.

"Are you ready?" she asked.

"I should be the one asking you that," he replied. He gave her a self-deprecating smile that was all Peter — the old one, from before. "This one's all you, Liv."

"Do... you want to meet him, this Secretary?" Olivia asked carefully. "Maybe... maybe I could take Lincoln first, then come back for you if all goes..." She fell silent, seeing the look on his face.

Peter shook his head slowly. "No. Now that we're here... this man, he may look like Walter, or my real father, I guess, but he's not. He won't know me, won't understand me. He has a son. And his wife is dead. Beside, this first time is just a test, right? That was the deal."

A dull ache went through her chest at the pain in his voice. "Right," she agreed softly. "That was the deal."

Lugging her gear up onto her shoulder, she reached out and waited for him to take her hand, which he did after a moment's hesitation. They started for the shore, strolling at a leisurely pace. Lincoln and Broyles were far ahead of them, almost to the end of the dock, where the lone infected had finally made its way out onto the boardwalk, precariously near one edge. As it drew near the two men, a gunshot cracked the air, sounding flat and echo-less. Broyles lowered his pistol as the undead soldier pitched off into the water. He glanced back, as if to make sure they were following him, then limped off onto the shore.

Peter remained silent as they made their way closer, his thumb rubbing lightly across the back of her hand. Tension built in the air between them, palpable, like opposing magnetic fields coming together. Olivia felt it in her gut, winding ever tighter, and saw it in the hard line of Peter's jaw. Several times, she was certain he was on the verge of asking something of her, but each time chose to keep the question inside. She wondered if he was hoping she would break the silence. He might be expecting her to, but she could not. There  _was_  something between them, all right. Something ugly. And it was her lie, the secret she'd been keeping from him — from everyone she loved.

The last bit of dock was her only chance. The shore loomed closer. A long shadow cast by the statue towering overhead stretched across the grass, nearly all the way to the encircling fence. Broyles and Lincoln Lee were waiting a short way down the brick path that led to the northern side of the island, where she could make out a tall flagpole protruding above the trees. The tension wound tighter, weighing her down like a block of concrete resting on her shoulders.

She still had time. She could still tell Peter everything, tell him about his child. She could still clear the air between them. He would be angry, possibly very angry for keeping it from him. But he would understand, wouldn't he? She could tell him.  _There's still time!_  a voice shouted inside her head.

All it would cost her was everything.

The dock came to an end, just ahead. Trembling, Olivia opened her mouth to speak.

"You're planning on coming back, right?" Peter whispered suddenly, stopping her voice. "You have to come back to me, Olivia."

As he spoke, they passed off the dock onto the shore. Pain cinched her throat, squeezing her airway in an iron grip. "I will, Peter," she managed to say, then wiped a stinging tear away with the shoulder of her shirt.

Broyles's gaze flickered between them, but he said nothing of their tardiness. Instead he turned and led them around the old star-shaped fort that made up the statue's foundation, past the giant hand jutting up from the soil. Up close the pale green skin was bent and wrinkled with kinks. Upon reaching the wide plaza at the rear of the statue, she set her bag down, her sword, her pistol. She didn't want to alarm anyone, and arriving armed to the teeth seemed like a good way to do that.

Lincoln peered about, as if he were searching for some landmark or feature that he had expected to see but was not. After a moment, he shrugged. "Whatever. I guess this is good enough," he said. "It's kind of hard to gauge, but we should be out of view of the checkpoint, I think. It'd probably be better to walk up and introduce ourselves than appear out of thin air." He held his hand out to Broyles. "It's been a pleasure to work with you, sir. I'll never forget it."

Broyles took his extended hand, shaking it firmly. "The pleasure's all mine, Captain Lee," he said with a nod. "It's been a real honor. Take care of yourself."

Turning to Peter, Lincoln held out his hand again. "Well, I guess this is it, Bishop," he said, shaking his hand. "Thanks for saving my ass back in Worcester. I owe you one. If there's anything I can do for you in the next few minutes, let me know." He chuckled then, shaking his head. "You know, the other you is going to lose his shit when he hears about this."

"That wasn't me that saved you," Peter told him. "That was all Ella. She saved us all. You want to do me a favor, Lincoln? Remember her."

Lincoln nodded thoughtfully. "I will, always," he said in a somber tone before turning to Olivia. "What now, Liv?" Do you need to... prepare or something?"

"We'll get to that in a second," she said, then crossed over to Peter.

She stared up into his blue eyes for a handful of solid heartbeats, and then yanked his head down, questing for his lips. She wound her fingers in the cloth of his shirt and he pulled her against him, crushing her to his chest. Their lips mashed together, roughly, softly. Filled with a kind of desperation that bordered on fevered madness, she searched for his tongue, yawing into his mouth. Words poured out through her lips; all things she wanted to say, but couldn't; all the emotions she wanted to feel but hadn't allowed herself to. In the end, she pulled away, panting, nuzzling against his nose. His cheeks were wet, his breath hitched.

"I love you, Peter," she whispered against his flesh. "And I'll come back, I promise you."

"I'm gonna hold you to that," he said, then released his hold on her. He stepped back, giving her and Lincoln space. "Whatever you do, remember it's not your world, Liv, and though they might look like us, they're not us."

Broyles held out his hand, but she pulled him into a hug instead. "Watch Peter's back for me while I'm gone, sir," she said in his ear. "He means a lot to me."

"Don't I know it," he replied in a subdued voice. "And I will, Dunham. Be careful over there. We'll be waiting right here for you when you get back."

Olivia pulled away, stepping back and taking Lincoln's hand without looking away from Peter. His face was haunted, and achingly sad.  _I love you_ , she mouthed around the knot of grief in her throat, then tore her eyes away. Steeling herself, she met Lincoln's gaze.

"Are you ready to go home?" she asked.

"You know I am."

"Then think of some way to verify that we're in the right world when we get there. And be quick about it."

She took a breath, and then closed her eyes. Relaxing, she opened her mind. As Walter had predicted, it was starting to become second nature, like opening her fist. She expanded her senses, soaking it all in.

The ethereal world beneath the world was there. Reality was a boiling cauldron of infinitesimal activity, tucked back in one corner of her mind, the far away part, the part of her brain where her inner eye resided. And the eye was open. It had been open, if distantly at times, ever since she'd killed the fresh on their way to Nina's compound. She had done her best to ignore it, but it was as if some barrier inside her had broken, or some unknowable threshold breached. The additional doses of cortexiphan had only made it easier, somehow more vivid — if the word even applied to something that had no shape or form, and existed only as vague impressions interpreted by her brain. And there was more, now.

Upon receiving the first dose, she'd felt more than just the texture of reality. She had felt someone else's emotions, had seen the world through someone else's eyes. A distant part of her wondered what the limit was. What was it like to be a god, to do anything? To mold reality as she saw fit? She thought of the other her that Lincoln had told them about, the killer with no soul. Was that it? What was her limit? Did she even have one? She brushed the errant thoughts aside. Peter was right. They weren't the same. Whatever their faces, they weren't the same.

It was time.

She pushed against the barrier, the veil that lay between the worlds. It was thinner than an atom, yet at the same time as impenetrable as time. The veil was the sum total of everything. It  _was_  reality. It was the very  _stuff_  that she, herself, and everything else she had ever seen or touched was made of. Or perhaps the surface upon which they were imprinted was a better word. A better thought. The veil was also somehow  _other_ , impossibly huge, encompassing the entirety of their existence. She felt Lincoln beside her, all the way down to his base particles, all the way down to his own stuff. He was different than herself, different from Broyles, different than the bricks beneath their feet, than the air blowing across the surface of her skin, than the clothes upon his back. The same, yet different. As different as an oak tree was from a maple, or a cherry. And he was different than Peter, who was also different than herself. She had never noticed the difference before. Perhaps she'd never allowed herself to. The difference was minute, even on an atomic scale, but still vital.

With a burst of understanding, Olivia knew how she might go about locating one world among an infinity. She understood how she might take Peter home, if he still had a home. Or Lincoln. All that was required was the correct combination. Or was it a code? A sequence of repeating numbers? Perhaps it was a sound, a vibration. It was all of those things, and none. But whatever _it_  was, she had all she needed — she'd had it all along.

She willed them across... and the veil parted around them. Or perhaps it passed through them. Doing it consciously felt strange, different than the other times she'd crossed over inadvertently. The sensation defied description, as if her brain were incapable of processing the new data, as if it was the wrong kind of code. Mostly, it felt like an icy ripple moving through the base of her skull, and then it felt like nothing.

#

* * *

#

Peter stared at the spot where Olivia had just vanished.

Exhaling, he shuddered at the dagger of pain sliding slowly through his chest. Watching her go had been the hardest thing he could recall doing, ever. It felt like pulling his heart out, and then dying slowly on the inside.

"Now that's not something you see every day, now is it?" Broyles muttered, shaking his head.

Peter could only agree. It wasn't at all what he'd expected. He'd thought perhaps they would grow insubstantial, turning into ghost-like apparitions before disappearing. But it had been the opposite of that. They had simply vanished, without warning, and all at once, like the flipping of a switch, one instant there, the next, not. If he had blinked, he might have missed it.

He gave the older man a sideways glance, then turned and went over to the flagpole in the wide plaza's center. The flag tethered at the top hung listless in between gusts of wind, torn and threadbare, and colors so faded it was difficult to distinguish between them. He sat down on the little bench formed from the flagpole's massive base — seemingly formed of solid stone — and glared up the one-armed statue looming overhead.

 _I should have gone with her. I should have insisted, no matter what deal we made. There is no deal if you don't come back_.

It was strange to think she might be standing right in front of him, perhaps even in the very same spot he was occupying, their atoms overlapping across the dimensions. She was there, yet not. A full five minutes had passed since she'd disappeared before his eyes — far longer than she'd ever managed to stay on the other side before. Walter had done it. The additional doses of cortexiphan had worked, exactly as he'd predicted they would.

After a few more minutes, Broyles hobbled over the flagpole and dropped down heavily on the bench beside him. The former special agent sighed, then leaned back, propping his head back against the stone flagpole base. His eyelids slid slowly shut, and Peter thought he was on the brink of drifting off to sleep until he spoke.

"I was here, years ago," he said suddenly, eyes remaining shut. "I met my wife here. Right over there." He did look then, stabbing a finger toward a particularly impressive tree hugging the northward perimeter fence. "Right beneath that cherry tree over there. She was leaning on the railing, watching the ocean. She was beautiful — too beautiful." His lips curled in remembrance. "She noticed me watching her and walked right up to me. I figured she was either going to slap me, or give me the rough side of her tongue — and boy it could be rough, when she wanted — but she didn't. Instead she asked me if I wanted to get drinks or not. Said she was getting too old to play games. Diane was like that, always finding ways to surprise me."

Peter wasn't sure when the two of them had become best friends, but the man was clearly in some amount of pain. He was divorced, wasn't he? He wondered what had come between them, and since his former boss was apparently in a giving mood, he decided he could ask. "What happened? Between you and your wife?"

"My job happened," Broyles said with a shrug. "I was too wrapped up in my cases, too absorbed to see that she wasn't happy — that she hadn't been happy for a long time."

There seemed nothing to say to that, so Peter nodded, and gazed out across the bay toward Manhattan. The city was stained with ash, painted with destruction. Nestled far back among the jumble of battered skyscrapers, he could make out the faint outline of the Massive Dynamic building. Guiltily, he recalled being secretly relieved when the city had first come into view, when the building had been hidden beneath the deepening haze of dusk. It if had been gone, then there would have been no chance she would leave him. It had been a purely selfish thought, but then he was a selfish man — when it came to the woman he loved, at least. And perhaps in general, too.

He should have known she'd find a way, no matter the cost.

#

* * *

#

Olivia first became aware of cool wind feathering across her cheeks. Then came the cries of hale seagulls, reverberating over the wind from somewhere nearby. Overhead was a low rumble, constant, and steady. A motor.

She opened her eyes.

Peter and Broyles were gone. The massive hand torch stabbed into the ground, the detritus of a destroyed aircraft, all were gone. The flagpole was gone, the wide plaza with its perimeter benches replaced by a massive helipad, with a giant letter H painted in its center. Her world was gone. Rising tall above them, Lady Liberty glowed with a coppery incandescence that seemed otherworldly, holding her torch aloft beneath an astoundingly blue sky. Several huge cigar shaped vessels floated aloft, high overhead. Her mouth dropped open as she froze, gaping at the sight.

Lincoln took one look around and gasped, his face and eyes lighting up. "You did it!" he said, and before she could stop him, he swept her into a crushing bear hug, sweeping her off her feet. "You did it, Liv! This is home!"

Olivia staggered back as he released her, assaulted by a barrage of conflicting sensory inputs. The Statue of Liberty shone like a polished copper pipe. She looked about, taking in the view. A large number of boats of all shapes and sizes were out on the water; sailboats and speedboats and yachts and even what looked like a racing catamaran, lilting in the wind as it swung about, out beyond where the eastern dock should have been, but wasn't. To the north, however, where the Manhattan skyline dominated the horizon, was the greatest shock of all, though she should have been expecting it. Standing tall and proud above the city were the World Trade Center buildings, the Twin Towers. More airships floated in the distance, weaving paths among the skyscrapers. Airships? The sight was decidedly odd, and somehow wonderful in way she was at a loss to describe. A dome of pure honey engulfed a section of the eastern horizon, just north of Brooklyn.

"Are you sure we're in the right place?" she asked, but even as the words escaped her lips, she found that she already knew the answer. Her inner eye was still open. She could sense the veil and the world around her, feel its  _stuff._  It was the same as Lincoln. Here, at least,  _she_ was the outsider.

Before Lincoln could reply, there came the pounding of many footsteps, of boots on concrete. An instant later a squad of soldiers decked out in green fatigues with black and red armbands burst into view, rounding the pointed corner of the old fort at a full sprint. Upon seeing the two of them, the soldiers' eyes widened with alarm — both men and women, she noted dimly — and they threw themselves flat as a unit, raising odd-looking rifles as they did so.

Olivia raised her hands slowly as Lincoln stepped forward, offering them his name. "I'm Captain Lincoln Lee, Fringe Div-"

The soldiers opened fire, soft spits like that of a compressed air weapon filling the air.

"No, wait!" Olivia shouted, holding her hands out even as a series of fiery stings erupted across her chest, her arms, the side of her neck.

Gasping, she looked down and found herself quilled by a handful of hypodermic needles shaped like darts, feathered with puffs of red cloth on the ends not stuck into her chest. She reached up, intending to yank one free, but instead her knees gave out, all at once, as if her bones had become jell-o, or had just vanished entirely. Suddenly she was on the ground, on her back, the blue sky and Lady Liberty gleaming above her. Up high overhead, a small plane tumbled through the air, twirling in a death-spiral. Emitting a stream of black smoke, the plane tore a gaping hole through a silvery airship unlucky enough to float into its path.

 _How strange_..., she thought through a deepening fog.  _How utterly strange_. A dull throb pounded hollowed out beats on the back of her head. The daylight and her view of the disaster unfolding above her eyes turned darker by the instant.

Blinking, with a massive effort, Olivia managed to turn her head to the side. Lincoln Lee lay beside her on the concrete. His gray eyes were open, staring sightlessly. She tried to speak, to tell him that she was sorry, but the world evaporated, sweeping her away in a black mist.


	38. Through A Mirror, Darkly

**-September 2009**

A terrible headache greeted Olivia upon waking. Sharp, spiky throbs pounded drumbeats against the inside of her skull in rhythmic precision. With a groan, she opened her eyes, only to find herself in utter darkness, immersed in a blackness blacker than black.

 _Where am I?_  she thought, her own voice distant and slow-moving inside her head.  _What happened?_

With a start, she came awake fully. Something soft and heavy was touching her, covering her face, her hair — her entire head, lying across her shoulders. Cloth. A bag? She went to pull it off and found her hands bound tightly on either side. The stinging pressure holding her wrists in place was cold and metallic, and unmistakably handcuffs, cinched tight with not a millimeter of slack to spare.

_What the hell?_

In a flash of panic, she jerked hard on the cuffs, gritting her teeth at the flare of pain that shot up her forearm. As she did so, a similar ache emanated from each ankle, bound in the same fashion, incredibly tight, with not a hair of leeway between them. Someone was taking no chances with her, and she was well and truly caught.

Olivia blinked beneath the cloth covering her face. Instead of panicking, now was a good time to take stock of her situation. What had happened? She had crossed over with Lincoln Lee. And then? What happened after that was foggy, like peering through a window into a dream. A copper colored Statue of Liberty? The Twin Towers. Airships floating in the sky? Sleek silver-bullet shaped crafts similar to the doomed  _Hindenburg_  from her world. Had one of them crashed? Been struck in mid-air?

She drew in a sharp breath.  _I got shot._ The memory came back in a rush of images. They  _shot me... they shot both of us with tranquilizers. And I'm still here, on the other side._

_The cortexiphan worked._

Her mind raced, jumping from question to question. How long had she been out? And where was Lincoln? Was he okay? Was he dead? A vivid image of him lying on his back, staring upward with vacant eyes. Dead, or unconscious? She didn't know. Why had the soldiers just attacked like that, without questions, without warnings? One thing was clear enough, however.

 _I have to get out of here. I have to get out of here, now_.

She leaned forward until her shoulders burned, wrenched and twisted by the cuffs holding her wrists in place, and whipped her head about, jerking and swinging from side to side with a kind of animal ferocity. Little by little, the bag covering her face worked its way upward, the hem sliding up and over her chin. When it was over her lips the darkness turned a shade lighter, and brighter again as it cleared her nose, until, after an extra potent heave, the bag flew off and struck a wall of gray metal just out of her reach.

Breathing hard, Olivia fell back against the wall behind her. Her shoulders continued to burn, the fire extending down to where the cuffs chafed into her wrists. She was in a cell, if it could even be called a cell, barely large enough for her to stretch her legs out — if they weren't shackled to the floor. Closet was a better term, albeit one with shiny steel panels for walls that showed vague hints of her reflection. The ceiling was well out of reach, and made of the same kind of metal as the walls, with a single white light that blazed like a sun recessed in its surface. On either side of the light she spied tiny bits of metal that looked suspiciously like nozzles of some sort. She swallowed hard, eyeing the metal protrusions as trickles of fear began oozing up her spine.  _What the fuck are those? Gas? Acid?_  She shivered, lowering her gaze. Straight across from her was a door, near the full width of her cell, with a narrow view window set in its upper half. The glass had a cloudiness to it, as if its thickness was measured in inches. A shutter made of horizontal slats covered its outer surface, currently closed.

She pulled again on her cuffs, wincing at the sharp in her wrists. Lowering her head, she held her breath, then let it out slowly. Panicking, giving in to the fear, would do nothing for her. Obviously, she'd been captured. Was it their practice in Lincoln's world to shoot first and ask questions later?  _I guess he warned me, didn't he?_

When she lifted her head again, the shutters were open.

A pair of blue eyes stared in at her. The eyes were familiar, achingly so, and so was the face they belonged to, with its thick scruff and a crooked smirk. Her heart lurched. Peter! He wore a collared shirt open at the neck, and what little she could see of his wavy hair was styled nearly the same as the first time she'd laid eyes on him, coming toward her down a hotel stairway in Iraq.

"Peter!" she shouted before she could stop herself, lunging forward, then falling back with a pain-filled gasp. "Peter, you have to help me! Please! It's me! I don't belong in here! Peter!" The blue eyes narrowed, then withdrew from the window. "Peter!" The shutters snapped shut silently.

Gulping in a breath of air, Olivia shook her head at her own stupidity.  _It's not him, you fool, you idiot. It's not Peter, no matter how much it looks like him_. She imagined then that she heard voices through the door, some kind of argument. Or was that her fantasy? They were there — several of them, male, talking over top one another. She listened harder as the voices suddenly rose in furious crescendo, and then the shutters snapped open again without warning.

The face that stared in at her this time did not belong to Peter Bishop. Instead, a single, grayish-blue eye glared in at her, the other covered by a featureless black patch held in place by a thin nylon cord, also black. Deep-set wrinkles angled around a pair of lips pressed flat in a thin line of fury.

Olivia's mouth fell open, all the moisture vanishing in an instant.  _Oh my god, it's Walter._

Only it wasn't Walter. Not even close. It was the man Lincoln had called the Secretary. He wore a dark gray suit, perfectly tailored with not a wrinkle in sight. His single eye was as icy as the frozen north, as unforgiving as the tundra. Where the Walter she knew carried himself with a kind — if you were unaware of his past transgressions, at least — almost foolish demeanor most of the time, the man standing before her was his polar opposite, sterner than a steel beam. It was like seeing Walter through one of those fun house mirrors, his visage warped and twisted.

The Secretary regarded her without expression through the window. She held still, meeting his one-eyed gaze. Who was this man? How had he turned out so differently than her Walter? Or was it her Walter that was different? Was this the man he'd been before his incarceration at St. Claire's? The man Peter had spoken so poorly of? She felt naked under his gaze, as if he could see and hear the thoughts swirling inside her head.

After a moment, his lips grew even thinner, if that were possible, and he reached up, touching something on the wall beside the door. There was a hiccup of a squelch, and then a voice that sounded like Walter's, but wasn't, echoed over an intercom set in the wall somewhere above and behind her head.

"Captain Lee has told me some interesting... tales, about you, Olivia Dunham, and your world," he said, his voice stiff. "Tales I'm afraid I find rather difficult to credit. He mentioned the dead walking? Devouring people like in a horror film? Human beings used up like batteries? What do you say of these things? And more importantly, why have you come here?"

Olivia sighed at the wave of relief that went through her. Lincoln was okay, and he'd already been debriefed. "If you've spoken to Lincoln, then you already know why I'm here," she told him. "I brought him home. Why am I locked up in this cell?"

The Secretary seemed to consider the question before replying, as if he were weighing the truth against its opposite. Finally, he spoke, grudgingly. "Because you are not the first Olivia Dunham to penetrate my world," he explained, eyeing her coldly. "Only the latest. And you appear to possess the same sort of... abilities, as the one who came before you. That one has much to answer for, and my soldiers were merely following my orders. She... you, are quite the catch, as my assistant would no doubt say, if he were standing here. We could learn much from you, regarding this drug my counterpart created, how it works, how it affects the human brain. Your capture could be a great boon to my world."

From the clinical way he was looking at her — like she was something less than a human being, or like an insect he intended squash — Olivia suspected the kind of learning he was referring to was similar, if not identical to the sort Jacob Fischer had preferred.

"Just so you know," she said, "I killed the last man who tried to cut out my brain."

The Secretary's lips crooked slightly. "Yes. So Captain Lee reported in his briefing."

"Are you going to let me out of here or not?" she said, as irritation at the whole mixed-up situation began to set in.

"I will consider it. But first, answer me this, Olivia Dunham. What did you hope to gain by coming here? If you are asking for aid, I'm afraid that well has run dry. My world is already nearing the brink of destruction."

"And mine is beyond that brink, sir," she countered, shaking her head. "Let me out of here and we can talk. Or shall I just go? I promised Lincoln I would see him home, and I've kept my promise."

The threat wasn't an idle one. Her inner eye was open, she realized, and it had been open since she'd awoken. The veil, the ethereal boundary between worlds was there, all around her, woven throughout everything. And now that she was aware of it, she could sense the man standing outside the door, and, along with several others nearby, the cuffs about her wrists, the shackles about her ankles. She could reach out, if she so chose, inserting her will into the equation. She could change her reality — and hereby, theirs. She sensed that crossing back over to her world would be easier, as if her own reality was all too eager for her return. She tried not to think about the nozzles set in the ceiling. Some kind of gas? Would it knock her out? Paralyze her? Or just flat out kill her? Could she cross back over faster than whoever held their finger on the button?

She wasn't eager to find out. Something else became apparent to her then, out on the edge of her awareness. She sensed something. A kind of energy. Power. It glowed and pulsed, beckoning. Like in the moments before she'd blasted Jacob Fischer with her mind. It was electricity, and it was all around her, glowing filaments like a massive complex of webs that went on forever. Somehow, instinctively, she knew that she could take this power, that she could divert it, draw it in for her own use. And that this time, she wouldn't inadvertently kill anyone by using it.

"Shall I go then?" she said again, trying to project a confidence in her voice that she didn't entirely feel.

Instead of replying, the Secretary grimaced, then snapped the blinds shut.

After an interval, the lock to her door suddenly turned with a mechanical click. The door swung open and Lincoln Lee appeared in the hall outside. He had found time to shower, to shave, in the interim, and now wore gray military fatigues and a black bomber jacket.

"Liv!" Lincoln rushed to her side, concern painted across his face. "Are you okay? Damn, I thought they might not believe who we said we were at first, but I thought they'd at least give us a chance to try. They weren't even sure about me until a couple of hours ago. I didn't know they had you like this. Let me get you out of here." He knelt down in front of her, a key ring jangling in his hand.

Olivia remained silent as he went about unshackling her, first her right hand, then her left. As he went about it, she noticed a distinctive insignia on the shoulder of his jacket. A patch, with a pair of letter F's, mirrored in red, over black background. Running in a circle around the outside edge of the fabric were the words  _Fringe Division_ , and  _Department of Defense_. When her hands were free she flexed and rotated her wrists, wincing at the band of pain that flared around each. Was that what all the arguing had been about? What had been the alternative to freeing her? The Secretary's harshness and outright animosity toward her had thrown her off guard. What had this other Olivia Dunham done?

"The Secretary is willing to talk to you," Lincoln continued, bending down to work on her ankles. "To be completely honest, it was Peter that convinced him. He said that if you were really the other you, you would have already escaped, and we would already be dead. Personally, I think Bishop's just got a soft spot for Olivia Dunham — any Olivia Dunham.

"I heard that, Lincoln," a disconcerting and familiar voice said from the hall outside.

Lincoln grinned up at her, his gray eyes flashing with humor. "I think she missed me. What do you think?" He unclasped the last shackle, then tossed it aside. "C'mon," he said, helping her to her feet. "There's someone you should meet. Two someones, actually."

She followed him out into a corridor lined with cells with similarly shuttered viewing windows. A cell block? Beneath the Statue of Liberty?  _Someone sure has a thing for irony_ , she thought, eyeing a pair of armed guards stationed either end of the hall, each bearing sleek assault rifles of strange design. Slouched with one foot against the wall beside her cell door was a woman her own height with striking red hair hanging loose about her shoulders. The woman wore a jacket similar to Lincoln's and had one arm in a sling.

"So you're her, huh?" the woman said, glancing up from a thin screen of some kind she held gingerly with her wounded arm. As their eyes met, the other woman's full lips quirked into a smile. "The other one. Well. I guess there's no need for an introduction. This is... surreal, isn't it? Umm..., I guess should say it's nice to meet you? I mean me... I mean, how does this work, exactly? I've never met myself before. At least one that wasn't trying to kill me and my friends."

Olivia blinked, aware of her mouth slowly gaping open but helpless to stop it. She was looking at herself.

The woman was  _her_.

Barring the red hair, the woman standing before her was a perfect copy of herself. A spitting image, as if she were looking at herself in a mirror. They were the same height, had the same frame, the same figure. Unable to stop herself, Olivia leaned closer, examining her alternate's face. They were the same, the same nose, the same eyes, the same lips. The same, right down to an acne scar she'd always done her best to cover up on her left temple. Surreal, the woman with her face had said.  _This is so far beyond surreal that someone needs to invent a completely new word for it._

"What... what happened to your arm?" she said, saying the first thing that popped into her head.

Her red-haired self glanced at the sling holding her left arm. "This? You broke it," she said with a shrug. "Or, I suppose I should say the  _other_  you broke it."

"I... I'm sorry," Olivia said before she could stop herself. "I mean, I guess..."

"What the hell are you sorry for?" her alternate said, arching an eyebrow and sporting an amused grin. "It wasn't you that did it. I knew that from the first glimpse I had of you." She shook her head, flinging her red hair about as she darted an annoyed glance down the hall. "She and you are not the same, not at all, and that's not counting her hair. But hey, what do I know? I'm only her... and you."

 _But we aren't the same, either, are we?_  she couldn't help thinking. Her alternate exuded a kind of easy and flamboyant confidence she had only ever dreamt of having. When had she ever smiled so freely, so openly, and to someone she had just met? When had she ever even smiled like that, to anyone?  _I'm not sure my lips can even make that smile_. The realization made her feel smaller somehow, in a way she hadn't felt since she was a girl, seeing all the other girls sprouting ahead of her. She'd been a late bloomer, and already an outsider.

"What happened to your head?" her alternate said, eyeing the scar on Olivia's forehead.

Olivia touched the scar above her right eye out of habit. "A mad scientist tried to cut out my brain so he could study it," she replied, running her fingertips over the slight L-shaped nub.

The other woman pursed her lips. "Huh. So I guess they have those on your world, too." Her face grew serious then, and in doing so, transformed so completely into the face she had seen in the mirror every day of her adult life that it was a struggle not to gasp. "Thank you," her counterpart said, reaching out with her good arm. "Truly. For bringing Lincoln home to us." Her voice grew taut, tinged with remembered pain. "I... we thought he was gone — that we'd never see him again. Thank you so much."

Olivia glanced at Lincoln, who had remained silent throughout the exchange. His face was wooden, though not so completely that she couldn't read hints of the inner self-torture churning behind his eyes. The other Olivia seemed oblivious, either that, or chose not to see it.  _How sad_ , she thought.  _How sad and depressing_. "You're welcome," she said, taking the other woman's hand. "It was the least I could do. He was a good friend to my sister back home." Her counterpart's eye widened, and she threw a startled look Lincoln's way. "I'm sure he'll be more than happy to tell you all about it, won't you, Lincoln?"

Lincoln coughed, his face turning red. "We should get her to debriefing," he suggested, glancing between them. "You can fawn over her later, Liv."

"Fawn? I was not fawning over her, Linc," the redhead said with a sullen glare that may or may not have been real. "I was thanking her for saving your sorry ass. And by the way, now that you're back, you still owe me fifty dollars, plus interest."

"Interest?" Lincoln scoffed, leading them down the hall toward an elevator door. "Good luck getting that out of me, especially with that arm."

Olivia bit her lip as her counterpart delivered a sneaky elbow into Lincoln's ribs hard enough to elicit a painful grunt. She watched as Lincoln rubbed his side. The two of them were friends, obviously, and close ones. They were partners? Where had Charlie Francis fit into the equation on this world? Where did Peter Bishop?  _She has a baby. She has_ his  _baby_. Were they married? No, Lincoln had said they were on again off again, rocky relationship. And that Rachel was dead on this side, but their mother was alive. Was that the difference between them? The only difference? Or just a few of many that had produced the woman standing before her? She wished she had the time to get to know her, to find out about their baby, to pick her brain on all the differences in their lives.

But she didn't have time. She had a mission, and it was about time she got on with it. "Where exactly are you taking me?" she said as they came to a stop in front of a bank of elevators.

"Up to debriefing," her other self replied cryptically as she pressed a code into a keypad.

The doors opened silently and Olivia followed them inside. Her stomach dropped as the elevator car began its ascent, squeaking and shaking occasionally. She noticed Lincoln frowning and glancing around the car's interior, and decided the violence of its travel wasn't the norm, or at least, it hadn't been before he'd left. Her counterpart appeared not to notice, and merely stood in front of the doors, eyes forward.

When the door slid open again, she found herself staring into some kind of multi-tiered command center, full of rows occupied desks and workstations. One wall was an entire television screen, cordoned off into boxes with different views of the city outside. Oddly, the streets of New York seemed strangely uncrowded. Tall windows in a raised office overlooked the entire operation. Set in the tiled floor in the center of the space was a broad insignia, twin to that on Lincoln's and her counterpart's jackets. The atmosphere was quiet, intent. Men and women were busy doing their jobs. She approved.

"I thought you said your Fringe Division was headquartered in Manhattan," she commented to Lincoln as they made their way toward a corridor opposite the elevator.

Lincoln nodded with a frown. "It was. Apparently they've relocated."

"Vortex opened up in HQ itself six months ago," her alternate said, glancing back with a dour expression. "It's now under quarantine. We lost some good people that day, including Agent Farnsworth and Colonel Broyles."

"Astrid? And the Colonel?" Lincoln's face fell. "Damn... And Charlie, too. I guess it's just you and me now, Red."

"And Peter," the other reminded him, giving him a sideways glance. "He's been promoted since you disappeared. A lot of agents have. They've had to, even the inexperienced ones. Casualties have never been higher, and anomalies are popping up more often than ever before. It'll be good to have you out in the field again. I... we've really missed you. We're losing this war."

Before they left the command center behind, Olivia took another glance at the video wall, at the oddly uncrowded streets of New York City. Casualties? Was she seeing the effects of a population reduction? All due to the strange phenomenon affecting the laws of chance in this world? Could it be so bad? It looked normal, uneventful. But then she looked again, at the agents themselves, at their stations, and it hit her: nearly every one of them bore signs of injury, if not outright maiming. Arms in slings, leg casts, eye patches similar to the Secretary's. They were all injured in some fashion. Now that she was aware of it, she kept expecting something to happen, but nothing did.

Instead they exited the command center, entering a corridor lined with doors leading into what she could only classify as interrogation rooms. Her counterpart stopped in front of one of them and motioned Olivia inside.

"Take a seat," the redhead said. "The...  _Director_ ," she said, rolling her eyes, "should be here in a few minutes. We'll talk again soon, hopefully."

"I'll be right outside, Liv," Lincoln said. "It'll be all right."

Olivia nodded.  _So you say_ , she thought stepping through the door.  _So you both say_.

The room was empty, other than a pair of chairs on either side of a small table in the center. She sat down and stared up at a mirrored window on one wall. Its purpose was obvious. Who was behind it? The Secretary? Who was this Director? One of his stooges, presumably. She didn't trust him, or any of them for that matter, not even her other self. Not even Lincoln, now that he was home, which made her sad. His loyalty was with his people, with his world, and she couldn't fault him for that. Peter's parting words echoed inside her head. . _..remember, it's not your world, Liv, and though they might look like us, they're not us..._

He was right. Whatever they seemed, she couldn't afford to pretend they were friends and allies.

Taking a calming breath, she concentrated, stretching out with her mind, letting the information written across the veil seep into her brain.  _Yes. Right there_. There was someone on the other side of the glass. Several someones. They were watching her. She let herself feel their heartbeats. One of them seemed slightly out of sync, as if there was a stutter in the steady rhythms. Leaning forward on her elbows, she ground her teeth and tried to stave off a rising impatience. But the wait, as it turned out, wasn't a long one. Not more than a few passed before the door opened, and a dark-haired man stepped into the room.

It was Peter Bishop.

#

He stopped just inside the doorway, closing the door behind him quietly. For a moment, he just stood there, his face unreadable.

Olivia met his gaze. Without realizing she had done so, she found herself sitting up straighter, heart beat accelerating. A hot flush crept up her chest, and out of the blue an image of herself, astride him, head thrown back, blasted through her mind. Phantom hands were kneading her breasts as he drove into her, pleasure coursing through them both.  _It's not him_ , she thought in a panic, driving the memories away. Her face was burning now, cheeks no doubt flaming red.  _Keep your head, Olivia. It's not him. It's not_ your  _Peter_. Yet a part of her brain insisted it was him. His beautiful eyes were the same, his lips were the same, his hair, his scruff, the way his jaw flexed when he was pondering a problem, his long hands, the wisps of hair curling on the back of his palms. It was him, it was Peter. She was carrying his baby. Unlike her alternate and Lincoln, he wore no uniform, only a pair of jeans and a dark green sweater with a plaid collared shirt underneath.

His brow furrowed, and then he stepped forward, pulling the chair opposite her back. She noted distantly that he had a limp. "Well, I would introduce myself," he said, sitting down carefully with a grimace of pain. "I could tell you that I'm Peter Bishop, current director of Fringe Division, and you could tell me that you're Olivia Dunham, but I guess there's no need, is there?"

Working the moisture back into her mouth, she swallowed. "Yes. We've... met."

He waited for her to say more and when she didn't, he darted a glance over at the mirrored window. "I'm sorry about the mix-up before," he said, "but after what happened, we can't be too careful. Your... double, has become a bit of a problem."

"What did happen?" she asked. "And how did you know we were here so quickly?"

"The other you, she attacked up here a few months ago," he said, glancing into the mirror again. "She killed dozens of people trying to get in here. The only thing that stopped her was sheer numbers. Since then we've installed sensors all around this island that can detect even the slightest change in molecular cohesion. When you and Lincoln arrived, alarms went off. That's how we knew."

"Why did she attack?" Olivia said.

Peter Bishop studied her face, blue eyes drifting upward to her scar. After a moment, he spoke, ignoring her last question. "How did you cross over without the aid of a device?"

"Lincoln didn't tell you?" she said, lifting her eyebrows. They must have questioned him about her in his own debriefing. To do otherwise was unthinkable, and he no doubt had told them everything he had seen and heard. Why wouldn't he?

"The Secretary, my father, would rather hear it from you. As a sign of... good faith, let's call it."

"Is that him behind the glass?" she said, inclining her head. Whoever it was, they were still there, like weight pressing down on the back of her mind. "Why doesn't he ask me himself?"

Peter Bishop shrugged. His lips crooked into a familiar smirk. "Given how you reacted to my handsome mug down in your cell, he thinks you'll be more cooperative if the questions come from a... familiar face."

"Your handsome mug?" she snorted, rolling her eyes. "You think pretty highly of yourself, don't you, Peter Bishop?"

"Well, a man's gotta try," he said, sporting a wide grin. "Especially for a pretty woman."

Olivia found herself grinning back at his familiar smile out of pure reflex, in spite of him being a potential enemy. He was Peter, and she discovered that it went both ways — that she did indeed have a soft spot for him, also. Something else occurred to her then, a slight discrepancy in this man's story, as told by Lincoln Lee. A discrepancy that might afford her some leverage, possibly.

"I'll tell you how I crossed over," she said. "But first you have to tell me something."

Peter's eyes narrowed. "Why should I tell you anything?"

"Because I can leave anytime I want," she said in an offhand voice, and prayed he wouldn't try to call her bluff. "Crossing back over is as easy as breathing."

He leaned back in his seat, eyes narrowed. Crossing his arms, he studied her face. It was a look she had seen before, in another lifetime and on the other side of another world. "Fine," he said. "One question. Tit for tat."

"Lincoln told me about you," she began. "About your story, about what happened to you when you were a boy. With your mother, and the man who entered your house. And he told me about how you survived a disease that should have killed you. He called it a miracle."

Peter Bishop's face turned a shade darker. "Is there a question in there? 'Cause I didn't hear it."

She leaned toward him over the table, motioning him closer with a crook of her finger. Frowning, he glanced in the mirror before meeting her halfway. She motioned him closer still, until their faces were close enough to touch. He smelled like old leather and whiskey, his proximity triggered some kind of pheromonal reaction that sent her blood racing. She could only imagine what the man on the other side of the glass was thinking, or her counterpart, for that matter, but couldn't let herself care.

"Does your father know?" she murmured in his ear. "About what the man who visited you that night did? Does he know that he cured you?" The man who looked like her Peter but wasn't flinched, giving her the confirmation she'd been looking for. He drew in a sharp gasp, eyes widening in terrible surprise. "He doesn't know, does he?" she asked, lips barely moving. "He doesn't know that his double cured you the night your mother fell down the steps."

Peter Bishop drew in a ragged breath. "How the hell could you know that?" he asked, his voice a hoarse whisper. He put his hand over hers, pressing down, keeping her from pulling away. He was trembling. She could feel each iteration through the palm of his hand. "How do you know that?" Something thudded against the mirrored glass, quivering it in its frame. Several moments later the door flew open, and her alternate stood there, eyes furious and with her hand on her service weapon. Peter shook his head at the window and at the open door without looking away from her, motioning them away. "Tell me, please," he pleaded.

Olivia opened her mouth, and then hesitated. Something else occurred to her then, witnessing the desperation in this version of Peter Bishop's eyes: it was all a mistake. Their entire inter-universal war, one giant, horrible, misunderstanding.  _How many millions of lives have been lost? How many billions?_  Perhaps the truth could make a difference. Perhaps it might even save lives.

"On my world," she said, raising her voice, letting whoever was listening hear her clearly. "Something similar happened. Walter Bishop had a son with an incurable disease. Somehow, he made a window into another world, where he saw to his surprise another version of himself, who also had a son with an incurable disease. They were working in unison, he realized, each trying to save their dying sons. Only the Walter from my world was too late. His son died. But shortly after, he saw the other Walter discover the cure. Only this other man, this other version of himself, he was distracted, you see, and didn't realize what he'd done, so he moved on with his research. But my Walter saw it. So he made the cure, and then found a way to cross over, unwilling to let another version of his son die, no matter the cost."

Peter fell back in his chair, eyes watery with tears. The pain written across his face hurt her physically, somehow. It was not her Peter, but at the same time it was. He was the man Peter was supposed to have been, but wasn't, after Walter's intervention.

"I've never told anyone what happened that night," he said in a voice barely audible. "Not the whole truth."

There was a choked off gasp from the doorway. The Secretary stood out in the hall, fingers gripping the door frame, his face aghast. Behind him, her red-haired self was staring in at Peter Bishop, eyes filled with sadness. The sight made Olivia glad. This Peter Bishop had friends and family who loved him. He wasn't alone. He would survive this, and perhaps come out the other side a better man. But that was neither here nor there. It wasn't why she'd come.

"Is it true, son?" the Secretary said. He sounded broken, a man with his entire world ripped out from under him. "Is it true what this woman said? The other me... did he... did he  _cure_  you?"

The man who looked like her Peter but wasn't nodded slowly, eyes locked on the floor beneath his feet. "He gave me something, told me to swallow it, that it was medicine, that it would make me feel better. I remember it tasted terrible, like one of those flavored breakfast drinks you were always experimenting with back then. You remember? You used to make me try them all the time. God, I hated those fucking things." His father nodded, one hand covering his mouth. "Anyway, after I drank it... he left. Or tried to leave. But Mom... Mom... she stopped him. They were out in the hall. They were arguing. He kept telling her that he had to go, that she had to let him leave. But Mom, she... she..."

He broke off, drawing in a hoarse breath, eyes filled with misery. Olivia's soul clenched at the sight, at the terrible sadness in his voice. She could only imagine the suffering he'd endured, almost his entire life. Was it guilt? For his mother's death? How was it possible that her Peter carried that same guilt, that same burden?  _We are all reflections of ourselves..._  that was what Walter had said once. It was terrible and true, she decided.

"I didn't really put it all together until later," he continued after a moment. "Until I was better. But that was months later. After the story was already out. After..." He fell silent, staring up at his father.

"After we were already at war," the Secretary finished. Tears wet his lined face, and in that moment, he was indistinguishable from Olivia's Walter, minus the eye patch. "My son... I'm so terribly sorry." He almost stumbled into the room, crossing over to his son's chair. "You tried to tell me, that night. But I wouldn't hear it." Peter looked up, weeping openly. "You said that he wasn't there to hurt you... I'd thought you were delirious. After all... Elizabeth was... she was... dear God, what have I done?" he whispered, covering his mouth.

Olivia remained silent as the father and son relived what must have been the most heart-wrenching moment of their lives. She hadn't expected such a reaction. She'd been hoping for an edge of some kind, for them to see her in a different light, a neutral observer, perhaps, instead of an enemy — or someone to conduct experiments on.

After a few moments, the Secretary turned to her, his wrinkled face harsh in the interrogation room's harsh lighting. He had regained control of his emotions, and if anything, appeared more imperious than ever. "What is it you want?" he said, voice grating. "Other than to bring more sadness and misery into our lives?"

She met the man's single-eyed glare. "I want to save my world," she said simply. "The same as you do. The Walter Bishop I know believes that what's afflicting us originates from the outside. From another reality, like yours, or even the one you're at war with. He believes it may be a byproduct of someone's weapon, of someone else's war."

"I assure you, my dear, that whatever is afflicting your reality, it has nothing to do with us here. The only... weapons, if they can even be called that, that we've employed break none of the known physical laws. You told my son you would tell him how you crossed over from your universe without the aid of technology. Will you keep your word?"

"I always keep my word," she said. "But how can I trust yours? You claim you have no weapons that could affect us, but how can I be sure of that? Your technology is beyond ours, from what Lincoln has told me. On my world, there are shape-shifters, shape-changers from another reality that pose as human beings. Do you have them here, too?"

The Secretary's lips thinned as he appeared to mull over her question. "We've developed... prototypes of such technology," he said finally. "But they have never been deployed or even field tested. Nor will they, more than likely. That project was canceled long ago. We encountered significant problems generating an artificial consciousness that wasn't utterly insane, and I suspect it would have any grown worse given our current state of affairs." He paced a few steps, then turned back to her. "Tell me how it is you crossed over, and I will show you something. Something that may... alter, your perception of me. Of us."

Olivia considered the offer. It was about as good a deal as she was likely to get. She didn't particularly like giving this man intel on cortexiphan, but as she knew next to nothing about its chemical makeup, there wasn't a whole lot she could give away other than generalities. _Let him chew on those, if he will. And good luck doing anything useful with it._

"Fine. When I was a young girl, I was given a drug called cortexiphan that allowed me to access latent... abilities. Abilities that each of us are born with, but atrophy as we mature and grow older, until they disappear entirely. Apparently, the drug prevented the atrophy from occurring. Sometimes, if I concentrate a certain way, I can... feel the boundary between universes, or the texture of reality as I've come to think of it. Sometimes, I can pass through it."

"And who gave you this drug? This cortexiphan?"

"It was created by William Bell, with the help of Walter Bishop."

The Secretary's eyes narrowed. "But I've never heard of William Bell."

Olivia shrugged.  _Not my problem, sir_. "I don't know. He existed on my world. He was one of Walter's closest friends, and his lab partner when they were younger. Maybe he died, or wasn't even born here. I have no idea."

"I see...," the Secretary said shortly, moving around behind Peter's chair before turning back to her. His eyes glittered, sending trickles of unease down Olivia's spine. "...And would you happen to know the formula for this drug? Do you have samples? Captain Lee reported that my... counterpart, made several doses, which he administered to you just prior to your arrival here. Without the chemical makeup, you've given us nothing."

She darted a glance at Lincoln in the hall outside. He had told them everything, hadn't he? Before she could come up with a reply, however, Peter Bishop, who had remained distantly silent throughout the exchange, stirred, sitting up straight in his chair. Their eyes met for an instant, before he looked away, shifting his gaze to his father.

"Enough," he said in a flat voice, and then rose from his chair. His eyes were clear, his face as expressive as a block of wood, walls carefully erected back in place. "She's answered your questions, father. She held up her end of the deal. Now it's your turn. Show her."

Olivia glimpsed a look of annoyance cross the Secretary's face for an instant, before being replaced by an obsequious smile. "Very well, son," he said with a careless shrug. "A deal is a deal, after all, is it not? What I have to show you is in my office. Please follow me," he added, motioning for her to rise.

Olivia did so, watching him carefully. She was surer than ever that her initial impression of the man was accurate. Something was off about him, something in his single eye and voice and mannerisms that sent years of well-honed alarm bells ringing. A kind of coldness? The carelessness of his regard? He was not to be trusted. She glanced at Peter Bishop, and found him staring at her openly, as if he were trying to pierce the depths of her soul. His intent gaze was both familiar and disconcerting. She could feel wires crossing in her brain, the parts of herself that kept seeing her Peter in the other man's face, and the other half doing its best to keep them separate fumbling in a battle of wills.

She followed them out into the hall, past an anxious-looking Lincoln Lee and her red-haired alternate, who looked decidedly less friendly than she had prior. The woman's hand remained on her service weapon, and she appeared ready to use it at the slightest provocation.  _So much for exchanging histories_ , she thought sadly, trailing Peter past the other woman.  _But, I suppose there was never any chance we were going to end up best friends_.

#

The Secretary's office was huge, easily large enough to contain the entirety of the FBI's war room at the Federal Building, Broyles's office included.

And yet it was mostly barren, she noticed as they stepped past an armed guard stationed just inside the doorway. Below the tall, vaulted ceiling was mostly empty space, open floor. Other than a wide desk sitting alone before a vast window that faced north, offering a view of the Manhattan skyline, there was very little in the way of furniture. Several chairs for visitors sat against the wall by the entrance, and a low counter ran along another wall beneath a massive map of the United States. She glanced up at the map and felt a dull shock.

 _What the hell?_  The map was wrong. That was the only way to describe it.  _Manhatan_? California was wrong, missing huge swathes of its coastline. Oklahoma was wrong, the Dakotas, the Carolinas. All wrong, all the wrong shape or merged together. Why were they different? Why had history proceeded down a different path here? And in such drastic fashion? She wondered how there could be doubles of people when so much else wasn't the same. Why doesn't this Walter know William Bell? Maybe it was the small differences, all compounding, adding up to create a larger.

She shook her head, clearing her head as she followed Peter and the Secretary across the office.  _It doesn't matter. It's not why I'm here_. The reason she was there, apparently, was sitting in front of the broad window. She'd missed it on her first glance about the room, hidden behind the desk as it was.

The Secretary met her gaze over his shoulder. "I designed and built this device years ago," he said, moving around his desk, "after it became clear that the man who... who murdered, my wife was myself, only from a parallel universe."

The device in question was mounted atop a tripod, and looked like nothing so much as a metal window frame filled with slightly tinted glass. One edge of the frame had several plain control knobs, and a power cord trailed from the bottom to a nearby wall outlet.

Olivia studied the contraption. This was what he'd wanted her to see? She felt slightly underwhelmed. "What does it do?" she asked squinting through the glass at the New York skyline beyond.

"In layman's terms," Peter Bishop answered, "it captures stray particles of light from the universe next door by stretching the membrane between them — what you called the texture of reality, I guess — thinning it enough to allow us to see through to the other side."

 _Of course_ , she thought, nodding her head.  _Walter's viewing window_. It only made sense that another version of himself could and would figure how to do the same thing he had done. She wondered if it was inevitable, if there were certain events that must happen, or if it was all random, pure chance, utter chaos. "So... I'll be able to see another universe through this thing?" she said, trying to sound suitably impressed as she glanced between father and son. Off to one side, Lincoln and her alternate looked on with interest.

"Correct," the Secretary said with a precise nod. "I suspect that your...  _Walter_ , as you referred to him, more than likely designed something similar." He gestured to Peter. "Son, if you would be so kind."

Peter stepped up to the viewing window, flipping a switch she hadn't noticed on the edge of the metal frame. Olivia detected a faint hum as he did so, and then the glass screen flickered to life. Wavy lines appeared, awash in a field of whitish-blue static. The flickering continued as he adjusted the knobs, turning each of them simultaneously until an image began to appear inside the haze. The waves of static diminished, slowly resolving into the familiar Manhattan skyline.

For a heartbeat, she thought it was the same view as the one outside the window. And then she thought it was her own universe, with the lack of World Trade Center Towers One and Two, but then a stark difference jumped out at her, nestled back among the forest of skyscrapers. The monolithic Massive Dynamic building was visible in the distance — only there were now two of them. The addition was slightly shorter than the original, and the two buildings were connected by a sky-bridge near the top floor of the shorter structure.

But it wasn't the additional building or the sky-bridge that had initially snatched her attention. It was something else entirely, and without question was what the Secretary had wanted her to see.

Suspended above the taller, what she thought of as the original Massive Dynamic building, was what could only be described as a hurricane, or an impossibly huge tornado. Swirls of striated clouds extended across the sky, rotating with preternatural speed. Lightning danced in sparkling flashes between the cloud layers in the deepening dusk. The top of the tower was shrouded the massive funnel spout, and eerie, yellow-gold strobes of light blinked rapidly through the fog in rhythmic pulses.

"What the hell is that?" she asked, unable to take her eyes from it. Whatever it was, it was clearly unnatural, and slightly terrifying to look upon. "Some kind of storm?"

"We're not precisely sure what it is," the Secretary said, glaring through the window beside her. If his eyes had been any harder, she thought the screen might shatter under their pressure. "Nor do we have any idea what it's doing. But I built this window nearly twenty-three years ago, and in all those years, not a single day has passed that I haven't looked through this window at least once, the last seven of which have been from this very spot. Just over seventeen months ago, I first became aware of the light pulsing at the top of the taller tower. There was no atmospheric formation circling above it back then. Nor was the light flickering as it is now. It was a single pulse, or, each iteration was far enough apart that I missed any others. You are aware of what's happening to  _my_  world, are you not, Miss Dunham?" he asked softly. "The vortexes? The blight? The atmospheric anomalies? The breakdown of our reality?"

"Lincoln mentioned all that," Olivia said, enraptured by the churning chaos circling inside the window. It was as if the very sky itself was being warped and twisted by whatever was happening at the top of the tower. The sight was mesmerizing, almost hypnotic in some way she couldn't quite quantify. "We don't have anything like that on my world. All we have are flesh-eating monsters who rise from the dead."

"So I have been told," he replied, doubt still lacing his tone. "In any case, after that tower began to pulse, we began noticing another type of anomaly, one never seen before."

"Yes, Lincoln mentioned that, too," she said, glancing back at him. For some reason, he and her counterpart had not followed them across the office, and were now stationed near the office's entrance, talking quietly. "The breakdown of chance."

"That is one way of putting it," the Secretary said darkly. "I believe an exponential increase in entropy is a more apt description of what is occurring."

"Huh. You said seventeen months ago," Olivia mused, shaking her head. "But the infection on my world didn't start until just over a year ago." Had it truly been that long? So much had happened in that time. If felt like a decade had passed.

Peter glanced at his father, his brow furrowing. "We didn't notice anything right away," he said crossing his arms. "It wasn't until a couple of months after my father noticed the light for the first time that shit started going downhill. We think that whatever that thing is, it had to reach some kind of critical mass before we started noticing its effects."

"And how did that come about?" she asked.

"It began harmless enough, with a number of sporting records being broken in a matter of days," the Secretary said. "We only took note of it when the casinos began taking heavy losses, before eventually entering bankruptcy. All of them. At once. Even then, we still weren't sure exactly what was happening, until the disasters struck, everywhere, the world over. Building and bridges collapsing, planes and dirigibles and spacecraft falling from the sky in droves. Personal injuries began to accumulate at a horrendous rate — men and women and children falling victim to the most innocent of accidents, myself included as you have no doubt noticed. The hospitals were and still are overwhelmed by the sheer number of injuries and deaths. And as the frequency of such occurrences have increased daily, it seems, so too has the frequency of the light pulsing in that tower."

The Secretary paused, glancing down at her with his single eye. "You claim this infection on your world began just over a year ago?"

"Yes. One day the dead just... stopped staying dead."

"Just over a year ago," he said, thrusting a finger at the rippling mass rotating above the taller tower, "twelve months and fourteen days, to be precise, that appeared in the sky. It was smaller then, but has since grown in size. Several months ago its volume doubled, and then just over three weeks ago, it doubled again, to its present size."

Olivia inhaled at a sudden and powerful electric thrill that raced up her spine, mouth gaping open. Three weeks ago. That would put it squarely within the time frame of Sonia's death, when the infection had suddenly changed.  _Three weeks_. The air in the office seemed to compress, thinning out.

 _Oh my god_ , she thought, suddenly light-headed under a wave of euphoria.  _That's it. I did it, Peter. I found it. That's what's causing the infection._

"That means something to you?" Peter Bishop said, touching her arm. "Hey, you okay?"

She managed to nod, working the moisture back into her suddenly dry mouth. "About three weeks ago, the infection changed. There was no warning. It grew stronger somehow. A woman who was with us. She was pregnant. We think the baby became infected inside of her without dying first. We lost both of them, and nearly our entire compound as a result."

Her explanation took Peter aback. His face drained of color, and he looked over at her counterpart, who was watching their exchange silently.  _He's thinking of his child. Of their child_. She glanced over at the Secretary and found him speaking softly to no one, eyes intent, one hand to his ear where one of the communicator devices they had on Lincoln's world now rested. When he noticed her watching, he broke off his conversation, giving her a smile that was all teeth.  _What's that about?_  she wondered with a swallow. His smile was far from friendly, more like a wolf's or rabid dog's.

"Then that means you found it," Peter Bishop said, his grip on her arm tightening. "This has to be what's causing the sickness on your world. It must be some kind of byproduct of what they're doing to us."

"It would appear so, son," the Secretary concurred with a nod. "And what will you do now, Olivia Dunham? Return home to your world? What aid do you need of us?"

Olivia studied his face, searching for traces of guile. "I thought you said you had nothing to offer me?"

"But that was before," he said, maintaining his smile. "We have a common enemy, do we not? What do you require?"

She looked up at Peter, meeting his gaze for a moment before glancing purposefully down at her forearm, where he still had a hold of her. He blinked, and then released her, offering a sheepish grin that reminded her so strongly of her Peter that her heart fluttered momentarily at the sight, before she reminded herself yet again that it wasn't him, that her Peter was back home, probably worried to death she hadn't reappeared yet. Yes. It would be the best for everyone involved if she was on her way, and the sooner the better.

"I need to see something from the other side," she said, nodding toward the viewing window. "Anything at all will do. Surely you have something."

"Anything?" The Secretary's eyebrows lifted, and he nodded thoughtfully. "Yes. We have several such items. I'll have one brought up at once." He touched the device on his ear and spoke. "Brandon, I need you up here," he said in his deep voice. "Bring the hat from 1985 with you." He paused, nodding. "Yes. That one...," He nodded again. "And that, also. Thank you."

"The item in question will be here shortly," he said, removing his hand from his ear. "Can I offer you anything while we wait? A refreshment? A drink of water, perhaps?"

Olivia shook her head. "No, sir. I'm fine," she replied with a smile. "Thank you, though."

The Secretary nodded, then turned away, shutting the viewing window off before sitting down behind his desk. He clasped his hands together, staring up at her. "The conditions on your world. What are they like? How badly has your civilization been damaged?"

"Civilization?" she snorted. "There is no civilization. Didn't Lincoln tell you? Our civilization consists of a few survivors here and there. There's nothing left."

"That's terrible," he said sadly. "Truly terrible. I believe I now understand your desperateness, what drove you to come here and seek our aid, despite how dangerous it must have seemed."

Olivia wasn't sure what to say to that, and merely shrugged in reply, turning to look out the window while she waited. Yes, it had seemed dangerous, and the welcome she'd received had pretty much confirmed the worst of her fears, as did the ominous aura the Secretary had emanated when he'd peered into her cell. An aura he was still exuding, she realized with a chill. If anything, it was stronger than before.

"I found your story fascinating," the Secretary said suddenly, as if he'd sensed her growing unease. "Particularly how the events on your world seemed to mirror ours in certain ways. How else could you know that my alternate had only good intentions in mind when he came to my world?"

Something in his voice made her turn around. Their eyes met and the smile he'd been sporting fell away as if it had never been. The chill she'd felt intensified, freezing her gut solid. The Secretary was furious, she saw with growing dismay. No, he was more than furious. The fingers clasped together were white-knuckled, the tendons on the backs of his hands bulging under the strain. The man was livid, barely in control of himself. And she knew something else in that moment: that she'd made a terrible mistake.

"Tell me, Olivia Dunham," he said in a rigid voice, "how was it that you recognized my son before? Indeed it seemed you knew him, and rather well judging from your... reaction, to seeing him outside your cell. I seem to recall you telling us that your Walter Bishop's son had died."

_Oh fuck..._

"What are you talking about, father?" Peter said, frowning as he glanced between them.

The Secretary went on as if his son hadn't spoken. "You said he died. Which makes your story a complete fabrication."

Olivia swallowed, her heart thudding in her chest. "It's... it's not a lie," she insisted. "Everything I told you was the truth."

"Is it? Then it was not the whole truth, was it? You left out a rather large portion, yes?"

She read the fury blazing in his single eye. He knew. About Peter, about how Walter had taken him. Somehow, he had figured it all out, unwinding her story and drawing the correct conclusion.  _Shit...shit...shit..._ The icy ball in the pit of her stomach turned as heavy as lead. She opened her mouth, grasping for an explanation, for a way out, but there wasn't one, and her sudden silence only confirmed it. The corner she had boxed herself into was nice and tight. Either she was lying, or the Peter she knew so well wasn't from her world.

As she struggled to come up with a response, any response, a man appeared in the office doorway. Olivia gasped. It was Brandon Fayette. Only instead of lab coat, he wore a sharp gray suit and his hair was cut short, parted down the side, unlike the Brandon from her world, who had been best described as a mess. Held between his hands was a bit of dark cloth, that he turned over and over, almost manically. The man sought the Secretary's eye as he entered, who nodded.

An instant later a flood of soldiers stormed into the room, boots clattering across the tiled floor, rifles pressed hard against their shoulders. They spread out in a ring, cutting off any possible chance of escape. One of them, she noticed distantly had a gun trained on Lincoln Lee, who raised his hands slowly, face bewildered. Her counterpart had drawn her weapon, but held it had her side uncertainly.

"What the hell is going on, father?" Peter Bishop growled, his face growing darker with each word.

"She is the enemy, Peter," the Secretary said, eyeing her coldly. "She works for  _him_. Or a version of  _him_. Just like the other did. Only this Walter Bishop she mentions, instead of curing you, he stole another you, and took you back to his world as his own to replace his dead son. That's how she recognized you. That's what she's been a party to. Isn't it, my dear? Her world can burn for all I care."

Instead of offering up a defense, Olivia suddenly lunged behind Peter, grabbing him tightly about his neck. He gasped as she wrenched him backward, using his larger body as a shield. Soldiers shouted, the flood of voices echoing in the spacious room. One of them was shouting to hold fire, another one to kill her.

"Everyone stay back!" she shouted, dragging him away from the desk and putting the wide window at her back. She expected Peter to resist her, but oddly he let her do as she would. Perhaps his encounter with the her from their other side still hung in his mind. In the corner of her eye, she saw her alternate's service weapon raised, and pointed directly at her head. Shifting, she pivoted until Peter Bishop was between them blocking her double from sight. "Stay back, all of you! You have ten seconds to lower your guns or I'll take him to the other side, back to my world, I swear I will. And you will  _never_ see him again, Mister Secretary," she said slowly. "That, I swear also."

"You wouldn't dare!" the Secretary said in a strangled voice. His was face nearly purple, an incandescent vision of rage. "Release him! Release my son!"

"If you think I'll just give up like that," she said with a smirk that would have made her Peter proud, "then you don't know me very well. Does he, Lincoln?" she called out. "Ten, nine, eight, seven-"

"Um... she's not bluffing, sir," Lincoln said over her countdown. "She'll do exactly as she says."

Surprised by the certainty in his voice, Olivia darted a glance Lincoln's way. Did he actually think so lowly of her? She met his gaze between the soldiers' heads, and the man had the gall to wink.  _Lincoln, don't get yourself killed on my account_ , she thought, before turning her attention back to more pressing matters. She resumed her countdown, meeting the Secretary's gaze. "Five, four, three-"

A vein was pulsing on his temple. "...Stand down!" he spat in a barely-controlled fury. "All of you. Stand down."

The soldiers reluctantly lowered their weapons, one by one. As they did so, Olivia took the opportunity to drag Peter further from the fray, putting some space between them. She stopped when her back brushed up against the bars of the window frame.

"I'm sorry, Peter," she hissed softly in his ear. "I don't want to do this, but your father's left me no choice. He's right, of course, about my Walter, about my Peter. But it's far more complicated than what he said."

"It always is," he whispered back. "Shades of gray and all that. Do you... love this other version of me?"

She nodded against him. "I do. With all my heart."

"I thought so," he sighed, relaxing against her. "I could feel it through the cell door before. Do what you have to do. I won't try to stop you."

"All right, then," she murmured under her breath, before raising her voice. "If anybody so much as blinks, we're gone. You, Brandon Fayette," she said, looking the man straight in the eyes. He jumped slightly at hearing his name called, eyes blinking rapidly.

"Uh... me?" he quavered, visibly terrified of her. Clearly, the other her had left an impression on the fellow.

"Yeah. You. Bring that over here. Carefully." She looked over at the Secretary, who looked on the verge of exploding in his own body. "Is that from the other side?"

"It is," he replied through clenched teeth.

"What is it?" she said in Peter's ear as Brandon Fayette approached, holding the object out in front of him as if it held the plague.

"It's a hat," Peter said. "The man who entered our house the night my mother died left it behind."

"Give it to Peter," she instructed Brandon Fayette. "Now. Then back away." The man scampered forward, placing what looked like a brown knit hat in Peter's hand before retreating to the Secretary's side, where he cowered like the little stooge she suspected he was. "Hold it up where I can see it, Peter."

He did so, and she reached out with her mind as she had done before, feeling at it, letting her inner eye probe at its fabric, at its  _stuff_. It was different. Different from herself and from Peter and the Secretary and from everything else in the current reality. It stood out somehow, as she herself and the tiny life growing inside her stood out, the life she could feel even now, floating in the emptiness of her womb. The difference was impossible to quantify in words. Describing it out loud would be akin to describing how the color blue looked different than purple to someone who'd been born blind. Suffice to say, the knit hat felt different in her mind, but it was a difference all its own. And now that she'd seen it and felt it, memorized its unique texture, she  _could_  find it again.

"I've got it," she said softly to Peter. "I'm going to let you go in a moment. Will your father order his men to kill me?"

"Maybe. Sometimes he can be a bit unpredictable. I won't let him."

"Why are you being so nice to me?" Olivia said. "Why do you trust me? I just threatened to abduct you to another reality infested with flesh-eating undead. I could have taken you away from your family, your loved ones. Your son."

"I trust you because despite what my father says, you're the only one that can save us. We're not enemies. We're fighting the same war." Peter hesitated, twisting his head until he could see her with one eye. "And to be honest, Olivia Dunham, I think I kind of like you."

Olivia's throat tightened and again felt a faint tugging at her heart. She wondered if Peter Bishop was a good man in every universe. "Thank you for that, Peter. I'll do my best." She hesitated, then pressed her lips against his ear. "And for what it's worth, you're very much like my Peter. I'm glad I met you."

"Ah... and see now you're trying to break my heart," he whispered. "Liv is gonna have my balls over this, you know? She can be a tad jealous when the mood arises."

"Sorry. I'm sure she'll get over it."

Peter snorted softly. "Get over it? You don't know Liv, do you?"

"Nope. I only know myself. Goodbye, Peter Bishop. Tell Lincoln I'll miss him. Sort of."

Relaxing her mind, she stretched out toward the veil. It was everywhere, even passing through her own body, and molding itself around her. She sensed that her own reality was right there also, its gossamer texture lingering in her mind's eye. At the same time, it was somehow enticing, as if the  _stuff_  that she herself was made from was eager to return.

Olivia released Peter Bishop, and then willed herself home.

#

* * *

#

She was gone.

He could tell without even turning around. Was it her body heat? Or was it her sheer strength of will, of her determination? Like a depression in the air, suddenly vanishing. The woman was exactly as Lincoln had described her in his debriefing, so utterly different than the insane version next door. That one had murdered her own family in her madness, if a report from his father's now-defunct agents on the other side was to be believed. That one was death walking, and if he never saw her again, he would count himself among the lucky — and the living. The same couldn't be said, however, for the woman that had just vanished.

"Goodbye, Olivia Dunham," Peter Bishop whispered, already missing the press of her body against his, so different than another he had known. "Maybe I'll look for you on the other side."

"Peter...," his father was saying, shaking his head. He looked highly annoyed, which always brought a smile to Peter's face. "Why must you continually try my patience? You could have at least tried to stop her. You could have done something. We needed that girl, and what was in her head."

"True. I could have," he said with a shrug. "But then I wouldn't be able to see that look on your face." He brushed past his scowling father and his loyal minion, Brandon, making his way toward the far side of the room where Lincoln and Liv — who looked ready to chew concrete — were waiting for him.

"What the hell was that, Peter?" Liv said, yanking him aside. "What, are you friends with that bitch now? You just let her get away."

"Yeah...," he agreed, studying the mother of his only child.

Liv was even more beautiful when her eyes were fierce, flashing green lightning — as they were at that moment — and when she was filled with passion, with her inner fire. She always had been. This new Olivia had been beautiful, too, albeit in a completely different way — despite looking nearly identical. She was harder somehow. More intense? Determined? And she'd been haunted also. There'd been a burden on her shoulders, one which his Liv had never carried. He suspected enticing a laugh out of her would become the highlight of his day. Of any day. In another world. He shook his head, trying to clear the effect she'd had on him from his mind. She had entered his life out of nowhere, and had left it just as quickly. Perhaps it was for the best. This other version of himself was an extremely lucky man, superpowers not withstanding. He would never forget her, of that, he was certain. For a brief moment he felt bad about on his course, but then again, someone had to save their asses. And there had been no stopping her in any case.

"Yeah, I guess I did."

#

* * *

#

Peter leaned forward on his bench, raking his hair back out of his eyes. He stared down at the space between his boots, at a peculiar arrangement of cracks in the weathered bricks surrounding the flagpole. The cracks looked like hieroglyphics from some forgotten language, all harsh strokes and rigid, intersecting angles. He lifted his gaze, glancing over at the man trapped in his own personal misery. Broyles was standing beneath the distant cherry tree — the one his ex-wife had favored — out on the perimeter of the plaza. A lone bench sat beneath its branches, staring out to sea. The man had been standing there for what seemed like hours, unmoving.

His gaze drifted higher, to the horizon, and then higher still, where the waning yellows and reds of dusk had just given way to the oncoming night. A planet glowed brightly in the deepening gloom; Jupiter, he thought it might be. Or perhaps Saturn. One of them was visible at this time of day, though he'd forgotten which.

Suddenly, something snapped inside him and he surged to his feet. The need to move, to stay in motion all at once paramount, and growing more so with every passing hour. How many treks had he made about the flagpole already? Twenty-seven? Twenty-eight? And that was only after he had started counting. Olivia had liked to count things — which he supposed was why he had started. She did it without thought, he suspected, without even being aware of it, out of pure habit, or like someone with a nervous tick. Only, her incessant counting was useful. Sometimes. Other times it was neither helpful nor unhelpful; it was just her being herself, whether she was listening to his heartbeat or counting the one hundred strokes when brushing out her hair before lying down for the night.

Hours had passed since she'd disappeared in front of his eyes. Hours in which she should have returned. He had passed through several stages of his personal panic cycle; an accelerated heartbeat, followed by an intense bout of nausea, and was currently setting into the cold sweat stage combined with a need to do something. Anything, to relieve the pressure.

He slowly circled the flagpole, eyes locked on the diagonally-laid pavers beneath his feet. The ill feeling in his stomach lingered, threatening to grow more insistent. The running count ticked up a notch to twenty-nine. As he began another record-breaking circuit, a shrill scream suddenly echoed behind him.

Spinning around, he gaped at the sight of Olivia dropping through the air from a height that was over his head, her ponytail streaming above her. She landed in a heap, crumbling onto her side in front of the steps leading up to the Liberty Island visitor's center, and lay still.

"Olivia!" The scream scalded Peter's throat raw. Before he was even aware of moving, he'd crossed half the distance to the short flight of steps, legs pounding, boots thudding across the burnt-orange pavers. Fear cinched a noose around his heart, the knot pulling tighter with every step. "Olivia!"

She rolled onto her back as he drew near, then set up with a groan. Reaching down, she grabbed her right knee, face twisting with pain. "Ahh... fuck, that hurts," she said as he threw himself down beside her.

"Are you okay?" he said, suddenly lightheaded caused by a massive dose of relief flooding his being. "Where the hell have you been? I thought you'd be back hours ago."

Releasing her knee, she stared up at him without speaking for a moment. Then, to his surprise, she reached out, touching his face. "I love you, Peter," she said softly. Her eyes brimmed with some emotion he couldn't quite recognize. "You know that, don't you?"

"Of course, I do," he replied, leaning into her touch. "And I love you, too." He took her hand, squeezing it gently. "What happened over there? What's going on? Why were you gone so long?"

"I... I met you... another you," she said, eyes going distant. "And another me..."

Peter frowned. This was what was bothering her? They already knew they had doubles on the other side. It hardly seemed like a reason for declarations of love, even if he enjoyed hearing them. "I see. What? Was the guy a prick or something?"

A small smile flickered across her lips. "No. Quite the opposite, actually. Mostly, he reminded me of you. But, Peter, he helped me, even though he didn't know me, even though the other me... the one that is a killer, she had already attacked them, and killed dozens of their people."

He let out a low whistle. "Dozens? Sounds like a messy situation," he said. "But if I... he, helped you, he sounds like a good guy. So what's the problem."

Olivia hesitated, wetting her lips with the tip of her tongue. "I... also met your father," she said in a voice carefully neutral. "Or, at least, a version of him."

Her voice told the story, and he heard it loud and clear: the man who was the equivalent of his real father was an asshole. Peter grunted. "That bad, huh?"

"Yeah...," she said with a snort. "I'm pretty sure he wanted me dead. Or if not, the next thing to it."

"Dead...? Fuck..." He sat back on his haunches, shaking his head. A gust of scorching wind blew his hair forward, and he tried unsuccessfully to keep it out of his eyes. "You must have made a hell of a first impression, Liv," he said, grinning as he met her gaze. "So much for taking you home with me someday."

She smiled then, showing all her teeth. "Well, I do try, Peter."

He laughed at the dead seriousness of her tone, pulling her against his chest. She hooked her arms around him and he pressed his face into her hair, before dropping a kiss onto her forehead. He studied her green eyes as she stared up at him. There was certainly a hell of a lot she hadn't told him yet — especially regarding his double, who had clearly affected her in some manner she was reluctant to speak of.  _Should I be jealous? Or just grateful the guy helped her?_  If the man was anything like himself, they no doubt had the same taste in women, and more than likely, the fellow had done little to hide that fact. He thought about asking her to elaborate, but then he  _would_ be acting jealous. Perhaps he was better of not knowing the details, before imagined jealousy became actually factual. As for the man Lincoln had called the Secretary, if he was indeed as awful as she'd made him sound, perhaps he was better off with matters as they stood.

The off-cadence patter of footsteps announced the arrival of Broyles. He was hobbling across the plaza, face dripping rivulets of sweat when he finally lurched to a stop before them.

"Help me up, Peter," Olivia said, reaching for his hand.

He pulled her up slowly, not liking her grimace of pain when she put weight on her right knee. "How bad is it?" he asked. "Can you walk?"

She tested her leg out, walking a few steps with a slight limp before turning back. "It's not too bad," she reported with a wince. "I can manage. I think it's my pride, mostly. Remind me not to cross over from another universe when I'm above ground level, and there's no building on the other side."

"So I assume the cortexiphan worked then?" Broyles said. "And Lincoln made it home okay?"

"Oh, it worked, all right," Olivia said with a grunt. "Crossing over was the easy part. And Lincoln's fine."

"Did you speak to Walter's double? This Secretary? Did you learn anything useful?"

"I did," she replied, then paused, wiping a hand across her mouth. "In fact, I think I may have found it. He showed me — the Secretary. I have to get to the Massive Dynamic building."

Peter started. "Massive Dynamic...?" he said, and was about to ask her if she'd lost her mind over there, but then something in her eyes stopped his tongue, and took his breath away. "Wait. You don't mean you found  _it_... do you?"

Olivia nodded, holding his gaze. "I saw it, Peter. It was right there." She pointed northward, toward Manhattan. "Right there in the sky."

"Would one of you two mind elaborating?" Broyles said, sounding annoyed as he glanced between them.

"I found the source of the infection, Phillip," Olivia said. "I'm sure of it. I know where it's coming from, what's causing it. And who's causing it."

Broyles eyebrows threatened to climb up his forehead. "You mean it's over there? In Lincoln's world?"

She shook her head, eyeing the horizon. "No. It's not over there. I saw it through a window, like the one Walter must have made when he was trying to cure Peter. The Secretary had one of them too. He showed me the other side. Their other side."

Peter gasped. Prickles and tingles raced up and down his spine. "It's Walter, isn't it?" he said, pushing his hair back with both hands. "Not our Walter, but another version of him. His double. It is, isn't it?"

"What exactly did you see, Dunham?" Broyles said, holding up his hand. "Let's not get ahead of ourselves. You got any proof?"

"I saw Massive Dynamic. Only instead of one building, there were two. There was some kind of... energy pulsing out of one of them. The sky above it was twisted, some kind of atmospheric anomaly. Or warped, maybe. It's hard to describe, but it was almost like reality was folding around it. The Secretary wasn't sure what it was, exactly, but he was sure that it was responsible for the increase in random events on their world."

"And what makes you think it has something to do with the infection?"

Olivia took a breath, and tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear. "It's complicated," she said, twirling her hand vaguely. "But the timelines match up. Just over a year ago, the anomaly appeared in the sky, right around the time of the outbreak on our side. And three weeks ago? The anomaly changed suddenly, grew larger, like it was getting stronger. Sonia died three weeks ago. The timelines match up. It has to be it."

"Did it ever occur to you that they were lying?" Broyles questioned after a moment. "That they were manipulating you? Telling you what you want to hear?"

"The Secretary? I have no doubt that he would have, if he could, but, sir... Lincoln was there, and I trust him, and..." Olivia shot a glance Peter's way, and he noticed color flooding her cheeks. "And I trust someone else I met over there, too. They were telling the truth."'

"Are you certain, Dunham? This is your life we're talking about."

 _She's talking about me_ , Peter thought, letting his gaze drift up to the one-armed statue looming overhead.  _The other me_. He studied Olivia's face.  _What happened over there, Liv? Why do you trust him? Why does he trust you?_  Doubt boiled in his gut like a sickness. She had been over there for hours.  _Why had his alternate helped her escape? And which one is he? The con? Or the me that I am now?_

When he lowered his gaze, Olivia was staring at him intently, as if she had sensed his inner turmoil, or even read his thoughts. And perhaps she had. Her eyes were huge and glistening in the fading twilight, and she looked as beautiful as he'd ever seen her. "I'm certain, sir," she said without looking away. "One of them helped me escape. He... he told me that despite what the Secretary believed, we weren't enemies. That we were fighting the same war. He thought I was the only chance of saving their world. I know he wasn't lying. Despite all the horror their world has suffered, he was still a good man."

Peter sighed as something relaxed inside him.  _She knows, because she knows me. She knows all my tells. She always has, from the beginning_. He found himself grinning, his chest swelling with pride for the woman standing across from him. His other self must have been putty in her hands. "She's talking about the other me," he said to Broyles. "There's no way he could have pulled off lying to her face. And to be honest, I don't think he'd have wanted to."

Broyles wiped his bald head, then frowned, glancing between them. After a moment, he shrugged and shook his head, giving them each a look that said he doubted both of their sanities. "Then... I guess we need to get you to New York, Dunham," he said without humor. "And as soon as possible. You want to leave now? Or can it wait until morning?"

"It can wait until tomorrow, I think," Olivia said quickly, eyeing Peter askance. "One night won't make a difference."

#

They passed the night under the stars in the shadow of Lady Liberty. After the day's unnatural heat finally fled, a cool breeze blew in off the ocean. The sky overhead was cloudless, crystalline, and the nebulous haze of the Milky Way made a diagonal smear above the southern horizon. Light from a billion stars and galaxies cast the island in an ethereal glow.

Peter gazed up at the speckled light show, resting his head on the bundle of his pack. Tucked beside him atop a patched quilt just large enough for them both, Olivia lay beneath his left arm, her head situated in the hollow of his shoulder. Perhaps in an effort to give them privacy, Broyles had made his bed elsewhere, somewhere out of ear and eye shot. They had found a secluded nook set in one wall of the ancient fort, and lined with a carpet of soft, springy grass, and was as comfortable as any bed he'd slept in as of late.

They had talked for hours before finally making love with a kind of desperate urgency he had never felt between them before. Neither of them had spoken of it, but he was certain she had felt the difference also. She had told him in detail of the other side, everything she could remember, up to and including her escape and subsequent reappearance in mid-air above the visitor center's entrance.

"I still can't believe you took me hostage," he said, chuckling at the image.

Olivia lifted her head, letting out a wide yawn. "I was kind of out of option," she said, shrugging against him, then snuggling back down against his chest. "You were the only thing within reach."

"What if the Secretary had called your bluff? Would you have really brought him back here?"

"Of course not. He has a child over there. Not to mention that it would have been too...  _weird_. Even for us, and that's saying something. Can you imagine how Walter would have reacted?"

Peter chuckled again. "He'd either be outraged, or the happiest man alive. What do you think made him help you? Other than the obvious reason, of course."

"Obvious reason?" she said, stiffening slightly. "Like what?"

"Like he thought you were gorgeous, obviously. I mean, he is me, after all."

"Oh, that." She relaxed and fell silent, but he could tell she wasn't finished from the way her hand froze atop his chest. She shifted against him, twisting so that she could see his face. "Peter, do you want to know why I think he helped me? The real reason?"

So maybe she hadn't told him everything yet. He met her gaze through the dimness. "You know that I do."

"I told you how I slipped up, how the Secretary figured out that Walter had taken you from your world — which made you, his son, essentially. Well, after I grabbed Peter, I kind of apologized-"

"Wait a second," he cut in, doing his best not to laugh. "You actually apologized for taking him hostage? Seriously, Liv, you've got to be the worst criminal I've ever seen. I mean, who does that?"

"Shut it, Bishop," she hissed, and her short, but quite sharp fingernails scratched threateningly across his rib cage. "Hey, I felt bad about it, all right? Now do you want to know or not?"

"I'm sorry," he said grinning down at her in the darkness. "I want to know. Proceed."

"Humph," she muttered under her breath. "Anyway. After I apologized, I told him that his father was right, but that it was complicated — which it is," she pointed out. "Then he asked me if I loved you, and when I said I did, he told me he wouldn't try to stop me."

"Really?" Peter said. "That's all it took?"

"That's all it took."

"Huh," he grunted, pulling her tight against him. He placed a kiss on her temple, then stared up at the stars. "See?" he said after a moment. "I was right. He totally thought you were hot."

Olivia giggled softly against his chest, then snuggled even closer, as if she were trying to merge their bodies together somehow. "You're terrible, Peter," she said through another yawn that stretched her generous lips open, exposing her teeth. She settled back, and not more than a few minutes later, her breathing evened out, chest rising and falling in a steady fashion.

Thinking of tomorrow and what would happen, Peter watched her sleep, memorizing her face, and how the starlight played across her profile, the feel of her body against him. Eventually, after fighting as long as he could, his eyelids grew heavy. Soon after, sleep carried him away, transporting him to a world of dark, troubled dreams where every path lead to a dead end, and every door opened into an abyss.

In the hours before morning, he woke briefly to the sound of a bird cawing somewhere on the island. The chatter was insistent, as if the creature were expecting some kind of response. When none came, the bird fell silent, blanketing the island in quiet once more. Peter let his eyes fall closed again, slipping quickly back into sleep's gentle current.

#

* * *

#

Peter was still groggy and empty-headed when Olivia led him back across the island, to the dock where they'd left their little boat bobbing against the pilings. Waking him had been even harder than was usual, and she chided herself for letting them both stay up so late when perhaps the most important day of her life — of both their lives, she reminded herself — lay ahead of them. But then anything might happen, anything at all, and the chance to spend one more night with him had been too much to resist.

When they reached the dock, Broyles was already up and waiting for them. He turned and waved as they stepped out onto the boardwalk, his bald head glinting in the morning sun. Where had he slept? She'd neither seen hide nor hair of him after the sun had gone down, but he seemed oddly bright and chipper as they approached.

"You two sleep okay?" Broyles asked as the came to stop beside the ladder down to the boat.

"I could have slept in," Peter grumbled. "I'm not sure I even slept."

"You did sleep in, Peter," Olivia said, digging into her pack for breakfast. "The sun's been up for over an hour. And I assure you," she told him, passing him his breakfast bar, "you were definitely sleeping." She knew it for a fact because she had woken with the sunrise, and instead of rising, had simply lain beside him, lightly running her finger through the waves of his hair. And he had never stirred, even once.

Squinting through the brightness of the morning, she scanned the Manhattan skyline, searching for the straight lines of the Massive Dynamic building. "So, how do we do this?" she said, taking a bite of the peanut bar she'd found among Nina Sharp's supplies.

Broyles shook his head. "Nina told me that her people could never make it further than Canal Street. Anyone who went beyond that point never came back. Some just turned at once, without warning."

"Canal Street?" Peter said through a wide yawn. "How about the wharf at Battery Park? We can land there and Olivia can just take us over right there. There's no reason to go any further than that. I think Canal Street is at least a mile north from there."

"Makes about as much sense as any of this, Peter," Broyles agreed with a shrug. Without another word their former boss turned and began the climb down to the boat.

 _...Just take us over_ , Olivia mused as Broyles's bald head disappeared below the edge of the boardwalk. How quickly passing from one universe to the next had become commonplace. She met Peter's gaze. "You can still change your mind, you know," she said. "Have you thought about what's very likely waiting for us over there?"

"Don't you mean who?" he replied, then shook his head, as she had known he would. But she'd had to try anyway. "She is all the more reason for me to go. If she's worried about you, maybe I can get a lucky shot in. And who knows? We probably won't even see the other you. Why would she be hanging out at Massive Dynamic?"

"I don't know, for sure," she said, trying to force a lightness into her voice despite the presence of a pervading fear she'd felt since waking.  _But I don't think it works that way, Peter. It's all coming together somehow._  After seeing the dynamics at play on Lincoln's world, she'd come to the conclusion that there was some kind of resonance happening, between all of them. And even deeper than that, between all their worlds, as if their fabrics had become entangled somehow, tied in knots — and they themselves were at its center. It was the only way she could think to describe it. As for her other self, the woman might not even need to see him to know he was there. Not if they were anything alike. Unless they surprised her, she would feel it, like a wrinkle on the surface of her mind. Yet she couldn't explain it to him, not when she couldn't even explain it to herself. There was no stopping him, but she'd had to try.

"You two coming or not?" Broyles's annoyed voice called up from below.

"I guess this is it then," she said to Peter as the little boat's motor suddenly roared to life, then reduced to a bubbling stutter.

"You're not going to try and stop me from going?"

Olivia shook her head. "I just did, didn't I? This was the deal."

Peter nodded slowly, and when he stepped forward, she moved to meet him. They came together and she curled her arms around him, resting her head against his chest. She could feel and hear the faint beats of his heart and found its steady thump comforting. His chin came to rest in her hair, arms tightening, pulling her against him until not a single breadth of air remained between them. Off to her left and back toward the island, she saw the dark shape of a bird — a raven perhaps, or a crow, from its size — launch itself into the air from a treetop near the shore. The bird squawked and cawed indignantly, its black silhouette arcing off toward some roost high up on the statue's crown. Watching its desperate flight, Olivia felt a sudden urge to cry off, to get in the boat and order Broyles to take them south, away from here, away from everything. The urge was so powerful she trembled against it, gasping silently.

"You okay?" Peter asked, pulling away slightly, his brow furrowing with concern. All of a sudden his face blurred and doubled, his other-sidedness coming through.

Olivia opened her mouth to tell him that she'd changed her mind, that they had a reason to go south, that she'd been lying to him, that she was carrying their child, that she wanted to take him away from all this, take them both away, that they were asking too much of her, too much of him, of them both, too much of anyone.

That she was afraid — and desperately so.

But, she did not. She could not. Instead, she nodded, then lifted up on her toes and kissed him gently, sighing as his lips moved ever so lightly against hers. And then she tore herself away from him, moving quickly, before the part of her self that was doing its best to entice the rest of her into shirking her duty could reassert its influence.

She flew down the ladder, dropping carefully onto the boat beside Broyles as he looped a cord extending from the keying in the boat's ignition about his wrist. He said nothing, his face unreadable as she stepped past him and took the forward-most seat in the prow, where a little bench stretched from gunwale to gunwale. Peter followed her a moment later, the boat rocking from side to side. He took the bench directly behind hers, then dropped their gear unceremoniously onto the grooved hull between them. Broyles moved into the captain's chair further back, the only seat that wasn't a bench.

No one spoke. There was no need. What needed to be said had already been said. She didn't look back. She kept her eyes forward, northward, on the greenish spec of land that was Battery Park. And she tried not to think.

The boat pulled away from the mooring as Broyles guided them clear of the dock before gunning the engine, spraying up water in a misting rooster tail. The prow lifted under the acceleration, and she grabbed the edge of her seat. He steered them northward in a wide arc, then cut a straight line toward Manhattan.

Unlike the prior afternoon when they'd arrive at Liberty Island, the water in the bay was nearly smooth, like a rippling sheet of glass, and the boat skimmed across it without resistance. The day had yet to turn hot, and cool air blew across Olivia's face, whipping her lengthy hair about — probably directly into Peter's face, but he made no complaint.

Before long, Ellis Island approached on their left, with its abandoned internment houses, its overgrown paths and walkways. The southern half of the island looked much the same as it had the one time she'd visited, over a decade ago. She watched it slide past, remembering her trip there, and then it was gone, and there was only open water and the city ahead of them.

Battery Park drew closer, the island of Manhattan no more than a mile away. Soon the spec of green became a blur, and then began to resolve into individual trees, into rows of bushes lining sidewalks. The World War II memorial emerged, the standing walls of names of the fallen set in stone. The wharf was ahead, where huge tour boats had once lined up in rows. The tour boats were gone, the tourists and all the people gone with them. In their place were infected. The park was mere minutes away.

Olivia glanced back at Peter and he met her gaze with a crooked smile that warmed her heart. He reached forward, placing his hand on the side of her hip, a favorite locale of his, squeezing gently before releasing her. Then the boat seemed to jump slightly, the engine hiccuping as it jumped again, and then again.

Turning forward once more, she grabbed the edge of her seat. Instead of smooth and ripply, the water had become choppy with successive waves. The little boat bounced up and down, as if it were skipping across the surface. Drops of cool water and mist splashed across her face. Holding on with both hands, she twisted in her seat, looking back past Peter and Broyles, to the open water behind them. After a moment, she frowned.

Something was wrong with the water.

Impossibly, a straight line or edge ran across its surface, spreading out to either side as far as she could see. She glimpsed it clearly for a moment only, before interceding waves blocked her view. On one side of the line, the water in the bay had been smooth like glass. And on the other, boiling, churning with waves and foam and bubbles rising up from the depths. Before she could fully process this strangeness, she felt something, a kind of pressure, or tension, pressing along the surface of her skin. The tension was everywhere, beneath her clothes, even on the pads of her feet.

 _What is that?_  Olivia wondered, glancing from Peter to Broyles. Her body was tingling — wasn't it? The sensation was so faint, she couldn't be sure she was actually feeling anything at all. Maybe it was nothing, a figment of her imagination. Peter certainly seemed unaware of anything, was busy grabbing his gear, slinging his sword and pack over his shoulder in preparation for their landing. Broyles's dark eyes were intent, fixed on their destination just ahead. He seemed unaware of anything also. She twisted forward again, straightening. An ill feeling rose in her gut.

 _No. Something_ is  _happening_. But what?

The wharf loomed closer, perhaps a hundred yards away. Dozens of infected moved among the trees, along the boardwalk and down the walk paths. They would have little time once they made it ashore, minutes at best. The boat was angled toward a lower section of wharf, clearly reserved for smaller vessels.

Broyles's voice shouted over the roar of the motor. "Dunham! I'll drop you off over the... the... ugh...!" He broke off with a strangled gurgle, and then the engine died.

In the sudden quiet, the boat lurched without warning, tilting sharply to one side, and then the other. Olivia gasped, flailing for the handrail as the rocking turned violent. Her fingers grazed the gunwale, and then the boat struck a particularly large wave. The impact bucked her off her seat, legs flying up in the air. A voice cried out behind her and then something with a hard corner smashed into the back of her head.

The world vibrated. Olivia's head rang, pain shooting across her scalp. Her vision doubled momentarily, flashing with white light. Then she became aware of Peter's voice in the background. His voice. He was screaming. In pain, in agony.

"Peter...?" she called out, struggling up onto her elbows. She heard a strange sound, like an animal's growl. Fear and panic overrode the sharp throbs of pain lancing through her skill in an instant. "Peter!"

The boat was steadier now, and when she struggled onto her knees, she found Broyles sprawled on top of Peter — who had apparently fallen backwards off his bench, just as she had. Perhaps sensing her gaze, Broyles glanced up at her, and the world, time, everything — it all stopped.

In between hollow, thudding, heartbeats, she heard a buzzing sound inside her head, alongside a distant, pleading whimper. The whimper repeated the same words, over and over.

Her eyes glued themselves to her former boss's lips, where a stringy mixture of blood and saliva dripped down, stretching out ever so slowly through the air. Between the blood-stained lips were chunks of torn flesh and bits of cloth, terra-cotta in color. Even as she watched, too stunned to react, shining white teeth chomped up and down, chewing, swallowing. The whimper increased, words unintelligible. Eyes like dull, burnished gold blinked at her, and a wave of horror blasted though the stocked stupor, driving her mind to the edge of madness. Her mouth stretched open, precursor to a scream, and the fresh's head dipped down, biting into Peter again, almost in defiance, daring her to stop it, tearing a chunk of flesh from his shoulder. Peter screamed in agony, his legs kicking as he tried to force the infected man off him. It was his boots thumping off the hull that finally jerked time back into motion.

"PETER!" Olivia shrieked, eyes burning. Terror and sorrow lacerated her throat, slicing it to ribbons.  _NONONONONONONO! PETER PETER PETER PETER PETER..._

Her mind went blank, devoid of thought. There was nothing, only terrible loss, and rage.

Instead of reaching for a weapon, she lashed out with her mind, with her inner hand, accompanied by a wordless scream that had no end. The infected killing the man she loved was flung into the air by nothing. It spun out over the water, away from the boat, torso and limbs contorted in her mind's grip. Bones cracked, ripping through the skin. Hanging in the air, the fresh writhed on its back, arms and legs cracked and broken, fingers gesticulating. An insane version of Broyles's face snapped at the air. Olivia strained harder, the endless scream igniting her throat, scalding it raw with pain and heat. Fury filled every ounce of her being, every particle, every atom, all the way down to her  _stuff_ , to the very veil itself, which rippled and reformed with every passing moment, with every stray emotion. Black smoke poured from its mouth, its ears, its skin blistering, ruining the illusion that it was her former boss, that it was  _still_  her friend. And then, the body of Phillip Broyles, Special-Agent-In-Charge of the FBI, simply exploded.

Blood and gore and body parts rained down, splattering the air like fireworks. The larger chunks splashed down, and a crimson mist hung in the air like smoke, before finally dispersing, fading in a gust of wind.

Olivia's voice died out, the searing rage replaced by a throbbing pain in her chest. In her heart. She tasted blood in the back of her mouth. "Peter...," she whispered, staring down at his stricken form. "Oh god... Peter."

Peter was on his back, face twisted with agony. His terra-cotta t-shirt was torn open at his left shoulder, and again near his clavicle. Blood streaked its fabric, already pooling in the shallow trenches of the hull beneath him. But he was alive. He met her gaze, his eyes still blue and clear. "Liv...," he gasped, his face pale and turning whiter by the second. "I... I... think I..."

At the sound of his voice, she scrambled over the bench, the boat rocking beneath her. "Peter!" she gasped through the terrible pain blooming in her chest, pain that traveled up her throat, then came pouring out in great sobs that burned like acid.  _Oh, god, he's dying. Peter's dying... He's dying... he's dying... he's dying..._ When she reached his side, she cradled his head in her lap, smoothing his hair back. "Peter... you're... I can't... ugh... Oh, god..." Her mouth stopped working. She couldn't speak. She couldn't think. Pain filled her, pain like she'd never felt before, like something squeezing her, twisting, ripping her apart from the inside out. She wanted it to stop, would have done anything to make it stop.

Peter reached up, his hand bloody, and touched her face. Then his eyes turned desperate. "Liv! You... you have to get away from me," he said, his voice hoarse with pain. She could feel him shaking, perhaps going into shock. Or turning. "Olivia, you have to get away! Please! Get... get out of here!"

She shook her head. Rivulets of her sorrow splashed across his face. He was going to die, and she wanted to die with him. The pain was too much, more than she could bear — more than anyone could bear. "I can't, Peter...," she sobbed, her voice cracking. "I can't just leave you here, and I... can't..."

"You have to," he whispered, and his blue eyes blazed with life. "Olivia, god I love you. I love you... and I'd do it all again, all of it, even... even if it has to end this way." Tears leaked from his eyes, he gasped in pain, face twisting. The blood was everywhere now, saturating his shirt. "Who knows, maybe... maybe there's some world out there where we make it."

The pain was insurmountable. It was a physical thing, moving through her, ravaging her body. She couldn't breathe, her throat was closing up, cinching tight with sorrow. She gasped for air, for release, but there was none to be found. There was only the pain, and suffering.

Distantly, her ears picked up something splashing into the water behind them. Then the boat bumped gently into the piling alongside the wharf. She picked up another splash, off to her right, and then another, further away. She ignored them. She ignored everything, except for Peter. Blocking out the world, she kissed him, tasted his blood and tears, he responded, doing the same. She hugged him to her breast, staring up at the sky, before letting him fall back. "Peter... there's something I have to tell you...," she said softly. "Something I should have told you before..."

He shook his head. "It doesn't matter," he said, eyes widening as he looked past her. "There's no time, Liv. There's no time! Get out of here, before I turn! Please. Please!" he managed to shout.

But before she could tell him that she would do no such thing, that no force on earth could make her, she heard a low growl, and then a massive weight crashed down on the edge of the boat. The world turned sideways, and Olivia found herself in the water, bobbing just below the surface.

Then something heavy landed on top of her, forcing her down into the murky depths; something that thrashed and clawed, ripped at her hair. She screamed, and nearly choked on a mouthful of seawater. Punching and kicking, she lashed out with hands and feet, desperate, innate self-defense mechanism finally kicking in. The instant her feet touched the soft earth at the bottom, she tore free of the infected's grasp and pushed off, shooting her way back up toward the light.

She breached the surface, and found infected pouring into the water, plummeting off the edge of the wharf up and down the shore. They splashed around her, like schools of piranhas waiting to frenzy, before finally sinking below the surface. Treading water, she kicked herself backward, putting space between herself and the dock. Not far away the boat had capsized, its propeller jutting up into the air, spinning lazily. Their gear and supplies floated beside it, bobbing up and down. Olivia looked around, searching among the thrashing bodies.

"Peter!" she shouted, then swam around to the other side of the boat. "Peter! Peter!" Her voice echoed in the eerie silence, but there was no answer, except for the growls of the dead. "Peter..." She fell silent, pain wracking her chest, crushing her rib cage.

He was gone.

"Peter... oh god..." Olivia choked on her tears, and then sank below the surface as a kind of paralysis gripped her limbs.

She drifted slowly downward through the murk, and the thought of opening her mouth, her lungs, of letting the ocean in to wash the pain away rose in her mind. She reached the bottom and floated there, unmoving in the faint light, and the bubbly quiet was soothing in some way the air above could never be.

Peter was dead, or he soon would be. He was dead.

 _But I'm not_ , a tiny voice whispered. And more importantly, their baby wasn't. It was there, floating in the blackness, just as she was. It needed her, and, she discovered, she needed it. More than anything. He would want her to go on. She knew that, without a single crumb of doubt. He had wanted her to live, to finish it. Life and feeling surged back into her limbs, and kicked her way back to the surface.  _I love you, Peter Bishop_ , she thought, breaking through into daylight.  _I'll always love you_.

The city reared above her, like a mountain falling from the sky. Olivia studied the destruction as she made her way toward the shore, grabbing what she could of their gear as she did so. Peter's sword was lost, still strapped to his back, wherever his body had disappeared to. Thinking of him that way was like plunging a dagger into her heart, but she persevered, her innate stubbornness winning that battle. Her own blade she found among the debris, entangled in the straps of her pack. She pulled them both ashore, emerging from the water a short way down the dock from where the boat had capsized.

There were undead in the vicinity when she climbed up onto the dock. Stretching out with her inner eye, she felt them across the veil, felt their  _stuff_ , their infection. They moved in, their golden eyes burning with insanity and hunger. She let them, filled with an icy calm. And when they were close, she reached out, gripping every infected mind in her invisible fist, and squeezed.

The mass of infected collapsed, all at once, eyes going blank, dropping mid-step. Pain streaked across the inside of her skull, but less than she'd felt before. She didn't know what that might mean, nor did she care.

Olivia stood still in the aftermath, dripping onto the boardwalk. Her body swayed, chest heaving from her efforts. She was raw, inside and out, hurt in a way she'd never been hurt before. Or, she suspected, would ever be hurt again. She was alone.

She glanced around, spotting a huge mound of rubble that might have been several buildings blocking the view to the north. Everywhere her eyes fell, skyscrapers were scorched black, stained with soot, windows blown out by massive concussive blasts. There had been similar destruction in Boston, though on nowhere near such a scale. A massive battle had been fought, and humanity had lost, and lost badly.

But the war wasn't over. Not while she was still drawing breath.  _They_  had taken him from her, taken her love, the father of her child.  _They_  had killed him. As good as. Holding her sword by its sheath, she slid the blade free, inspecting its keen edge as she did so. It was wet, but it would dry. After all, it had a job to do. Just as she did. Stirrings of the white-hot rage from before began to return, suffusing her limbs with a kind of righteous heat.

No. This wasn't over. The war was only just beginning

She slammed the blade home, then slung the sheath over her shoulder, tightening the cord across her chest. She removed her remaining water from her pack and drank it all down, then dropped the bottle on top of her pack. Walter had been clear. She must leave nothing behind, nothing at all lest their realities become entangled even further. So her backpack would stay behind. She wouldn't be needing it anyway. Either she would succeed, and she could return for it later, or she wouldn't, in which case they were all doomed anyway.

Closing her eyes, Olivia pictured the knit hat Peter's double had shown her in another world. Her throat ached at the images the thought evoked, their faces blurred together. She pictured its unique flavor, its unique texture. Its  _stuff_. Holding the image firmly in her mind, she ripped open the veil between worlds, and passed through to the other side.

#

The universe passed through her body in a single instant that seemed to last for an eternity. Each individual particle spent a lifetime sliding through the gaps between her molecules. Why a purposeful transition felt different than an inadvertent one, Olivia couldn't say, only that it did. And it didn't matter, so long as it worked.

She opened her eyes, and found herself on a boardwalk, with skyscrapers towering overhead. The air tasted scorched in her lungs, or perhaps acidic, or even corrosive. Gone was the destruction from her world, however, and the infected with it. She peered about. It was the same as her world, but different. And unlike the other world she'd visited, no dome engulfed the horizon to the east. Yet there were no people. No motion. No sound, not even the wind.

_Where am I?_

It was  _a_  Manhattan, but not her Manhattan, nor the Manhatan from Lincoln's world. But was it the right one? She lifted her gaze, searching for any sign of the anomaly, the terrifying atmospheric she'd seen through the Secretary's viewing window.

And there it was, plain as day. Dark clouds hung over the city to the north, rippling with electricity, pulsing with stabs of yellow light. Towering buildings blocked most of the view. To see the Massive Dynamic buildings themselves and the swirling vortex in its entirety, she would need to find another angle. She needed to do better than see it.

Staring forward, she jogged northward from a different Battery Park than the one she'd been standing in moments ago, moving past a World War II memorial that seemed identical to her own. The buildings and skyscrapers all looked familiar, but not quite right, somehow, as if each of them had been turned on its base, rotated at a slightly wrong angle. Or like she was seeing the world through an inverted looking glass. Like in her world, there was gaping emptiness where the Twin Towers were missing. Passing through the wooded area of the park, she emerged in a snarl of traffic, clogging up State Street.

Olivia paused on the sidewalk, then moved forward, glancing about. Nothing moved. She peered into darkened storefronts with paint-flecked signs, into lightless windows. Cars and trucks blocked the street, parked here and there at chaotic angles. Neither were the vehicles empty. The majority of them were still occupied, she noticed with a frown. Approaching a cream-colored sedan, she looked inside the windshield and gasped, jerking back. Her stomach took a massive heave, bile rising up her throat.

 _Jesus,_ she thought, covering her mouth in an effort to stave off vomiting. After a moment, she took a deep breath, and approached the windshield again.

Sitting in the driver's seat was a horribly misshapen body, lips stretched back in a screaming rictus, gnarled fingers still gripping the steering wheel. Odd contusions and protuberances covered every inch of the corpse's exposed flesh — what was left of its flesh at least, as large portions had rotted away — and whether it had been a man or woman was impossible to say. The body was like none she'd ever seen before, and would have been right up Walter's alley. She looked around and found more bodies in similar shape, in almost every vehicle, and again wondered what could have brought about such calamity. No looting had taken place so far as she could tell, nor was there any of the rampant destruction from her world. It was all very strange, and disturbing.

Moving on, she came to a massive pileup in the middle of the intersection at State and Broadway. Taxis and delivery trucks, police cars and civilian vehicles all smashed together in mess of shattered glass and twisted metal. The bodies present at the scene were in the same shape as the others she'd seen, all horribly disfigured from the inside out.

 _Isn't there anyone alive in this city?_  she thought, closing her eyes.  _There has to be_.

She reached out with her inner eye, and listened to the information flowing across the veil. Her heart beat like a snare drum. The slight breeze through her hair felt like a tornado on the horizon. She concentrated, stretching out with her senses, casting her awareness further than she ever had before. Time seemed to slow down, but something told her that was only an illusion, that it was rushing past on the outside as quickly as it ever had. A leaf scraped across the pavement, far down the block. Somewhere, limbs from potted trees rubbed together, vying for space. Tiny claws scratched for purchase on the rough pavement. A thunderous echo of another heart, inhuman, animal, hammering like a hummingbird's wings in flight. There were sounds and cessations from all over, from every direction. It was all there, rippling across the veil, across the texture of reality.

But the sounds were all natural. Nothing human crossed her senses, not a footstep or a single voice in the distance, or even an intake of breath. There was nothing. No human life, other than herself.

Opening her eyes, Olivia looked around, turning in a circle with a frown.  _What the hell happened here?_

A red newspaper dispenser on the corner caught her eye. She crossed over to it, skirting the pileup in the intersection. The dispenser was full, as if not a single edition had been purchased. And perhaps none had. She read the headline and the articles on the front page through the clouded glass window, and a frigid finger ran down her spine, turning her blood to ice.

 _A virus?_ Black clouds like swarms of locusts spreading over the land, over everything. The swarms were approaching the city, covering dozens of square miles every day. Man made? Some kind of nano-particulate, whatever that meant. She would have asked Peter, but he wasn't there. He wasn't at her side where he belonged.

He was dead.

In her distraction, she had almost forgotten. She couldn't wrap her head around it. Her throat clenched. He had undoubtedly turned by now, and his animated corpse would spend the rest of its days rotting at the bottom of Upper New York Bay. Undead. Mindless. His beautiful blues gone, replaced by the hated yellow-gold on infection.

"Peter...," she whispered, covering her mouth, at the titanic well of pain and sadness rising in her chest. She pinched back tears, shaking her head. "I miss you..." For an interminable moment, breathing was impossible, but then she inhaled harshly, steeling herself. She would weep for him later, for all eternity, possibly, but only after she finished her work.

Returning her gaze to the newspaper dispenser, she drove her boot through the glass, then pulled out an edition without tearing it too badly. She scanned the cover articles quickly, reading them from start to finish, and the details made her hair stand on end. She glanced about, but the air was clear.

A lethal virus had struck out of nowhere. Symptoms were convulsions and horrible disfigurements, madness, and death. One hundred percent mortality rate. Officials at Massive Dynamic had determined it to be man-made, but no cure had been found, nor anyway to stop its relentless advance. It was the end. An attack from unknown origins. There was speculation but nothing concrete. No one in authority had any answers.

Except that  _she_  knew.

Was it retaliation by the other Walter? By the Secretary? The man who was Peter's father, or a version that was very much him? He had mentioned employing weapons. Mundane, he had called them.  _There's nothing mundane about any of this_. She could see the man ordering such an attack. Or had it been preemptive? Who had started the war? Who had fired the first shot? Billions dead worldwide as of the printing date — which was nearly a year ago, to her surprise — and the number rose by the millions, daily.

The end had come swiftly here, unexpectedly, without any warning at all. It was a variation on what had happened to her world — minus the walking corpses. And it was what Walter had told them about, so long ago. The variations were infinite, and among the infinite, their reality was surely an outlier, in the extreme realms of probability. The most remote of possibilities.

She didn't feel particularly lucky.

Turning north, she loped westward along the meandering lines of traffic, then turned north down Greenwich Street, toward the World Trade Center. As in her world, the Twin Towers were missing, but she arrived at the site, and in their place was nothing. No memorial Pools. No Freedom Tower encase in scaffolding. It was a blank lot of concrete, with several potted plants and benches dotting the area. Perhaps the Twin Towers had never been built at all. She didn't know, nor did she particularly care. What she did care about, lay directly ahead, now clearly visible in the distance.

An altogether different pair of twin towers rose ahead of her, still many city blocks away. One of the monolithic structures was slightly shorter than the other, and a sky-bridge that seemed constructed of mirrored glass slanted between them. The upmost floors of the taller building were shrouded in the funnel of a swirling vortex. Pulses of yellow light strobed through the striated cloud layer. Lightning flashed, thunder rumbled in the distance without pause.

The rumbling grew louder with every step, with every block. And with it, came a dark aura of menace that hung in the air as she moved beneath the outermost edge of the anomaly, where the very air felt brittle, crackling with potential energy. This was the source of the stench she'd noticed upon her arrival, which she had since grown accustomed to.

With her destination finally in sight, she ran faster, stretching her legs out, letting the festering rage fuel her. She would be there, and him also.

And something told her it was the only way any of the madness was ever going to end.

#

Nearly fifty city blocks later, Olivia slowed to a halt, fire burning in her lungs. She leaned against a street light, gasping for breath, and gazed up at the nightmare rotating overhead.

Seen from directly below, stabs of lightning crackled in ever-expanding webs spreading across the entirety of the anomaly's structure. Their points of origin were hidden inside the rippling shroud cloaking the taller tower's pinnacle. The ground shook without end, each thunderous strike vibrating the light pole beneath her palm. Already, just from standing there for a few minutes, a dull throb had started up behind her eyes, in sync with the constant bombardment. Despite that, she watched the vortex closely, once again mesmerized by its perfect symmetry. Ripples ran across the anomaly's surface, ripples that didn't correspond with anything, as if reality, the veil itself twisted and flexed under some unknowable pressure, crumbling like a piece of paper. With an effort, she tore her gaze free of the sight.

The colossal structures of the dual Massive Dynamic buildings rose before her, the connecting sky-bridge a sliver hanging in the air high above the street. Up close, she noticed that they were slightly different in appearance than their singular counterpart in her world, a shade darker in tint, perhaps. It was fitting, considering what they'd done — what they were doing to her world, to who knew how many worlds. Hadn't the Observer said it wasn't isolated, so long ago?

The entrance was just as she remembered it; simple, and unassuming. A pair of sliding glass doors with the iconic Massive Dynamic logo emblazoned across the outside of each. Chrome handles that sparkled with the lights flashing far above. Yet for all their simplicity, there was something elegant about them that had translated across both universes. They slid open ominously at her approach — like some kind of portal in a monster's lair — revealing blazing light inside.

She stepped inside, pulling her sidearm from its holster on her hip. The doors slid shut behind her, cutting off the rolling thunder with acute precision. All that remained of the disturbance outside was a low rumble felt through the soles of her boots.

The expansive lobby was a mirror of the one on her world, and Olivia reached out with her senses, feeling along the surface of the veil for any disturbances, anything moving, any sounds that belonged to a living human being. Achieving the proper state of mind was easier now, becoming almost second nature. Almost. Still, there was nothing. She went further inside, searching the lower level. She found no one, and nothing of interest at all, only typical conference rooms and offices, until she entered a small alcove off the main waiting room that she'd missed on her first pass.

Inside, a row of elegant portraits — painted originals, she noted, not prints — in ornate gold frames hung in a row, each with a brass nameplate beneath. She recognized the first name, if not the face. William Bell, the first in line. She had never met him, never seen a picture of him before. He'd been recluse on her world, spoken of frequently but never in the public eye. His face was angular and chiseled, as he'd been hewn from a block of granite. Beside him, Walter Bishop, who might as well have been her Walter, so similar were they in expression. When she moved onto the next portrait, however, she gasped out loud, stupefied by a sudden shock.

_Peter!_

It was Peter. Only not her Peter, but Walter's. It had to be. His dead son. Only he wasn't... here. The Peter in the picture was heavier in the face than hers, or the Peter Bishop she'd met on the other side. And he was clean-shaven, which was rare beyond comprehension for Peter, and for the other, she suspected also.

 _How can he be alive?_ She didn't understand how it could be, but it clearly was the case. She supposed it only made sense. Why should everything be the same everywhere? In this world, Walter hadn't been too late for his son, yet he had still crossed over. If only he'd left well enough alone, then none of it would have happened. Yet he'd never been able to, any version of him, it seemed. But then again, without his action, she and Peter might never have existed. The thought filled her with sadness. She moved onto the last frame, expecting to see Nina Sharp, but instead, it was her own face that stared back at her.

Olivia gasped again, eyes bulging. When she recovered from the shock of it, she leaned in close, inspecting the face of her other self. The Olivia Dunham in the picture had her hair, only it was cut short in a severe bob that barely reached her jawline. But it was the woman's face that was most startling. Stern, unsmiling, with green eyes that were pitiless, unforgiving. Almost reptilian.

 _Is that what I look like? God, she's so cold looking, like she's not even human._  It was a pose for the portrait — it had to be. Either that, or the artist's perception, which was even worse. She frowned, suddenly self-conscious, despite it being a ridiculous time for it.  _I'm not like that, am I? If this is the result, then thank god I never chopped my hair off_. She read the woman's title beneath her name on the plaque and felt another chill.  _Head of Security. Of course she is._

Olivia glanced over her shoulder, suddenly uneasy. She had to be careful. Very careful. Running into her other self — who had full knowledge of her abilities, while she herself hardly understood what she was doing half the time — would be an unmitigated disaster. She was extremely dangerous. A killer, an assassin, maybe, and a vicious one from all accounts. From what Lincoln and Peter's double had described, the woman in the picture was a walking force of nature.

Leaving the alcove behind, she hurried to the bank of elevators. She eyed the polished steel doors, and started to reach for the call button before pulling back. Instead, she turned, glancing around, and opted for anonymity of the emergency stairwell, not far down the hall. Though she'd yet to see or hear anyone, it seemed unlikely she was alone. Who knew who might be watching the elevators, even by chance?

She began the long trek upward, stopping every so often to cast out with her senses. The climb was hellish, and she was regretting her choice by the fortieth floor. But she continued on. On the sixtieth floor she paused again to catch her breath. Before continuing, she listened with her inner eye, and felt a ripple moving across the veil, far above her. The something was slow and steady, tapping on the inside of her skull. A heartbeat? Footsteps? The distance was too great to tell. But she slowed down anyway, taking care to keep her footsteps silent.

As she worked her way ever higher, possible strategies for a confrontation with her double went through her mind. Perhaps just shooting her from ambush was the safest course of action, even if it was dishonorable. The agent in her would have never allowed it before, but she had become something other than she was. And her double was a killer, after all. A murderer. Without warning, the beating on the inside of her skull stopped when she reached the sixty-eighth floor, vanishing from her senses as if it had never been.

 _Shit..._  Olivia exhaled slowly, pressing her back up against the stairwell wall. Hardly daring to breathe, she listened, with her mind, and with her ears, but there was nothing, only the internal beating of her own heart.

Letting time slip past, she waited for it to return. Inevitably, her mind returned to Peter. How long had he been gone? Two hours? Three? He was dead. Peter was dead. Her throat clogged with pain. Vision blurring, her hand wandered down to her womb, and she imagined the child growing inside of her. Would it be a boy or a girl? And what kind of world was she bringing them into? A part of her still couldn't believe she'd been so utterly stupid, so brainless to have let herself get knocked up, but the rest? The rest was grateful. The child was all that was left of the father, of Peter. The only proof he had ever existed. She took in a shuddering breath, glancing upward.

Apparently, the sound wasn't coming back.

She started upward again, until the stairwell came to an end on the seventy-fifth floor and she emerged in a corridor washed in white light. Was it the penthouse level? Something told her it was not, and not far from the stairwell, she found a corridor leading to the sky-bridge.

The building seemed to hum, to shake, beneath her, and she could only guess at the awesome forces buffeting it just above her. The view outside was like staring into the maw of a descending maelstrom. Instead of mesmerizing, the anomaly seen up close was terrifying. Disconcerted, she moved past the sky-bridge to explore the rest of the floor, and search for a way up to the upper levels.

She found executive offices, spacious rooms with magnificent views of the city, and a single massive boardroom that could have seated at least fifty people without seeming crowded. It had the look of disuse. It all did. Dust was everywhere, even bits of trash, leftover food and empty bottles of water and wine. Beyond the boardroom, she came across another elevator with no obvious means of access. On the wall beside it was a panel of white glass, with no markings to indicate its purpose. Across the hall from the elevator was another expansive office, its door cracked open. She read the nameplate on the wall beside it and started, sucking in a startled breath.

It was  _her_  office. Her other self.

Glancing either way down the corridor, she approached the door and pushed inside. At the sight of the interior, she went still in the doorway.  _What the hell?_ She wasn't sure what she'd been expecting, but it wasn't this.

The office was destroyed, smashed to bits. Shards of glass and wood were embedded in the walls as if there had been some kind of explosion. Only nothing was burned, or even singed. The scene was disturbing, if not downright creepy. Among the detritus of office furniture, she found a wrinkled photograph lying beside a mangled picture frame. A family portrait, the faces in it intimately familiar. She picked it up, studying Ella's smiling face. Rachel was beside her, smiling also, wearing one of those short and thin spaghetti-strap sun dresses she had always favored in the summer heat. But they were wrong, or at least Ella was. She was older than she should be, by as much as two or three years. Even more disquieting, someone had gouged scratches across their faces, across their eyes, revealing the white photograph paper beneath.

 _Okay... that's not screwed up at all_ , she thought, letting the picture slip from her fingers. Suddenly, getting out of there seemed like a very good idea.

Leaving her double's destroyed office behind, she returned to the elevator. The glass panel seemed the only means of access. She searched around for another emergency stairwell, but there wasn't one, at least not in the vicinity. Reaching out hesitantly, she touched the glass panel with her fingertip, and it lit up at once emitting a pale glow with the shape of a hand print in its center. Glancing down at her palm, she shrugged, and then pressed her hand flat against it.

A blue light flashed inside the glass, then move upward, scanning across her hand. When it was finished, the entire screen blinked once, a bright green color. A voice spoke, and her name flashed across the bottom of the panel. Her own voice.

" _Olivia Dunham, Chief of Security_."

Olivia stepped back, blinking at the strangeness of it all. _I sound bored_. Perhaps the two of them were alike in some ways.

The elevator hummed smoothly. A light with the shape of a down arrow appeared in the frame above the elevator car door. While waiting for it to arrive, she shut her eyes, focusing, lettering her mind relax, stretching outward. She could sense the elevator's descent, well-oiled mechanical parts moving, meshing together. And beyond, the tremor of what must be footsteps, high overhead. The sensations felt slow, plodding. Meandering — and familiar. She had heard their rhythm before. Many times. Walter, pacing the lab.  _He's_ _here_. She was sure of it.

Suddenly a noise intruded on the void in which her mind floated. From outside, heard with her actual ears instead of her mind. A scratching sound, like cloth, or clothing. She felt something. A presence, like the faintest of pressures pressing along the base of her spine. Behind her. It hadn't been there an instant ago. It had  _appeared_. Out of nothing.

Spinning silently, Olivia found herself sharing the hall with a woman. A woman dressed all in tight, form-fitting black. A woman with golden hair, cut jaggedly short in a rough bob. The woman's face was turned away, but she knew her, like she knew herself, it was like looking into a mirror. It was  _her_.

Her double stood utterly still, head cocked, staring through the open door into the wreck of her office. Would she know it had been disturbed? That the door was now open, instead of cracked? Olivia remained frozen, terrified of moving, or even breathing. At the same time, her double's figure was incredibly familiar; her stance, the tilt of her head, the way her fingers rested on her hip. So herself. A wave of surreality swept through her, seeing herself. The woman before her was different than the red-haired vixen from the other parallel universe, whose entire reality had taken a different path, and had seemed another woman entirely. This woman was herself, a version of herself that she could have been had circumstances been different. Was she older? It almost seemed that way, from what little she could see of her profile. What accounted for the differences between them? Had  _He_  been a part of her life? Had she endured his abuse? Shot him? Perhaps even pulled the trigger for a third time? Were she and Peter lovers here? Friends? Or merely colleagues?

Without warning, the elevator dinged, announcing its imminent arrival.

Olivia jerked in her skin at the soft tone, while at the same instant, the other Olivia whirled about. Their eyes met for the first time, and she reeled back in horror, gasping. The right side of her double's face was a nightmare of deformities. The skin sagged around her eye, odd bulges and contusions marring her otherwise fine features. For a heartbeat, her double self seemed just as shocked as she was, but the surprise didn't last, for either of them, and she reacted a hair quicker than her counterpart.

"Don't move!" she said, bringing her pistol up at the same moment and pointing it at the other woman's head. "Get down on your knees, slowly."

Her other self appeared to have no visible weapons, except, oddly enough, what looked like a syringe gripped in her right hand, but that meant nothing. She was a weapon. The woman smirked, lips curling into a brutal smile as she let the syringe drop from her hand. It clattered on the floor, and she took a step forward, crushing it beneath her shoe.

"Stop!" Olivia said, edging backward slightly. "I'm warning you, take another step and I'll shoot. My business isn't with you. I don't want to hurt you."

"But you're in my world." The woman's soft voice made Olivia's hair stand on end. "Of course your business is with me. In any case, I have business with you. Or I would have, eventually. I plan on paying a visit to all of you... starting with  _her_ , but I'll make an exception for you, since you actually dared to come here. Was it a Walternate that sent you? Did you really think you could pretend to be me again? To get them to stop? The damage is done. Nothing can reverse it. In a few days, it will all be over."

 _Walternate? How come I didn't think of that?_  The thought came out of nowhere.

Her double continued to smirk, deformities mocking. Were they getting better? Decreasing? How was it possible? She took another step closer. "I said stop!" Olivia shouted.

The woman ignored her.

Olivia fired — and somehow missed. The bullet gouged a long track into the wall to the left of her double's head. She fired again with the same result, and felt the first breaths of panic whispering in her ear.  _Oh fuck..._  The other woman chuckled, grinning a cruel grin, then narrowed her eyes in concentration.

She felt...  _something_. Pressure? Only it was inside her mind. The edge of a feather stroked the backside of her skin, crawling along her spine. And then nothing. The woman's green eyes bulged with surprise first, and then rage.  _She just tried to use her abilities on me_ , Olivia thought. And for some reason it hadn't worked.

Then a chair she recalled passing by earlier flew out of nowhere, smashing into her forearm with incredible force, knocking her to the side at the impact. Her arm went numb, pistol suddenly flying from her useless fingers. Before it could reach the floor, however, her gun jerked to a halt mid-flight hanging in the air.

The barrel pivoted to face her, its black maw swinging into view.

With a gasp, Olivia lunged for an open door to her right. The gun fired, splintering the door frame across her face. Hunched over her useless right arm, she rushed through what her mind registered as some kind of shared office, with another door on the far side of the room. She crashed through it, slamming it shut behind her. Less than an instant later the door exploded. A million pieces of wooden shrapnel sprayed across the room, prickling across her back. An enraged shriek followed — a sound Olivia was certain had never crossed her lips before.

 _Perhaps we aren't so similar_ , she thought through the haze of panic.

Searching for a place to hide, she dove over a secretary's desk, tumbling to the floor. The way her other self was using her abilities was something she'd never considered before, not consciously, at least. The way the woman had caught her gun, the chair. Destroying from the inside out. It left her cold inside.

She crawled through another doorway behind the desk as footsteps approached, and found herself in some kind of community filing room, with long rows of shoulder high file cabinets, some labeled by letter, others by year. Ducking between the rows, she pressed up against a cabinet, working feeling back into her right arm. The sword strapped across her back dug in, reminding her of its presence. Her arm ached, but she could move it now. Somewhat. It would have to do. She took a breath, then reached up and slid the sword silently from its sheath.

Footsteps entered the room. "What did you hope to accomplish by coming here?" the other Olivia asked from close by. She moved slowly, as if she were in no hurry. "There is no going back. Peter has already made sure of it." Her footsteps grew closer, possibly the next aisle over.

Olivia concentrated, reaching outward. The woman's heart beat steadily; she had hardly broken a sweat. There had to be something, some way to stop her.

"Is Peter alive on your world?" her double went on in an offhand tone. "Did Walter save him? Or did he steal him? Or is he in prison? Have you fucked him yet? You have, haven't you, you little slut. Or did he choose the bitch instead? Were you too uptight for him? He's betrayed you, you know. He's a fool, in almost every reality. Fool enough to step inside the machine in several. Fool enough to destroy both universes."

The woman thought she knew Peter? Anger boiled through Olivia, rage tinting the edges of her vision, clenching her jaw solid. The urge to lash out, to defend him rose up, demanding action. Demanding vengeance. S _he's saying these things on purpose_ , a cooler voice spoke from her mind,  _so you'll do just that_.

"Peter's a fool," the other woman continued, moving slowly across the room. "Except for my Peter, of course. I grew up with him, molding him into the man he is today. He's been under my spell since we were little, since the center. Him and Walter both, and Belly, I suppose, when he was still alive. But what about you? Did you kill  _Him_? Did  _He_  kill Mom? Or did you stand by and do nothing like a coward? He would have molested you, you know. And Rachel. I've seen it all before. Every variation. And it all plays out the same. Worlds end. Universes collapse. It's all meaningless." Her voice fell into a taut whisper. "It's all the Bishops' fault. Every Bishop. They've left nothing but destruction and death in their wake, in my world, in every world! They, and all their creations have to be purged before all of reality comes undone..."

Olivia stopped listening. The woman was mad. Lincoln and the other Peter were right. Whatever she'd been before, she was a raving lunatic, now.

Crouching down, she moved in the opposite direction of her double's footsteps, to the end of the row. She peered around the corner and saw her double pass out of view, heading toward the far side of the room. Where was she going? Was she leaving? Why hadn't she bothered searching the entire room? Was the woman toying with her? It all felt wrong, but there was nothing she could do but follow. The woman had to be dealt with, one way or another, that much was clear, lest she end up with a knife in her back.

She curled around behind her, keeping her sword tip angled low. Her other self continued to ramble on about the other side, about how they started the war, how the machine-born plague had carried Walternate's signature. She ducked out of sight behind a desk as her prey stopped suddenly, peering down the aisle she had just left behind. When the footsteps resumed, she continued her pursuit, catching sight of the other woman striding into the next corridor.

Olivia followed. Her other self moved rapidly away from her, heading back toward the penthouse elevator she assumed as the woman disappeared around a corner. She rushed after her, stepping lightly across the white floor tile. Nearing the corner, she slowed, peering around it carefully — only to be met by a fist smashing into her face.

Her head rang, rebounding off the wall beside her, and she staggered back as her own cruel visage loomed in front of her. Before she could react another blow crashed across her nose, blistering her mouth. Searing pain blurred her vision, watering her eyes. The other woman struck again, grinning tightly, but Olivia sensed it coming and pivoted to the side. With the taste of blood on her lips, she made a desperate slash at the woman's leg, only for an invisible force to yank the sword from her hand.

The other Olivia stepped back with a confused frown, eyeing the sword as it floated between them. It rotated slowly, the edge flickering with the light. "What is this? A fucking samurai sword?" The sword zipped through the air, embedding itself to the hilt in the wall beside them. "This is new. Who are you? What world are you from? Which branch of history?"

Olivia didn't have a clue how to answer that question, but she wasn't about to tell this monster a thing about her own world. "Wouldn't you like to know, you fucking lunatic?" she snarled, leaping forward at the same time.

She jabbed a punch at the woman's jaw, but somehow she was already moving, already stepping to the side. She swung again, and again her double anticipated, leaning back slightly, letting the blow graze past her face. Olivia stumbled off balance and a foot snapped out at once, driving like a hammer into her rib cage. The air burst from her lungs and she tumbled back, landing hard on her side, groaning.  _I'm out of practice at this_ , she thought in a daze, spitting a mouthful of blood on the floor.  _Very out of practice. And she is not._

"Which world!" the woman screamed over her, her face livid. "Which fucking world!" She drew her leg back for another kick.

Olivia curled up around her wound instinctively, her own voice screaming inside her head.  _My baby! Please, my baby!_  The blow landed across the back of her head and for a time there was nothing, only a flash of gray light. When she could see again, the world was doubled onto itself. Her eyes were level with the floor. Shining spots danced whirlwinds in her vision, keeping time with the pounding throbs that felt like railroad spikes being driven through her skull. Her view shifted as something — a foot, she noted through the pain-filled haze — shoved her over onto her back. She coughed up another mouthful of blood, hot wetness spilling down her chin into the neck of her shirt. The other Olivia stood over her, face twisted with madness and savage glee. And pleasure.

Terror filled Olivia's mind, and the overriding need to escape, to get away from this cruel and deranged monster wearing her face. She tried to crawl, but her limbs refused to operate. The monster drew back her boot again and another sledgehammer blow crashed into her side. Something cracked audibly inside her, pain blooming like a flaring star. A scream of agony tore through Olivia's lips, and her double's mouth curled into a sadistic smile.

"You truly don't know anything, do you?" her other self said, shaking her head. "All you've figured out is how to cross over. What a waste. You should have never come here, girl."

Before she knew what was happening, the other woman was on top of her. Hands curled around her throat like pincers, knees pinned her arms to the floor. The hands began to squeeze, their grip like metal bands constricting her airway. Olivia choked for air, grasping at the wrists above her, her body convulsing, eyes bulging open, locked on the insane version of her own face staring down at her. Fire built inside her chest. Drool hung from the other's face, the world outside slowly darkening. She swallowed, taking in nothing, mouth moving like a fish out of water. Her tongue felt thick and coated with sand, lodged in the back of her throat.

Behind the insane face that was slowly killing her, Olivia's protruding eyes fell on the hilt of her sword, jutting out of the wall. She yearned for it, thinking of Peter, of the child in her womb, of her sister, of Ella.  _It can't end this way_ , she thought in a desperate panic.  _It can't. I have to live, I have to see them again!_ But there was nothing to feel, nothing to sense. There was only the wet, gurgling sounds issuing from her throat. The woman's face above her grew distant, falling away from her, and with it, the world, her own body, the lack of air quickly becoming paramount. The grip on her throat was incredibly powerful, and she wondered if the woman planned on removing her head with her bare hands. Her eyes fell on the sword again.

The spittle hanging from her double's lip began to stretch out, its fall imminent. As was her own death. Time slowed down, her vision filling with spots, her thoughts, her struggles growing distant. But stubbornly, in a last breath of desperation, she reached out again, forcing her mind forward, immersing herself in Peter's memory, of his gentle touch, of the love burning in his eyes. Peter, with Ella riding on his shoulders. Of Rachel laughing in the background. Her love was dead. But they were alive.

They were alive, and all she could do, was to keep trying. Until she couldn't.

The fear and terror dropped away. Her mind was suddenly clear, calm. She reached out again, stretching out for the sword, for the threads of  _being_  that connected everything to everything else. Suddenly it was there! Her inner eye opened and she could feel it, could feel everything; the texture of reality. Everything, except for the woman on top of her, killing her slowly. Her double was a blank spot. No, not blank, exactly, but smooth. Untouchable. She reached out with her mind, with her imagination.

The hilt began to quiver, sliding free an inch, and then two. The other Olivia's voice echoed dully in the background, her eyes wide with excitement, pupils dilated, mouth stretched open, seemingly on the verge of orgasm judging from the pure pleasure washing over her face as she writhed up and down. Olivia grew desperate, trying to keep her will focused on the sword, on imaging it floating through the air, but it was all fading.  _She_  was fading. The world turned grayer, as if the corridor were filling with fog. A foot of shining steel glittered in the white light.

 _Please!_  her voice screamed inside her head

And then all at once the sword slid free. It floated in the air, spinning lazily, just as she'd pictured it. If she could have drawn breath she would have cried out in delight. The drop of spittle broke free, falling in slow motion. She was almost done, the world faded near to black. Relaxing her grip on her killer's wrists, Olivia diverted all that remained of her flagging strength, all her dwindling concentration to her control of the sword. The lights began to flicker, raining down sparks. Something that felt like energy seeped into her, and with a final burst of defiance she yanked the sword toward them with every last of ounce of mental strength at her command, molding reality to her will.

The other Olivia Dunham gasped, eyes popping as a foot of sword blade suddenly sprouted between her breasts, steel painted red and dripping. She arched back, shocked surprise playing across her now-perfect features. The grip on Olivia's throat vanished. Her other self clutched at the razor-sharp blade, blood spurting between her fingers as they were cut to ribbons.

Olivia pulled in a ragged breath that felt like fire and agony. Her vision blurred, filling with tears. The other her's hands dropped limply to her side, her head lolling atop her shoulders. Their eyes met, each filled with pain.

"You... bitch...," her double whispered, her voice wet and bubbly, and just loud enough to hear. "No... you... you...can't..." She fell silent as blood spilled over her lips, pouring down her chin in a red froth. And then the light in her eyes went out, once and for all, she slouched forward, sending a foot of steel zooming toward Olivia's face.

In a panic, she threw her body to one side and the sword missed her throat, stabbing instead into her left shoulder, grinding down to the bone. White-hot pain erupted, and she screamed, nearly passing out from the force of it. Her lungs were on fire, burning from the inside out. The dead woman's weight pressed down onto her ribs, and she screamed again, at yet another flare of pain spreading across her chest, immense and dizzying.

Agony pressed down on top of her, every moment beneath her dead counterpart an eternity of torment.  _You have to get up, Olivia_ , the voice of her thoughts shouted over the furor of pain inside her head. Y _ou have to get her off you, now! Get up! GET UP!_  With a roaring grunt, she lifted the body off her, crying out as the sword point pulled free, and then heaved it aside.

For several frenzied heartbeats she lay still, chest heaving, the pressure blessedly gone. She stared up at the ceiling, disbelief that she was still alive percolating down through the layers of her mind. After a few minutes, she covered her face, and let herself cry softly. Pain encompassed her entire body. The wound in her shoulder shrieked without end, her neck and throat aching bands of fire. From the way her chest felt filled with sharp needles at every intake of breath, several of her ribs were likely cracked, if not broken.

But it wasn't over. The job was not yet done.

#

Olivia sat up, gritting her teeth against the pain. She stared down at the dead woman on the floor beside her, at the image of her own face frozen in a mask of rage, eyes already glazing over. A shiver went through her, deep in her bones. It was not a sight any person should see. Ever.

She staggered to her feet, careful to keep her weight off her wounded shoulder. Examining the wound through the cut in her already sopping shirt, she watched blood well from the vertical puncture, little more than an inch long. The edges were smooth, clean. It wasn't gushing, so perhaps nothing major had been severed. The wound was a problem for later.

Bending carefully, she reached down and pulled her sword free of the dead woman's back. The blade was stained with blood from hilt to point, and she wiped it clean on the leg of her counterpart's form-fitting suit. What had she been trying to say at the end? The woman had been so sure of herself, sure that she was invincible. She could understand the lure of such thinking. Given what they were capable of, it was an easy trap to fall into.

Olivia shook her head at the utter waste of it all, then made her way back to the penthouse elevator, doing her best to ignore her plethora of injuries, the rivulets of blood running down her side and her more or less useless left arm. The car was still waiting, and the doors opened at once when she touched the access panel. When she stepped inside, there were only ten floors to choose from. Pressing the uppermost, she leaned back and waited as the doors slid silently shut. Her mind was blank of thought as the number rose on the display. Upon reaching the top, the doors slid open, revealing a sterile hallway, all white in typical Massive Dynamic fashion. She stepped out and instantly noticed the difference from the temperature below. It was hotter, much hotter, and some prescient part of her brain knew she had come to the right place.

Sword dangling at her side, she moved down the corridor, passing by doors leading into dark and empty laboratories before coming to several well-furnished apartments. She glanced inside one of them, and found pictures lining the wall left of the entryway.

Pictures of Walter. Of an attractive dark-haired woman she assumed was Peter's mother — and Walter's dead wife. Of Peter, and of herself, as children and adults. The pictures made a timeline, telling the story of their lives. They had grown up together, as her double had intimated, before finally becoming lovers. She had been a part of their family, yet there were no pictures of Rachel present. Had they been split up when their mother died? Was that it? Was that the difference? Differences — some little, and some not so little, had turned the version of herself in this world into a monster. How had it come to this? Such madness?

Olivia left the apartment behind. The temperature continued to increase as she moved further down the corridor, growing hotter and hotter. She rounded a corner and a wave of heat washed over here face. Something compelled her to stop, then. A feeling in the air, in the floor beneath her boots. A kind of vibration that radiated through her bones.

 _It_  was close. Whatever it was.

She started forward again. The corridor came to an end at a pair of doors. She shoved through without slowing, into a blast of heat. Inside was a cavernous room, easily as big as the lab back in Cambridge. And it was a lab, she saw, in every sense of the word. The room was filled with strange equipment, unrecognizable to her eyes. On the far wall, a wide window looked into another room. Beneath it sat a control console of some sort, covered by at least a dozen flashing monitors and rows of dials and buttons. The room hummed, a deep rumble that filled the air.

A man stood in front of the window, staring inside. A man in a white lab coat. His arms were crossed, one hand stroking his chin beneath a head of graying, wavy brown hair. She knew him at once — would have recognized him anywhere, in any reality.

"Walter!" she said moving toward him.

The Walter turned at her voice, a delighted smile playing over his lined face. "Olive!" he said, putting his hands out. "Where have you been? How good of you to finally join us, my dear. We've almost reached critical mass! Just a few more days, and the reaction will continue on the other side, indefinitely, without Peter's guidance. He'll be able to come out, finally! He was right all along, you know. I can't wait to tell him!"

Olivia stopped out of arms reach, shaking her head. "You have to stop this!" she shouted, the leftover rage from Peter's death suddenly roaring inside her head. "You don't know what you've done — what you're doing! It has to stop!"

Walter frowned, eyes bewildered. "What we've done?" he said, his voice growing harder. "Why we've won the war, Olive. The other side will never recover. They may even cease to exist entirely. It is certainly possible, and even fitting, considering what they've done. What  _he's_  done. To my Elizabeth, to the billions of others. And for what? I saved his son's life and he repays us with war? With plague? With his infernal nano-virus? You agreed to this course of action, Olive. You agreed that it was necessary to save our world. The other side would have never stopped.  _He_  would have never stopped." Shaking his head, he turned around and peered back through the window. "No, just a few more days, and then we can start to rebuild. To reclaim what is left of our civilization. It's too bad Belly's not around to see it — he would have been proud of what we've accomplished." He glanced back, looking her up and down. "You should clean yourself up, Olive. That womb of yours is going to be busy. We'll need you in tip-top shape for Peter."

Recoiling, she touched her waistline. His words struck too close to home. Far too close. Her eyes burned into the back of his head. He wasn't going to stop. This version of Walter Bishop was just as insane as the Olivia lying dead below.

"I'm sorry it's come to this, Walter," she said, gathering her will. Her inner eye opened at once, bringing in a rush of sensation. Or perhaps it had never fully closed. Her Walter had said it would get easier, like an atrophied muscle slowly regaining its strength. He was right. The rage she'd been holding inside boiled over, and for once, she let it out, directing the full force of her fury at the Walter standing in front of her.

He jerked, and then turned around, blue eyes widening. Then he began to scream. Fire engulfed him, appearing out of thin air, charring his body from head to toe. Shrieking in agony, Walter tipped forward over a chair and lay still, burning, gritty black smoke collecting on the ceiling. The stench was horrific, and Olivia left him behind, darting quickly through a pair of doors beside the window.

Inside, the room was sweltering hot, as a sauna was hot, or a blast furnace. Rows of pale lights glowed down from overhead. At the room's center stood a monstrous machine.  _This is it_ , she thought, full of dark wonder.  _This is what's responsible_. For the damage to her world, to the other side, and countless others, possibly. So many lives lost. And for what? A mistake? Some imagined vengeance?

The machine had the vague shape of an upright octopus, or a squid, only it was huge, with thick cables and coils of wire looping out of a coffin-shaped core, spreading out in all directions. An array of computers and displays sat nearby, filling several tables. The screens scrolled with strings of numbers and equations, with constantly moving graphs and meters, one of which was a heart-rate monitor. The core of the machine could have passed for an Egyptian sarcophagus, only flat gunmetal instead of painted, and disturbingly human-like in shape. Centered in what was the obvious head, was a small window.

Approaching it slowly, she stepped over wires and cords as thick as her arm. As she drew near, a humming vibration became apparent, traveling up her legs through the soles of her boots, through her arms and torso. Her teeth ached from the sheer frequency of it, as if they were on the verge of rattling free of her gums. With each step, the vibration increased, the magnitude becoming more violent. Her eyes hurt, her jaw throbbed, taut from the pressure of holding it a bay. It was power in a bottle, barely contained, stretching at the seams.

She went as close as her teeth could bear, stopping within a yard or two. In the dim light, the tiny window was shadowed, but she could just make out a silhouette inside. A familiar shaped head of hair.

"No... Olive...," a weak voice croaked suddenly behind her. "You mustn't. You mustn't. We agreed it was the only way. You agreed to let him finish his work... it's all he has left."

Olivia stopped dead at the voice. The lights overhead blinked, stuttering off and on. She looked back and found the blackened shaped of the other Walter on his belly, just inside the doorway. His hair was burned away, his skin charred and brittle, tearing, bleeding from a thousand places as he slithered toward her like a slug. How the man was still alive, she couldn't say — or scarcely believe — but she could only imagine the agony he was enduring.

Studying him, she discovered that there was nothing inside, not a shred of remorse, nor of pity. What he deserved was to have every shred of his existence wiped from the universe. From every universe, for all time.

She closed her eyes, her heart aching with a thousand voices. Pain swelled inside her chest, a black well with no bottom, which no amount of suffering would or could ever fill.  _Peter... I miss you_ , she whispered from the blackness of her mind. Her hand strayed to her womb. There was no bump yet, nor would there be for weeks, but it was reassuring somehow anyway. He'd been gone for just a few hours, yet it felt like her whole life had passed her by, and every second one of torture. She wondered if there was a universe where they'd had more time, time to make a life together. Or if they were doomed in every reality.

Glaring down at this Walter, Olivia watched him suffer toward her. "You destroyed my world, you sadistic bastard," she said, crossing over to him. She crouched down, stopping just out of his reach. "And who knows how many others? There are billions upon billions of innocent people dead. All because of you. And you killed Peter.  _My_  Peter." She nodded back toward the machine. "It has to end here, and now."

"He's... not dead...," the not-Walter choked out. He reached out, fingers blackened and gnarled. "He's... alive... My... Peter's... alive..."

 _Your Peter is_. She saw red for an instant, and nearly ended what little remained of his life with a single swipe of her sword. "Whatever's in that machine," she shouted instead, "it's not your son anymore! He's a monster!" She quivered with fury, tendons aching in her neck from the force of it. The lights flickered, sparks showering down, arcs of electricity jumping between them. "He's killing everyone, everywhere, in more universes than you know. Don't you get it, Walter? You're destroying reality!"

"No...," the creature groaned. It blinked up at her, eyes tearing, and incredibly blue. "That... that can't be..."

"Where do you think I come from, Walter?" Olivia held up her sword, and watched the realization finally enter his eyes. "What? Did you think I was  _her_? Did you think no one would try to stop you? You made me, remember? Or one almost like you did. He, at least, had the decency to try and make up for mistakes in the end. I was supposed to save the world, remember?"

The black thing sprawled on the floor gasped and choked, face wet and shining with blood and tears. Olivia rose to her feet. The rage had departed, leaving only coldness inside, frigid emptiness that encompassed the whole of her being.

"Goodbye, Walter," she whispered as he reached out, clutching spasmodically at her boot.

She kicked the hand away, then concentrated, focusing her inner eye on a spot directly behind his eyes. And she began to twist, to squeeze. Walter's back arched, his scorched and cracked lips working silently. His eyes bulged outward, and then all at once the whites turned red and collapsed, head thudding hollowly off the floor. When the blood began gushing from the charred stumps of his ears, she turned away.

There was just one more thing to be done, and then she could go home. Back to what was left of her home. Alone.

Olivia turned back to the machine. It hummed with power, doing whatever it did to whittle away at the natural order. She wasn't sure that what she'd told the dead man on the floor behind her was completely true, but she thought her Walter would have approved of what she'd done.  _My Walter_. It should have been strange to think of him that way, especially after she'd just killed another version of him, but after meeting a third version of herself — and this one dead by her own hand — her outlook on what was normal had shifted drastically.

She wondered again at the resonances between the worlds. At how she and the others were at the epicenter of everything that had happened. From what she'd pieced together from Walter's explanations and from what little the Observer had chosen to tell her, and from her own analytical mind with the help of her counterpart's ravings, she'd come to suspect that some events and relationships were part of a natural order; ruts in reality that more often than not, played out over and over again. Central hubs about which other events and relationships revolved with little room for wobble. She and Peter could be one such hub.

The Observer had never said it out loud, but it was there, between the lines, and in what wasn't said. Namely, the reason for the Observer's knowledge of them all. She began to wonder what other adventures she and Peter might have had together, in some other reality, but the thought was too painful to dwell on for more than an instant. So she thought of nothing instead, banishing all interfering emotions in preparation for what had to be done next.

She stared up at the machine. Taken as a whole, it was huge and intimidating, but at its core, it was little more than man-sized. A tall man. With wavy brown hair and a propensity for grinning and cracking jokes at the worst possible moments. Was this Peter similar to hers? Or had his upbringing made for a different man? Surely he was different.  _He must be different_.

Olivia moved closer than she had before, forcing herself through waves of coruscating power. The very air vibrated, seeming to waver before her eyes. Dark energy surrounded it, menacing, keening at an ultra low frequency that reverberated through her bones. Reaching out, she stopped just short of touching the metal sarcophagus. Her hand went numb, and then her entire arm, as if pricked by a thousand needles. She would never know what the man inside was like.

It had to end, and there was no one else.

Staring in at the shadowed figure, she gathered her will, forcing her mind to blankness. Then she seized the brain behind the glass, and twisted reality, clenching her inner hand like a fist — like his father before him.

The change was immediate, and violent. The room, the floor, began to shake, the machine warbled and groaned. Alarms blared out their warnings, shrieking in the control room outside, red flashing in waves across the table of computer screens beside the machine.

 _It's over now. It has to be over_. Stepping away from the lifeless machine, Olivia closed her eyes.

#

Returning to the Massive Dynamic in her own world, Olivia found herself in a swank apartment washed in moonlight. The apartment was in pristine condition, as if it had never been occupied, or had been merely for show. Wondering at this oddity, she headed for the exit.

At the far end of the corridor outside, she found the elevator, and with a little searching, the emergency stairwell she'd missed on the other side. The stairwell was pitch black and empty, and felt as if she'd been the first person to ever use it. At the bottom, she stepped out into harsh silence, into corridors dark and silent. Bodies lay sprawled here and there as she made her way to the next stairwell; former employees, some wearing lab coats, others dresses and suits. None stirred as she passed them by, but her mind was too exhausted to contemplate what it might mean, too strung out with sadness for anything beyond moving forward. Her cheeks were wet when she arrived at the next stairwell, and began the long climb downward through the blackness.

The going was slow, and harrowing. The stairwell reeked of decay, of death. She climbed over body after body, sensed only by touch, by smell. She struggled through them as best she could, tensed, waiting for one of them to stir at her passing, to come to life. To attack. Yet none did. Utter exhaustion followed in her wake, gaining with every step taken.

 _I'm so tired_ , she thought, listing against the center railing. The wound in her shoulder sang, the needles in her chest and the throbbing back around her neck vocalized in harmony.

The stairwell went on and on, seemingly forever, and when Olivia finally reached the bottom, she could barely stay on her feet. She staggered out into another corridor, filled with hazy light. Here, she found more bodies, sprawled everywhere as if they'd dropped mid-step. Men and women, their eyes infected.

Using her sword as a walking stick, she stumbled back to the lobby where she'd once had to sit for over an hour to finally get her first interview with Nina Sharp, back in another life. She came across the row of padded chairs she'd once sat in, just around the corner from the main entrance. Miraculously, they were still there, somehow untouched by the end of civilization. She dropped down on the nearest, utterly exhausted, and leaned her head back. Her sword fell from her grip onto the cushion beside her.

She wasn't ready to go back — even if she knew a way that didn't involve walking for miles through the ruins of New York City. Rest was what she needed, what she required, her body, her mind. Rest. And time; to be alone, with her pain, her sorrow. Time to let it consume her, utterly, before she could face them again. Before she could face her new world — one without Peter. Before she could face Walter, and tell him his son was dead. Her eyes slipped shut, and after a few moments, a curtain of darkness descended.

#

Olivia came awake to a soft but steady beep sounding in her ear. Opening her eyes, she found herself in a strange room full of white, sterile light. She blinked, squinting at the brightness as her surroundings came into focus.

The soft something she was lying on was a hospital bed, on sheets so white they seemed to glow. The beeping sound came from a vital signs monitor beside her, mounted on a rolling stand. Numbers flashed across its screen, indicating her pulse rate and blood pressure, her temperature. Beside it stood a tall IV pole, with a bag of clear fluid on its hanger. Dread began flowing her veins, and the beeping increased its tonal rhythm.

Continuing to blink, she tried to summon the memory of how she'd come to be there, but there was nothing. Her memory was a flat line, a blank slate of nothing. She moved her right arm and something stung the back of her hand. Looking down, an IV catheter was taped to the back of her hand, wrapped in gauze tape. As she stared at the bandage, images that had the feel of memories started coming back to her, first a trickle then a flood.

Was it all a dream then? Had she actually gone to another world? And nearly been killed by another version of herself — and a deranged version at that? It was insanity. Sitting up slowly, wincing at the sharp pincers hooking through her rib cage, she looked around.

 _Where am I?_  The room was empty, except for the bed and herself, and a pair of plain chairs sitting against the wall beside the bed. The walls were a stark white, the door unremarkable wood. A hospital? She looked again. Or not a hospital. Imprinted on a metal plate centered in the upper half of the door was a three-dimensional  _M_. The Massive Dynamic logo.  _What happened? Who did this, and how did I get here?_

She touched her left shoulder and found a thick bandage, wrapped about most of her arm also. Now that she was upright, her ribs ached with each intake of breath, though not nearly as much as they should have. All in all, she felt okay. Not great, but certainly not in any large amount of physical pain. Which seemed wrong, considering what her body had endured. Someone had given her something for the pain. Drugs? Opiates, perhaps? She eyed the clear fluid in the IV bag.

What was in it?  _And how long have I been here?_

Olivia felt the stirrings of panic at not knowing the answer and yanked the IV from her hand, then tore the thin vital signs electrode patch away. She swung her legs out of bed, throwing back a thick, white quilt, and found her clothes were gone, replaced by a basic patient gown. Her feet were bare, and the floor felt like ice. She rushed to the door and yanked on the handle. To her surprise, it opened at once, swinging on its hinges effortlessly.

The corridor outside was empty. Dim lights glowed intermittently overhead, recessed into the ceiling. The stink of decay lingered in the air, though no bodes were in evidence. Dark smears remained, however, staining the white floor tile. She stared down the blood stain, heart beating loudly.

So it wasn't a dream then. Not that she had truly thought it might be. Emotions in dreams never compared to the real things, and the sudden sadness in which she found herself drowning was too potent to be anything but real. Unsure of where to go, Olivia started toward what looked like an adjoining corridor not far away.

Olivia made it as far as some sort of waiting area before something large and sharp broke loose inside her. Vision blurring, tears stung at her eyes. They brimmed over, spilled down her cheeks in a flood. Cracking apart on the inside, she sank down into a corner and hugged her knees.  _Oh god... Peter... I miss you so much..._ She cried softly at first, until stifling pain forced great sobs from her chest. Pain wracked her, sadness beyond endurance. There was no reprieve, not for her, not ever.

After a while, she became aware of movement on the edge of her vision. She lifted her head and saw Rachel moving toward her. For a second she thought she was dreaming again, but then their eyes met from afar, and Olivia gasped. She wiped the wetness from her eyes.

Her sister was weaponless, and unbelievably clean. Rachel's hair was shining with some kind of inner light, her skin glowed as it hadn't since before the outbreak. She wore a pair of high jean shorts, with a white blouse that was unstained. Clean.

"Rachel...?" Olivia whispered as her sister came to a stop before her, still not quite sure she was even real. How could she be here?

Rachel smiled, her face lighting up. "Liv! You're finally awake!" she said, and the smile transformed into a motherly frown. "But you shouldn't be up yet. Walter said you needed rest, that your body and mind needed rest, and that you might sleep for days. And that we should let you."

Walter? On the back of her eyes, she saw a black, crawling thing, slithering across the floor. She forced the image away. "What are you doing here? How did I get here? And where are we, anyway?"

"We drove here... or at least as far as we could," Rachel said, taking a seat beside her. "We're at Massive Dynamic, down below the city. We found you upstairs, just tipped over onto a chair. God, I was so worried, Liv. There was so much blood. I thought..." She covered her mouth, choking up for a moment. "I thought you were dead."

Olivia shook her head. "Yeah, but... how did you get here? What about all the infected?"

Her sister grinned, her face proud. "You did it, Liv. They're gone. They just... collapsed. All of them. At once, everywhere. It's finally over."

It was over? She found herself tearing up again, and wiped her eyes with the edge of her gown. "...And Ella? She's okay?"

"She's perfect, honey. She's with Peter now, everyone is, including that red-haired woman. They brought him in not long after we found you."

At mention of his name, a fresh dagger slid between her ribs, piercing her heart. How had they found his body? Maybe he had somehow managed to pull himself ashore before he'd turned. It seemed impossible, but she couldn't bring herself to ask. At least they had waited for her before doing anything with his body. Part of her quailed at the thought of looking on him again, but surely she must, or she could never look at herself in the mirror again. She put a hand to her stomach then, and came close to losing it all over again.

"What's wrong?" Rachel said, noticing her change in demeanor. "Liv, we won. It's over."

Olivia looked up, scrubbing her eyes. "I... never got a chance to tell him, Rach," she whispered, her throat aching with pain. "I never got a chance to tell Peter."

"Peter? You never got a chance to tell him what?"

She met her sister's gaze. "That I'm pregnant. He never knew. And now he's gone. It was Broyles... Broyles turned and... and..." She pinched her nose, trying to forestall another flood.

Rachel blinked, clearly stunned, and then gasped. "What...? Wait. You're pregnant? Liv, that's wonderful! But... why wouldn't you just..." She trailed with a sharp intake of breath, then smacked her palm against her forehead. "Oh, shit," she muttered, abruptly rising to her feet in one fluid motion. "Of course. Get up, Liv. There's something you have to see. Right now."

Olivia stared up at her sister. Why was she so excited all of a sudden? "What is it? I'm tired, Rach, I don't want—"

"Just get up, Olivia," Rachel cut in, holding out her hand. "It'll be worth it, I promise you."

Olivia frowned, narrowing her eyes. There was something in her sister's voice. Joy? Confused, she let herself be pulled upright, then led down the corridor. They rounded a corner, and a square of light from an open doorway glowed at the other end of a short hallway. She heard a giggle of impish laughter in the distance.  _Ella._  Her mind began to race. What was going on in there?

When she voiced the question, Rachel merely shook her head. "You'll see," she replied, her tone even, almost suspiciously neutral.

The square of light grew closer, yet at the same time seemed to slip away, receding back into the gloom. Why was it taking so long? Another peal of laughter rang out, followed by an elegant chuckle that could only belong to one Nina Sharp. She could picture the woman's hawkish features, the mirthless eyes. Why were they laughing when Peter was dead? Olivia suddenly wanted to know very badly. She felt her face growing hot. How dare they laugh over his body. Blood rushed through her veins, filling her ears with a static roar. How dare they!

Just ahead was the open door. Voices echoed out into the hallway. The sudden bark of Walter's deep baritone brought her up short. Walter was in there. Of course he would be. It was his son. Or a version of him. She'd just killed a Walter, one just a few shades darker than hers, wringing out his brain like a wet rag.  _These things I can do, Peter. Sometimes... I scare myself_. She had told him that once, not long after she'd finally figured out how to harness her abilities. She hadn't even known how to kill with a thought back then. It was true, and now more so than ever.

Rachel looked back and her face was tinged with sadness. "You coming?" she asked. "It's gonna be okay, Liv. You'll see."

What the hell was she saying? Nothing was okay. Nothing would ever be okay, ever again. Didn't she understand? They'd won, but at what cost? Peter was dead. Her love was dead, the father of her child was dead.

From inside the room came another chorus of laughter. Astrid's musical peal mixed with Ella's staccato cackle and the bounce of bed springs. Her niece's wild laughter reminded her of the lab, of a time Peter had once tickled her until Ella had begged for mercy. The memory brought tears to her eyes.

And then someone else spoke inside the room, their voice carrying out into the hall.

A man.

The voice a slight Bostonian accent, barely detectable, that sent electric currents racing down her spine. As it always had, if she were honest with herself, even as far back as a hotel lobby in Iraq.

Olivia gasped. Her mouth dropped open, and her heart took a giant leap in her chest. Rachel looked on, laughing wickedly as only a sister could.

_Please..._

She rushed through the door, into the blinding light.

#

— CODA —

#

They were all there, standing beside an upright light stand plugged into a wall outlet. Ella and Walter, little Gina and Astrid with raven-haired Claire. Nina Sharp. For once the woman was smiling, and genuinely, it seemed, from the glint in her eyes. They were all that was left of their ragtag group, and the sum total of everyone left in the entire world whom Olivia knew on a first name basis.

But she had eyes only for the man lying on a hospital bed similar to the one she had woken up on. His pupils were blue and clear, with not a hint of gold in sight. Her throat caught, a painful lump forming. He was shirtless, and taped across his upper torso was a thick bandage, with another across his right shoulder, where Broyles had struck first.

The killing bite. Or it should have been.  _Oh, Phillip, I'm so sorry you aren't here to see this_. The thought flashed through her mind and then was gone.

Olivia jerked to a stop just inside the doorway, gaping. Salted tears spilled down her cheeks and into her open mouth, for once, in pure happiness. Her lips trembled. "Peter...," she choked out. "You're... you're alive!"

"Aunt Liv!" Ella said, twisting around at her voice from where she was standing beside Peter's bed. "You're awake!" Her niece flew across the room in a blur of motion and threw her arms around Olivia's waist, knocking her back a step.

"Hey, baby girl," she mumbled, still unable to pull her eyes from Peter's face. He was watching her, eyes wet and shining.

"Ella, give her some space," Rachel ordered from out in the hall. "She's exhausted. Ella!"

Peter stared back at her, his eyes drinking in the sight of her face. The way they'd used to — the way they always had. When he didn't say anything at first, it occurred to her that it all might be a dream after all, either that or she'd fallen asleep out in the hall. But then he broke into his beautiful smile, the one that was all teeth, and seemed reserved for her alone.

"Olivia." His voice was a symphony playing in her ears. "You made it. You did it."

The others in the room remained silent, and for Olivia, they didn't exist, except as shadows in the corners of her eyes. How was it possible?

"Yeah, I guess so..." She swallowed, then took a hesitant step closer. "Peter, how... how are you still alive? You...you were dead... you, I thought you..." She covered her mouth, pinching her nose. She couldn't think, couldn't process what was happening. Her head was filled with light, with joy.

Peter's smile turned bittersweet. "Turns out there's a bright side to being born in a parallel universe," he said, glancing at his father. "Isn't that right, Walter?"

"Um... yes. It would appear so, son," Walter said sadly from his seat. Olivia kept her gaze on Peter, as images of the other Walter's charred corpse lingered in her mind's eye. "You see, the other universe, or at least the one in which Peter was... was born, all matter originating there vibrates at a slightly different frequency than ours. And this difference, slight as it is, was enough to render him — or anyone from another universe, such as Captain Lee — incompatible with the process, the infection."

"So you're saying he was immune all along?" Astrid spoke up. "Aww man, it'd have been nice if you thought to mention this to us before Walter. You know, at any point during the last year."

Olivia finally looked at Walter. There was anguish in his gaze. And humility. Humility that had been lacking in the other Walter's eyes. What accounted for the difference between them? Was it Peter? The other Walter had managed to cure his son, but that had not stopped the war between universes from occurring. Was the death of her Walter's son, and everything that resulted the divergence? She wished the Observer was there, so she could ask him, but something told her she would never see him again, that their universe and all its troubles were not part of his purpose, whatever that even was.

"I believe that to be the case, Astral," Walter affirmed with a nod. "It never occurred to me that Peter's different... origins, so to speak, would make a difference. Though in hindsight, I suppose it should have been obvious."

Silence descended as Olivia turned back to Peter. He was still gazing at her like he'd never seen her before. He was alive. She wanted to kiss him. She wanted to hold his head to her breast and never let him go.

"Why don't we give these two some time alone," Nina suggested suddenly, glancing between them. She wore the same half smug, half knowing smile that had been so infuriating when they'd first met, back in the old world. Olivia found herself wondering if the look was just her resting face, her default. "Is anyone hungry? I'll have Brandon whip us up some dinner from the supplies we brought with us. We can hear all about what happened on the other side from Olivia later."

No one argued against the idea, and they each filed past, expressing their happiness to her. Olivia mumbled her distracted replies, the moment passing in a blur. When they were gone, when the two of them were finally alone, she moved to his side and sat down on the edge of the mattress.

"How are you feeling?" she said in a trembling voice, looking over his injuries. For some reason it came to her that she shouldn't touch him, that he would surely vanish if she did so. A pale aura surrounded his face like a second skin, flickering ever so slightly. She closed her eyes, and when she opened them again, his other-sidedness was gone, yet he remained. "Your wounds... do they hurt very much?"

Peter shook his head and grinned. "Not a bit, courtesy of Nina Sharp and Massive Dynamic." He picked up a bottle of pills on a stand beside the bed and gave it a shake, rattling the pills inside. "Painkillers, and strong ones. Where would we be without the wonders of modern medicine?"

The sarcasm dripping from his voice broke something inside her, along with a humorous glint in his eye that was Peter at his core. They battered down the walls of uncertainty that had been holding her back, shattering them into a million pieces.

Olivia threw her arms around him, holding him with all her strength despite her aches and pains. Peter returned the embrace just as fiercely, pressing his face against her cheek. His skin was hot, not with fever or infection, but with life. She pulled away slightly, dropping a kiss onto his lips, then one on his forehead above his eyes, his cheeks, where she tasted the salt of his tears, tears that matched her own. His fingertips traveled the contours of her face and she leaned into the contact, pressing her forehead against his, nuzzling with her nose.

"Oh, Peter," she whispered. "I thought you were dead. I knew you were dead, in my heart... and, I wanted to die, too." She hesitated, reliving the feeling for a terrible moment, but then it receded, became a distant, dwindling memory. Other memories remained vividly clear, however. "I was so furious when I crossed over. I... I killed them all. The other me from over there. She attacked... and I killed her. It was me! Only it wasn't. The Walter — and his son. His Peter. I murdered them both... in cold blood. They're dead. The Peter... he... he was the one in this... machine. He was the one doing it — to us, to Lincoln's world."

Her Peter went stiff for an instant, then resumed stroking her hair. "Olivia, you did what had to be done," he replied back, just as softly. "They weren't me or Walter. And it was war. Them or us. You did what had to be done for our world."

It might have been war, but what she'd done at the end had nothing to do with war, only with killing. She'd never even considered finding an alternative. William Bell had wanted a weapon, and that's what he'd gotten. But she pushed the thought aside, unwilling to let it bring her down anymore.

"What happened after I crossed over?" she asked. "How did they find you? And what happened after the boat tipped?"

"I... thought I was dead, too, Liv," Peter said in an odd voice. "And I couldn't let you see me like that, or have you do what you did for Charlie, not with that memory of yours. That's why I was trying to get you away from me, which I'm sure you knew, but chose to ignore." His eyes flashed, but there was no blame or anger, only love. "Anyway, so when we capsized, I just... hung on... There was air underneath. Enough to last until you were gone, which you were, when I finally managed to climb onto the wharf." He paused, eyeing her. "Was that your work? That must have been a hundred infected, Liv."

Olivia nodded, lowering her head. "I was... angry," she admitted.

Peter snorted, lifting her chin with a finger. "Remind me not to make you mad in the future." He gave her an impish grin, before kissing her softly, running his fingers through her hair at the nape of her neck. "You're amazing, you know that?" he said, pulling away.

She shook her head, indicating he should move on. Those first moments after climbing out of the water had been among the most terrible she could recall, ever. "I did what I had to, Peter," she said. "That's all I've ever done. Now tell me what happened after you got out of the water?"

"Well... I kept waiting to die, for the change to start. But it never did. So I hid, other infected were moving in, and I hid. And then after a while, they just... keeled over." His face took on a look of wonder, and he touched her face, stroking her cheek with his thumb. "And then I knew you'd done it. I figured you'd cross back over at Massive Dynamic, so I just started walking. Eventually, some of Nina's people found me. They brought me back and got me patched up, and the others were already here with you, and, that's about it. The rest is history." He let out a sad sigh, shaking his head. "Broyles had a hell of a bite."

"You're terrible," she murmured, resting her head on his shoulder. "He was a good man. One of the best."

"That he was," Peter replied, his voice solemn. He paused, and Olivia could hear his heart beating in the ensuing quiet. "What happens now? Do we start rebuilding? We're a bit low on manpower and know-how, and probably will be for the next few centuries."

Olivia lifted her head, staring him in the eyes. It seemed like as good a segue as any. "Peter, do you remember telling me once that you'd never really thought about having a family? That you'd never thought it was a part of your future?"

Peter frowned, his brow furrowing. "Vaguely. It was on our way to the Federal Building. We were on that balcony, just the two of us." He gave her a broad smile. "I only remember because of what happened later, when you dragged me into bed with you."

"Right...," she murmured, then cleared her throat, feeling her face grow hot.

It hadn't quite happened that way, she recalled. Not exactly, at least. There had certainly been no dragging involved, though she did have a memory of him being as hesitant as a teenager. At first. She thought about bringing it up, but didn't want to become sidetracked. Charlie and Sonia had both been there, sleeping just down the hall. Or not sleeping, if Sonia's ill-fated pregnancy was anything to go by. Melancholy filled her at the thought of her old friends. At least the two of them were together now, somewhere, somewhen. All things were possible in the infinity of time and space, so she'd come to believe. After all the nightmares and wonders she'd been subjected to, how could she not?

She focused on Peter again, tilting her head. "And how do you feel now?"

"About having a family?"

Olivia nodded.

"Of my own? Like a little tribe of Bishops running around the wasteland?"

She nodded again. "Yes. A family, Peter, and everything that comes with one. How would you feel about that?"

Peter's eyes narrowed beneath the crease of his brow. Then he sat up, rising slowly off his pillow. "Olivia, why are you asking me this right now?"

Reaching out, she took his hand and purposefully placed it on her womb beneath her gown, grinning as his eyes widened into saucers. It was a look she would always remember; the complete shock and utter surprise blooming on his face. The happiness.

And the love, miles deep.

"Peter," she said, placing her hands over his. "I have something to tell you."

#

#

— Epilogue —

#

#

Waves crashed on the beach below.

White bubbling froths broke for the shore, swelling over the rocky shallows all up and down the strand. At the crest of a sandy incline carpeted in sparse grasses, a pair of young women sat alone with their backs to the sunset, watching the oncoming tide roll in, as they did often. The sky slowly darkened, turning shades of orange and then red. The heat of the day was receding, seeming to grow cooler with each gust of wind rushing in off the ocean. Wind that tasted like salt and seaweed, wind that carried hints of fish and other sea life. Of two girls, only one of them associated the fishy odors with the old world, with walks on the crowded boardwalks along the shore of Lake Michigan. Of the time before.

The older of the two, tall and lanky, with long, auburn hair bleached several shades lighter by the summer sun scrunched her bare toes into the sand, burrowing them down into the cool moistness. She leaned forward with a sigh, hugging her knees. It had been a trying day, for both of them, though for different reasons.

"What was it like?" the younger girl asked, keeping her blue eyes fixed on the breakers as they tumbled in. The wind changed and long whips of blonde hair blew forward across her delicate face. She pushed it back, tucking her bangs behind her ears. She wore a simple sleeveless shirt and a pair of tan shorts, and was barefoot, also. "What was it like back in the old days, back before everyone died?"

"The old days...?" the older said, giving the younger a sideways glance. "Hey, I'm not that much older than you, you know." She nudged her with her elbow. "And it wasn't that long ago."

The younger girl raised an eyebrow. "You're seventeen. That's pretty old in my book."

She snorted, rolling her eyes. Kids. Surely she had never been such a little shit, had she? "Whatever," she muttered. "You don't have a clue what you're talking about."

"What was it like?"

"I don't know, it was different," she replied with a shrug. "Crowded. Loud. People were always busy, I remember that. We were always in a hurry, we always had to be somewhere, and we were almost always late. Though when I think about it, that may have just been my mom being herself. As for the rest, I don't really remember all that much. I was only six years old when the world ended. Younger than your brother is. I remember some of the TV shows I used to watch, cartoons, mostly, and some of the toys I had, like my Burlap Bear." It had been a while since she'd thought of her old friend, and she still felt bad for losing him.

Her cousin's breath hitched, and her eyes filled with tears. "And my mom? What was she like?"

 _So that's what this is about_ , Ella thought, shaking her head. She supposed she couldn't blame her, all things considered. "Your mom was... my hero. I wanted to be her, even before what happened."  _And sometimes I still do_ , she added silently to herself.  _Or at least have her courage_. "You know, you didn't do anything wrong," she said after a pause. "Not really."

"I didn't? Then why did she start crying like that?"

 _Because Aunt Liv always gets a little jumpy this time of year?_  she answered inside her head, then felt guilty for it at once. Her aunt worked harder than anyone at making their little community work, at keeping them safe.

"I don't know why she did," Ella replied truthfully. "Maybe... maybe you just surprised her. You certainly surprised the hell out of me. You have to admit, kiddo, you could have given her a little warning. I mean... how long have you been able to do that?"

Her cousin shrugged sullenly. "I don't know. I've always been able to, as long as I can remember."

"And you never thought to tell anybody?" How the hell had she been able to hide it from everyone for so long?

The other girl merely shrugged again, saying nothing, staring down at the sand between her feet. Ella sighed, staring upward. Her eyes fell on a lonely feathery wisp of cloud working its way across the sky. "It was a secret," she said softly after a few moments. "It was my secret. I thought it would make me special. Like Mom is. Like how Grandpa told me in his stories. I thought she'd be happy."

Ella put her arm around her cousin's shoulder, drawing her close. "Sweetie, you were special already, even before you decided to... show us what you could do. And so was your mom. To be honest, I don't think she ever wanted to be able to do the things she can do. I don't think she wanted to be special."

"But she saved the world, didn't she? That's what Grandpa said. How can she not like being able to do stuff?"

"You'll have to ask her that," Ella said, shaking her head. "I don't know."

Her aunt never talked about those days, or of what she had done to make the infection stop. Not to her, at least. Nor did she use her abilities very often — almost never, in fact, so far as Ella knew. They weren't spoken of, especially not to the other groups of survivors they would encounter from time to time. None of them knew how or why the infection had stopped. She thought back to the bad times, back to when she had still been a girl, younger even than both of her cousins, back to when she had killed. She never spoke of those days either, not if she could help it, and never about what she'd done that day down in the dimness of the asylum basement, despite the nightmares having stopped long ago.

"Ella, why can't you do the same things I can do?" Her cousin held out her hand, and a stream of sand rose off the ground, then curled through the air before falling gently onto her palm in a cone-shaped mound. "How come it's just Mom and me? Why did she say that to Grandpa? About if he'd done anything to me when I was little?"

She looked away, swallowing uncomfortably. Her aunt's face hung in her mind, all the color draining away as her cousin rushed from the kitchen in tears. "I think it's just... complicated," she said, hating herself, remembering all times an adult had told her the same thing. But she understood now. Some things were just too complicated for a simple explanation. Most of the time, there was no single answer, no single reason why something happened or didn't, good or bad.  _Complicated_. "And no one ever really explained to me how your mother got her abilities. I tried asking your dad once, long ago, but he wouldn't say, either. Or Walter." It was the one time in her memory that Peter had grown truly angry with her about anything, forbidding her to ever speak of it again. So she hadn't, to him, at least. "Do you know if your brother can... do any of the... things, that you can do?"

The younger girl shrugged and shook her head. "Wouldn't he have done something instead of letting me drop his birthday cake on the floor?"

Ella smiled, laughter hitching her shoulders. "You're probably right. He does love his cake, doesn't he?"

Her cousin looked up, her blue eyes narrowed. "Did my mom send you after me?"

"Not exactly. But I think she wanted me to come."  _Or at least, she didn't tell me not to come._

"I guess I ruined the party, didn't I?"

"Ruined it? You pretty much destroyed it, girl. Nice job by the way. You looked like a real pro in there."

The corner of her cousin's lip curled upward. "I'm gonna get in trouble, aren't I?" Before Ella could reply, a car horn suddenly echoed in the distance, behind them, further inland. The younger girl leapt to her feet, almost dancing in a circle. "They're back!" she said excitedly. "Aunt Astrid promised they'd be back by tonight and they are!"

"Are you ready to go home then?" Ella said quietly, thinking about what news they may or may not have brought back with them from up north. Would it be time for them leave again? Where would it be this time? She hoped south, into the Caribbean. Maybe it would be safe there. Maybe the hybrid creatures wouldn't be able to reach them there. Surely they couldn't cross an ocean. "You have to talk to your mother. You should probably do that before you do anything else."

The ten year old chewed nervously on her lower lip for a moment, before finally nodding. "I shouldn't have run away, should I, El? I was acting like a child."

She lifted her shoulders, shrugging, staring up at her young cousin.  _But you still are a child_ , she thought sadly.  _Or you should have been, in some other world. We both should be._

But that world was gone. And it was never coming back. So she slipped on her sandals, then picked up the heavy hunting rifle carefully propped up out of the sand on a small rock beside her. She slung the strap over her shoulder.

"C'mon, kiddo," she said, motioning for her cousin to lead the way. "Let's go home."

#

They made their way together back down the beaten path that led from the sea to the fenced-in neighborhood that had been their home for the last few years. The path was long and narrow, and twisty, with many rocky ups and downs. Low shrubbery and drooping tree limbs crowded the trail, seeking to hinder their passage. Insects buzzed and chirped in the vegetation and the sweet scent of wild flowers perfumed the summer air.

When they cleared the top of the last incline, Aunt Liv was waiting on the path below. Her long hair blew in the wind, still untouched by grayness, unlike a certain uncle she liked to jab at occasionally. She waved and Ella returned the gesture, then stopped, sitting down on the uneven edge of a particularly large rock that jutted up along the edge of the path. Her young cousin looked back hesitantly, her face uncertain, and Ella smiled, encouraging her onward.

"It's gonna be all right, kid," she said, watching her aunt's face, who seemed both anxious and relieved at the same time as her daughter made her way down the rocky trail.

When her young cousin reached the bottom of the incline, she stopped short a few a paces away from her mother, her head tilted downward in shame. Aunt Liv approached her slowly, shaking her head, then knelt down in front of her daughter. She spoke softly, her face urgent, and at the same time insistent. After a moment her daughter, rushed forward, throwing her arms around her mother's neck. Aunt Liv pulled her close, squeezing her tight, her cheeks wet and glistening in the afternoon sun.

She met her aunt's teary-eyed gaze over her cousin's shoulder and Ella smiled, biting her lip, suddenly choked up by the sweetness of the moment.  _Such a rare thing, these days_ , she thought. Her eyes burned as a flood of memories swept through her out of the blue. She thought of the ones who were gone, the ones who hadn't made it; of the kind Miss Francis, and her husband Charlie, whose faces she could barely even picture in her mind anymore. She thought of Mister Broyles and Miss Charlene, who had once snuck them treats in another place. And she thought of her own father, who had been the first of her loved ones to fall victim to the infection, so long ago. They had all died, everyone of them, so that she and everyone else might live.

Walter appeared in the common area at the trailhead, with her mother and Gina walking slowly at his side. He moved slower than he used to, with the aid of a wooden cane. He saw her and waved, but was held back by the others as they stopped, waiting. A few minutes later, Peter appeared, her other cousin walking at his side, holding his seventh birthday present — a new pellet rifle — in both hands. Claire walked beside them, along with Astrid. They had made it. They had both made it. What news they carried could wait. For now, she was just glad they were back.

Ella didn't know what would happen next, down what path the future lay. But whatever it held in store for them, they would be together, fighting, surviving, until the very end. She rose to her feet, hefting the rifle strap.

"Yeah... we're gonna be just fine," she whispered, then started down the hill to join her family.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that's all folks, that's the end.
> 
> It's not quite the ending I envisioned when I first started writing this, but it's an ending, and one I feel is fitting. I'd like to thank my beta reader r34d134d for all her help throughout this entire process, and without whom I probably would have never finished.
> 
> If you have time and feel like commenting, let me know what you think of not only the ending, but of the story as a whole, and of my writing in general. *(Please be gentle, though) I'm aware that the story probably could have been much shorter, that sometimes I get too descriptive, too wordy, I think, but I like reading books like that, so that's just how it came out.
> 
> As for what happens next, I'm fairly certain this will be my last dip into Fringe fanfiction, or any fanfiction for that matter. I have yet to find another show that moved me as much as ours did, but who knows? I've also discovered since I finished that not writing everyday feels utterly wrong, so I'm thinking I might to try and write something original.
> 
> Well, that's it.
> 
> It's been fun.
> 
> Thank you all.
> 
> mike


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